Conor Oberst: If I loved you, well that's my fault

And me I'm in the bathroom crying out my eyelids because it's hard to be a man when you're scared, just like a little kid.

Conor Oberst

littles men kids

My favorite rhymes are sort of half-rhymes where you might just get the vowel sound the same, but it's not really a true rhyme. That gives you far more flexibility to capture the feeling you're trying to express. But sometimes it's best not to have any rhyme.

Conor Oberst

feelings trying giving

I’m always fascinated when people really fervently believe, because I have such a hard time believing anything. When people have real faith in something, it’s fascinating to me. And the fact that so many people, in surveys, so many people say they do. It kind of blows my mind.

Conor Oberst

hard-times real believe

The only thing major labels can really offer is money.

Conor Oberst

offers labels majors

Pronouns really don't matter in a song - 'I' or 'he' or 'she' or even subscribing a lyric to an inanimate object.

Conor Oberst

inanimate-objects matter song

Life is always surprising to me. When you think it's going to get dull, it never really does.

Conor Oberst

doe dull thinking

A lot of the mythology that sprung up around Haile Selassie, it's not like something he asked for, having people deify him. That's pretty heavy. I don't know what you do in that situation.

Conor Oberst

mythology situation people

I mean, you just go down the line, and with any of these issues, it's about rich people staying rich. And using poverty as a weapon against people. That's what we see every day. And I'm not an economist, so I can't speak to the nuances of it, but just common sense tells me the whole thing is corrupt.

Conor Oberst

common-sense mean people

I liked the idea of having a record that's reggae-influenced but not musically, just lyrically. I think there's so much about Rasta culture that's interesting. Just the idea of preaching one-ness, that we're all in this together. Which I suppose is at the root of most any religion. You're gonna find it, if taken in the right context.

Conor Oberst

taken interesting thinking

I'm kind of like, "never say never."

Conor Oberst

never-say-never kind

I think that obviously the quest for purpose, or meaning, or understanding to existence is something that I always think about, always deal with. I guess everybody does - that existential crisis of human condition. It's nothing new. But I'd love to come across something that really made me believe in something.

Conor Oberst

understanding believe thinking

I love story songs. It's just, for me, they're harder to write, and sometimes they sound too intended or something.

Conor Oberst

sound writing song

I'm ripe for the picking for the Scientologists - one of those creeps. Someone's got to find me. Some little weird cult can just pluck me up, because I'm ripe for the picking.

Conor Oberst

pluck creeps littles

Since the songs were written over a five-year period, I think these are little snapshots. Some people call it political or topical, but I think each song is self-contained. I think it fits together as a picture of the last half-decade of time.

Conor Oberst

self song thinking

Rock and roll seems to have had a mellowing in the business where it got harder to sell individual records and make money doing that.

Conor Oberst

rock-and-roll records rocks

We [Desaparecidos] have to make the message and the music and the packaging as appealing as possible - as Taco Bell as possible: mediocre and no one can be offended by it and everyone can sort of enjoy it and we can play it on the radio.

Conor Oberst

taco-bell packaging play

Music becomes very personal. When you marry a message you want to send out into the world with good music, all of a sudden you have a very potent way of delivering your message.

Conor Oberst

want way world

Our band is different in the sense that we all are involved with a lot of different projects. It's hard to say when we'll record again, but we're not calling it quits right away.

Conor Oberst

band different calling

A kid that picks up a record, he doesn't need to know anything other than the music and have it in his or her headphones. They're getting ideas directly, it's like someone whispering in their ear. That's such a personal way to receive information.

Conor Oberst

kids ideas needs

I think there's a weird self-affirmation thing that happens in popular music in general. It seems like every song I hear on the radio is like, "Listen to me roar!" or "This is my fight song!"

Conor Oberst

fighting song thinking