Defend the Indefensible: "I've Been Eating (For You)"

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So, I’m just the medicine
You take when you’re sick
You get well and that’s it
I’m put back on the shelf in your mirror
And it isn’t exceptional
The course of our fate
So, people love and they hate
And I guess it’s just our turn to hate
Yeah, you were just some song I wrote
A poem on a page
A sculpture I made out of clay
Desire was the flame
But now you’re more of a basketball
Boys just pass you around
They bounce you hard on the ground and dribble
And then we all get high fives
And you think I’m an asshole now
Well, you’re probably right
But at least I’m not blind to the facts
I’ve been wishing were lies
But still I hope you get everything
That you care to possess
And unbelievable sex with him
Or any one of my friends
But just don’t ask about my appetite
I didn’t lose it tonight
No, it’s been gone half my life
It’s just act, I’ve been eating for you

― Young Fresh Danny D (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

Dan, what the fuck are you doing withing 50 miles of a Bright Eyes song?

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 13:53 (nineteen years ago)

Right now, I'm doing that cartoony expression of extreme shock.

― Young Fresh Danny D (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 13:54 (nineteen years ago)

http://members.tripod.com/~besmirched/GIGO20.JPG

― Coach Dave (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

As featured on the new Jock Jams CD.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 13:59 (nineteen years ago)

and the next "Now THATS What I Call Music" comp

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:10 (nineteen years ago)

well, one of the virtues of this song is that it explores that age old question of: can a bottle of Bayer love a Basketball?

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

most of the song is a miss (lyrically)
though i like a couple of the ideas

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

Like when he compares himself to some medicine? Or her to a song? Or a poem? Or a sculpture? Or a basketball?

― ledge (ledge), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:19 (nineteen years ago)

And you think I’m an asshole now
Well, you’re probably right
But at least I’m not blind to the facts
I’ve been wishing were lies

the best lines in the song. i guess the only idea i like

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:31 (nineteen years ago)

Desire was the flame
But now you’re more of a basketball
Boys just pass you around
They bounce you hard on the ground and dribble
And then we all get high fives

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

But still I hope you get everything
That you care to possess
And unbelievable sex with him
Or any one of my friends

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BULLSHIT

― Young Fresh Danny D (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

that's the last thing in the world he'd be hoping
and i don't think there's any irony there either

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

I've actually never heard Bright Eyes but I'm tempted to download that track because those lyrics have just raped my mind.

― struttin' with some barbecue (jimnaseum), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:45 (nineteen years ago)

Connor O'Berst, pioneer of non-baseball sport metaphors for sex

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

But now you’re more of a basketball
Boys just pass you around
They bounce you hard on the ground and dribble
And then we all get high fives

Kermit Washington to thread

― nate p. (natepatrin), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 15:36 (nineteen years ago)

My brain popping out of the front of my head like a cuckoo clock to thread.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 15:39 (nineteen years ago)

Conor Oberst feat. Eve has just joined Radiohead feat. Redman on my personal "Judgement Night II" soundtrack.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

the name sounds like a Weird Al parody

― latebloomer: Veteran of the Mai Tai Massacre (latebloomer), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 15:58 (nineteen years ago)

Opening frame of the video coming to M2:

http://static.flickr.com/49/109863969_2d25c796f6_o.jpg

― gwynywdd dwnyt fyrwr byychydd gww (donut), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:05 (nineteen years ago)

Kurtis Blow to thread

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:08 (nineteen years ago)

Now I'm picturing Kurt Rambis with running mascara.

― nate p. (natepatrin), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

Mash-up: Conor's singing with the Harlem Globetrotters theme.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:11 (nineteen years ago)

"Sweet Georgia Brerarrggh"

― nate p. (natepatrin), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:12 (nineteen years ago)

Now I'm picturing Kurt Rambis with running mascara

or Kiki Vandeweghe as a rising star in the Omaha indie scene

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:13 (nineteen years ago)

"They bounce you hard on the ground and dribble / And then we all get high fives" made me rofl... but yeah, seriously, wow. I used to listen to Saves the Day when I was younger, but this makes them look like amateurs.

― lookin' in my mirror, not a Jagger in sight (sixteen sergeants), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:13 (nineteen years ago)

Conor Oberst ft. Tyrone Shoelaces, "Self-Inflicted Wound Jones"

― nate p. (natepatrin), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:13 (nineteen years ago)

conor's logic ties me up and rapes me (like a basketball)

― cocksure triumphalism at its most vacant (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:13 (nineteen years ago)

But now you're more of a pair of shoes
That I get beaten to death with
And then you're all dirty and bloody
And can only be worn to mow the lawn

― lookin' in my mirror, not a Jagger in sight (sixteen sergeants), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:16 (nineteen years ago)

so the protagonist is a bottle of aspirin that's pissed that conor has been fucking a bottle of advil instead?

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:16 (nineteen years ago)

no no no..the protagonist is a bottle of aspirin that is pissed that its basketball lover has been fucked by real human boys..

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:17 (nineteen years ago)

So wait, is that where medicine balls come from?

― nate p. (natepatrin), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:24 (nineteen years ago)

I guess I still like the old Dylan better.

― hearditonthexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:26 (nineteen years ago)

He should've said I'VE BEEN EATING YOU.

― polar bear flashback episode (nickalicious), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:36 (nineteen years ago)

To the tune of Southside Movement's "I've Been Watching You"

― nate p. (natepatrin), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:38 (nineteen years ago)

Once you go Spaulding, you never go back

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:39 (nineteen years ago)

He should have just covered "Self-Esteem."

― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

Okay, so I will do it, I will defend the indefensible: the lyrics to this song.

They are not quite so bad on paper as the sound of his voice. Who was it that said he sang like he was whining to his mom to get out of his room? They were OTM.

― polar bear flashback episode (nickalicious), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:44 (nineteen years ago)

the iTunes snippet sounds like a Rivers Cuomo demo from his hermit days (think: Butterfly, but even worse)

― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

This thread is amazing.

― paid in cigarettes (paid in cigarettes), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 05:19 (nineteen years ago)

this is hardly his worst song.

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 05:24 (nineteen years ago)

WOW

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 10:53 (nineteen years ago)

Still boggling at "this is hardly his worst song."

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Monday, 30 October 2006 22:30 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/.Archives/2005/02/03/ae-brighteyes.gif

I've Been Eating (For You) (2007)

Starring:
Carrie Anne Moss...............Connor Oberst

― polar bear flashback episode (nickalicious), Monday, 30 October 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

i can't even begin to imagine the song which accompanies those...those...DREADFUL WORDS.

― The Lex (The Lex), Monday, 30 October 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

Threads like this make me glad that I am not a 20 year old female university student in 2006.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Monday, 30 October 2006 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

The sole attempted defense I can make of Oberst-as-lyricist is this series of choruses:

1.
I believe that lovers should be tied together
thrown into the ocean in the worst of weather
left there to drown
left there to drown
in their innocence

2.
I believe that lovers should be chained together
thrown into a fire with their songs and letters
left there to burn
left there to burn
in their arrogance

3.
I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers
and laid entwined together on a bed of clover
left there to sleep
left there to dream
of their happiness

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 October 2006 23:25 (nineteen years ago)

that's a defense?!

― The Lex (The Lex), Monday, 30 October 2006 23:27 (nineteen years ago)

Actually there are exactly two old Bright Eyes songs I think are really terrific -- that's one ("A Perfect Sonnet"), and then there's "If Winter Ends." Which also looks pretty shitty on paper, except that his performance of it actually seems fairly self-aware. I may have posted about this on some long-ago thread: he does a pretty good job on that one of conveying that state of getting bored with and annoyed with your own emotions and then ceasing to care about them one way or another. I mean, this is kind of half-funny and half-liberating, this line:

I give myself three days to feel better
or I swear I'll drive right off a fucking cliff

And then the next line's funny, too -- not on paper, but because the last word is sung in this big bursting Broadway crescendo:

because if I can't make myself feel better
then how can I expect anyone else to give a shit?

But I don't think I've really listened close to anything since like Fevers & Mirrors, and it seems like he's been REALLY dragged down by a wider audience, and by getting approval of his worst teenage-journal tendencies. I mean, part of the "funny" of those last quoted lines is that he used to seem really nervy and self-conscious about those tendencies -- they were kind of at play and in question in the music. But once people started really fawning over that stuff, he seemed to settle into it and get confident and act that way, like, on purpose -- not in a nervy awkward fucked-up way, but like he was wise or stylish or something -- and that ruins the entire thing, the whole vibe that ever made him seem interesting, back in 1999 or whenever.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 October 2006 23:34 (nineteen years ago)

I say this having all the respect for Conor as a person (as a former promoter who helped put on a couple of Bright Eyes shows in 2000 and thought he was a cool guy): Conor's been settled and confident in this approach since day zero... which isn't a diss at all. Just sayin'

― gwynywdd dwnyt fyrwr byychydd gww (donut), Monday, 30 October 2006 23:43 (nineteen years ago)

Huh: possibly it's just on the observer's end, then! But I do think there's been a really huge switch in perception there, at least for me -- from the 1999-era "OMG this kid is tweaking out on this record" to this current-day thing where he seems (a) relaxed, and (b) like he believes he's some sort of poet. Nothing I've heard from him lately seems particularly nervy.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 October 2006 23:49 (nineteen years ago)

my ex-girlfriend loves bright eyes. i dont know how i survived listening to hours of that shit... although i did enjoy one song a bit.

― t0dd swiss (immobilisme), Monday, 30 October 2006 23:50 (nineteen years ago)

I was hoping the lyrics would be more like -

"I've got some burgers, and some chips, and a .... pie in the oven"

"I've been eating ... for you"

― Erock Lazron (Erock Zombie), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 02:11 (nineteen years ago)

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Defend the Indefensible: "I've Been Eating (For You)" - Bright Eyes