Bright Eyes, Cassadaga (2007)

I started writing this entry on a brilliantly sunny Berlin day, on the lawn of the Reichstag. I was readjusting to being on holiday, to the freedom that is walking through a city until completely lost. Remembering how to not have deadlines, how to endlessly wander with only myself for company, how to spend my time at Parliament not going inside for meetings, but lazing in the sun with a book and a great album. And Cassadaga was that particular album.

I’ve decided Bright Eyes has a penchant for melodramatic, slightly annoying, voiced-over beginnings to their albums. The beginning of Cassadaga is no less annoying than that of I’m Wide Awake. But, just like the earlier album, this is a beautiful, melodic, measured little album; a meander through Conor Oberst’s mind.

I’m rather taken by ‘If the Brakeman Turns my Way’ – a rambling little tune that’s somehow both wistful and whimsical, almost nonchalant. There’s something kind of Wilco about this track, albeit I don’t think with the same depth. I’m also a big fan of the raucous ride of ‘I Must Belong Somewhere.’

This is an album full of really, really good songs, but to me the clear and exceptional stand-out is ‘Classic Cars’, in collaboration with the endlessly talented Gillian Welch. I just can’t get enough of it, and it does lead me to wonder if everything she touches turns to gold (quite apart from her superb solo voice, she has a real knack for picking awesome bands with whom to collaborate.) A reminiscent, understated little ballad, it features some wicked organ and continues to build on that new mature use of pianos we saw in I’m Wide Awake. And Welch manages, in her own genius way, to just lift the track without dominating it. It’s a perfectly restrained track that kind of just washes over you, full of both euphoria and a tinge of regret. My favourite moment of the album (and indeed one of my favourite moments in music generally, right now) happens about 3 and a half minutes through this song.




One of the features of this album that was so suited to the beautiful, honest backdrop of Berlin is the recurring orchestral component. It begins from the first track, and continues right through to the wonderful cello that complements the final song. There’s a pulsing, dramatic orchestral segment through ‘Hot Knives’, which adds a certain urgency to the song. The strings add lovely depth to ‘No One Would Riot for Less’, and the delicate harp (?) and woodwinds that open ‘Make a Plan to Love Me’, followed by a big strings section (and the multi-voiced female BVs) turns an otherwise fairly unremarkable ballad into a pretty little vehicle for Oberst’s weirdly poetic lyrics. It’s just enough drama, without, in my opinion, going overboard. It is terribly clever.

I know I’m meant to be listening to lots of different music. But this album, alongside the 2005 effort, is, without doubt, the soundtrack to my short European summer.

It’s music to travel to, the perfect companion for the road.