Bright Eyes - Lifted or the Story Is in the Soil | Indie Folk Music Album for Relaxation & Road Trips

“The first three are innocent in a way, because we didn’t have an audience when we were making them,” Oberst says. “But from Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground on, I was definitely aware of an audience. Lifted was well-received right away, and then everything happened with I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and Digital Ash In A Digital Urn.”

Those two albums came out simultaneously. And their lead singles – “Take It Easy (Love Nothing),” from the austere, remote Digital Ash, and “Lua,” from the warm, folky Wide Awake - debuted in the top two slots on the Billboard Hot 100.

“First Day of My Life,” also from Wide Awake, would later be voted the Number One love song of all time by NPR Music’s reader’s poll. Bright Eyes had officially broken through. It was a heady, exciting time, but also fraught and tense, both because of the band’s careening new fame, and because of the state of the world.

When Bright Eyes made their Tonight Show debut in 2006, they chose to perform none of their shiny new hits, instead delivering a searing, harrowing rendition of their caustic anti-Bush anthem, “When The President Talks To God.” These days, Oberst is still amusing himself by messing with the extremes Bright Eyes baked into this era’s releases, extremes that reflected the polar, with-us-or-against-us, fractious feel of the times. (Rhythmethod)

Tracklist:
A1 The Big Picture
A2 Method Acting
A3 False Advertising
A4 You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will
B1 Lover I Don't Have to Love
B2 Bowl of Oranges
B3 Don't Know When But a Day Is Gonna Come
C1 Nothing Gets Crossed Out
C2 Make War
C3 Waste of Paint
D1 From a Balance Beam
D2 Laura Laurent
D3 Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and to Be Loved)