Bright Eyes – Going for the Gold

I was originally going to place this under the Back When They Were Good label, but seeing as I haven’t listened to anything new Bright Eyes has put out in three years, it seemed a little unfair. It does raise an interesting question about the passing fads within our music tastes though. Have I grown out of Bright Eyes? Perhaps, but then whenever I listen to older songs like this, I appreciate them as much as I used to. Yet I still have no interest in any new material. Something to ponder there I think.

Going for the Gold is the epitome of what Bright Eyes does, a sparse, downbeat song that is layered in such a way that it can be taken in any way you like. It could be a brutally personal account of a relationship falling apart. It could be something more abstract, or a wry look at both the band and their fans. Either version works, and either one applies depending on my mood of the time. Today it’s the latter. It’ll probably be something else in a few days. Perhaps it’s that fluidity that keeps me coming back to these songs again and again, while the new ones sit cruelly ignored.