In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
Green world, lovely chloroform
Front porch in the thunderstorm
Controlled chaos, confused energy
Stop reading the weather charts
Stop counting the playing cards
There's no system, there's no guarantee
That the love you feel you carry inside can be passed
You try I know you do you still talk to your plants
Ask, "How are you getting on alone?"
Some wander the wilderness
some drink cosmopolitans
Some cull science
some glean astral planes
I can't tell where the canvas stops
homesick as an astronaut
Just keep drifting, but still can't explain
How the love we feel we carry inside can be passed
See a brother in the gutter you reach out your hand
Ask, "How are you getting on alone?"
What guage measures miracles?
Whose heart beats electrical?
We feign sickness with our modern joy
Even Western medicine
it couldn't save Danny Callahan
Bad bone marrow, a bald little boy
But the love he feels he carries inside can be passed
He lay still his mother kissed him goodbye Said, 'Come back, where are you going to alone?'
Where are you going all alone?
Front porch in the thunderstorm
Controlled chaos, confused energy
Stop reading the weather charts
Stop counting the playing cards
There's no system, there's no guarantee
That the love you feel you carry inside can be passed
You try I know you do you still talk to your plants
Ask, "How are you getting on alone?"
Some wander the wilderness
some drink cosmopolitans
Some cull science
some glean astral planes
I can't tell where the canvas stops
homesick as an astronaut
Just keep drifting, but still can't explain
How the love we feel we carry inside can be passed
See a brother in the gutter you reach out your hand
Ask, "How are you getting on alone?"
What guage measures miracles?
Whose heart beats electrical?
We feign sickness with our modern joy
Even Western medicine
it couldn't save Danny Callahan
Bad bone marrow, a bald little boy
But the love he feels he carries inside can be passed
He lay still his mother kissed him goodbye Said, 'Come back, where are you going to alone?'
Where are you going all alone?
Lyrics submitted by lovenothing__
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This was published in "The Independent" on July 18, 2008.
----Article--- His songs can be touchingly compassionate, and it takes skill to honour the life of a child cancer patient with the kind of grace and surety Oberst manages on the new song "Danny Callahan".
"I was walking to this liquor store and pharmacy in Nebraska with a friend of mine," he recalls when asked about the song. "Suddenly, she was like, 'Oh my God! Look at that old man sitting in that car, look at how small he is!' Of course, when we got closer we realized it was actually a little boy. It turned out he was waiting in line with his mom to get medicine, and we were there to buy vodka or something. My friend started crying, and we just went home.
"It was just one of those life experiences that begs to be written about. It's partly about Danny, but it's also about whether or not you can transmit your experience of love to another person and whether that message remains intact when it arrives."
Link: independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/conor-oberst--songs-of-love-and-death-870570.html
wow, that's really touching
thank you! that's been driving me nuts.
One song that does, Danny Callahan, is about a boy dying with "bad bone marrow". The song is about a boy Oberst met for a moment. "I don't know if that was his last name," he says. "I know it was his first name. When you write a song, the goal is not to convey the details of your life. You should write a memoir or something if that's what you're going to do. The idea is to get to a truth that is apart from the person who created it, something that anyone can look at and find something that resonates as being true – not true in the factual sense, but true in the more universal sense, a truth that you can see."
"but you try, I know you do, you still talk to you plants."
I always heard "talk to your plans"<br /> I guess it goes less with the theme of the song but..
thanks Tri T, good insight. love the new album
you all can stop googling his name conor said he made up the last name, but that danny was the boy's first name
I've probably listened to this a couple hundred times since August. It took a while to grow on me but I love it now. I like that we have no idea what the song is about until the last verse. Makes the rest of the song mean a lot if you go back and think about it.
soo true! kind of like life
anyone know who danny callahan is? a few different people come up on google but none match the description in the song.
yeah, i know, right? i googled him expecting to find a bunch of news stories of some dying kid, but nothing. I'm thinking it's just someone Conor personally knew, or knew of. Or perhaps he just made him up.
I love this song a whole lot.
I think it's about a boy who has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant. It's pretty obvious in the lyrics. Very sad song. I love it.
wow amazing! this is just to good to be true! conor oberst is a legend! best person on earth, i mean who could put songs together like he does!