Poison Oak

If it's so obvious that he's singing about his brother, makeartnotmath, then please explain "my clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears." Unless it's purposely ungrammatical, then it doesn't make any sense that he's singing to his brother. Unless "your brother's tears" is his own tears, which doesn't explain why he'd refer to himself in first person in the beginning of the line ("MY shirt"). Or maybe the brother with the tears is a third brother? But then why would he say "YOUR brother's tears" and not "OUR brother's tears?"

According to two different people, Conor has claimed that the song is about two different people. One person said his cousin Ian and the other said his brother Justin. So who should we believe?

Well, I think it's about his cousin Colin, who committed suicide a few years ago. I don't really know anything about Colin, so I won't try to make up facts to explain the song, but when you read the following lines, keep in mind that Conor had (at least) two cousins, Ian and Colin:

And I'm glad you got away, But I'm still stuck out here. My clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears.

Colin "got away" by killing himself, and after the death, Ian cried on his shoulder. Makes sense, no?

To me, the song is about questioning the purpose of life. Conor wanted to get away from everything like his cousin was trying to do--he loved his cousin for slamming the door and stealing a car and driving to Mexico because it seemed like such actions had purpose and vitality. Conor was in a state of "paralysis"--unable to understand what the hell everything is about--he "still believed in war," even. But the death has awakened him--it's the "yellow bird that he's been waiting for." He's still "stuck out here" and "drunk as hell," but he realizes that he wants to keep living because the suicide has only resulted in a muddy field where the garden was ("A Difference in the Shades" reference, maybe?) The sound of loneliness makes him happier, after all, he can be happy and content with himself. He "never thought this life was possible"--that he could be happy with life, at all, and not want to kill himself, but having witnessed the suicide of someone he was close to, he's realized that'd he rather just make music and try to work through his sadness than run away, use heroin, or kill himself.

And maybe his cousin had sexual identity problems--"dressed in women's clothes, made ashamed..."??

I readily admit to the extreme possibility that I'm wrong, and I feel awkward writing about Conor and his brothers and cousins as if I actually know them...

from the lines "+ i'm glad you got away, but i'm still stuck out here. My clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears" I got the impression that this was about someone (Maybe- with the whole being ashamed about women's clothes deal, someone who was gay) who killed themselves. Just a thought.

This song is absolutely amazing. I just saw Bright Eyes last Friday..and I didn't have the album yet so I didn't know this song. They played it and I was in awe. I must admit..I got a tear. And that's never happened to me from a song. So, i got the album..realized that the song was Poison Oak. And what do you know, it made me tear up a few more times. You know when people have that ONE song that really touches them...that "changes their life" (obviously an exaggeration)...right, but this song is definitely that to me. All of Bright Eyes' music is so emotionally charged, but this song is just overflowing with it. It's beautiful.

well I don't know totally what it's about but i know somebody's gay and somebody killed themselves

This song is about someone who had a lasting influence on Conor's decision to pursue music. If you look at the last line of each of the first two stanzas you see some foreshadowing in Conor's lyrical focus. "You said you weren't afraid to die" foreshadows his focus on ephemeral themes. When his companion leaves, he says "And I don't think that I ever loved you more" because his companion served as the catalyst for Conor's embark into music.

"Let the poets cry themselves to sleep And all their tearful words could turn back into steam" He starts to see himself as a poet. His transition is painful but necessary.

"But me, I'm a single cell on a serpent's tongue And there's a muddy field where a garden was" These lines represent his loss of innocence. Things were all sunshine and rainbows until this shocking episode, the schism from his companion. The serpent's tongue represents the hypocrisy and venomous in realistic songwriting.

"And I'm glad you got away, but I'm still stuck out hear My clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears" He feels stuck.

"And I never thought this life was possible You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for" His former companion showed him that it's possible to break free from these chains. The yellow bird is a Shakespearean reference.

"The end of paralysis, I was a statuette Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench And when I press the keys, it all gets reversed The sound of loneliness makes me happier" This stanza pretty much wraps up the song. He was a statuette, but now he's free of the paralysis he was living. He turns to music, but not with classical tendencies, but a raw drunken rage (which is more meaningful, in my opinion).
He's lonely now but somehow he finds fulfillment in his music.

This song was breathtaking live. You know some people have heart attacks from looking at phenominal art.. I think if this song were on a canvas, we'd all die.

This song is about his cousin and it's a eulogy about how his suicide left Conor in sadness at first. But it ultimately changed him for the better.

The interesting part, to me, is when the music abrubtly quiets and Conor sings "And I never thought this life was possible, you're the yellow brid that I've been waiting for." To me this symbolizes a turning point in his mind where he realized the reality of the effect suicide has on the people left behind. In this, Conor comes to recognize that he is somewhat "better" in the sense that he can better understand his depression and he can better understand why he should not want to kill himself.
Right now, at this point in time, he is "drunk as hell on a piano bench," and "the sound of loneliness" makes him happier. This means that he is attracted to "the sound of loneliness," or the sadness that people have expressed in art from feeling lonesome. Because he is on the other side (he's not so lonely anymore), he can better appreciate the emotion of sadness, even feeling a love of it, where just hearing it can make him happy.
While depressed, he never thought that a life with a mind that has love for life was actually possible. When he hears or sees or feels sadness in art in the world, it makes it happy because his yellow bird (see Simon Joyner), who came to him in the tragedy of a friend's suicide, made him realize that he is happier than the art he hears, so by comparison, he is grateful for that. This is why he says "it all gets reversed." When he was depressed, he didn't love the sadness in art, because it actually just made him think worse of living. Now that he's happier, the sadness/loneliness is a beautiful thing that he has grown to love and feel for, so it makes him happier, or as I would put it, more peaceful in his mind. This song is put after "Landlocked Blues" on "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" because IMO "Landlocked Blues" ends with the resolution that only way out is death, but "Poison Oak" ends with a realization that the impossible has come true, that living, and being okay with that, is not only possible, but real.

All you people calling the cousin gay are idiots. This sounds like the cousin was TRANSGENDER, male-to-female, ashamed of the comfort that he (she) feels when she is in her femme mode. I also think this because a lot of transgender people end up having drug addictions and killing themselves because the world doesn't understand how horrible it feels.

I don't really know how to explain my interpretation...But somehow I feel like he is singing about himself. I realize there are fragments of the song that quite obviously go against my theory, but to me this is about him being torn between his true identity and what others feel he should be. He never loved himself more than when he left...Left the pain that was the only constant where he was before. But no matter how far he ran, there was still that baggage. The baggage that Conor sings through first person as. He is two separate entities...The one he sings the song through, and then the one he is actually singing ABOUT.

The sound of loneliness makes him happier...He just wants to be alone. One person. One being. One interpretation of human existence.

i love this song so much. i keep listening to it. when he was in town, he strated to play this song but then stopped and said he wasn't feeling it. i was so sad.

does anyone else notice similar guitar melodies to "i'm sorry i'm leaving' by saves the day?