The Listomania I make the lists, you shoot them down. Quid Pro Quo.

84. Bright Eyes – Lua

Sometimes, you really can’t associate an artist’s personality with their music. It can ruin it, and that’s unfair to the quality of work. Take, for example, Conor Oberst. Conor Oberst is, of course, a total douche. Don’t argue with me on this, it’s true. And that’s making no statement whatsoever on his creative output or the quality of his music or anything. Just, personality wise, he’s a douche. Like everyone realized about Michael Jordan after his Hall of Fame induction speech. Greatest basketball player of all time? Sure. Douchiest basketball player of all time? Probable.

But I can’t associate Conor Oberst’s douchiness with his music, or it may just ruin it for me. Because the character he constructs in songs like “Lua” (and trust me, it’s not him, it’s a character) is so earnest and heartfelt and painfully, I don’t know, real, that knowing it was created by a guy who is in all honesty kind of a dick would sour it. Taking that into account, though, the story and sounds of “Lua” are about as far from douchey as one could ever get.

It’s a sad, somber, late-night love story between two real people. They aren’t the most attractive people on the train, or the life of the party they heard about from a friend, they could just as easily be YOU. And the loving way that these realistic characters are crafted in Bright Eyes’ best song is why it’s on this list. The music is great, too, the voice is shattering and fragile and brutally warbley, the guitar is picked like Dylan on Xanax, the melody is roots-folk traditionalism at it’s throwback best. But all these factors are just that – factors. And they all build into the honest and charmingly-depressed characters in the song, lovers who may not be right for each other tonight or in the morning or next week, but right now, they are all that they have. So no, I can’t think about the fact that they were lovingly crafted by a total douche. Let me live in denial.