Photo credit: Shawn Brackbill

Bright Eyes have shared ‘Forced Convalescence‘, the second single to be taken from the new album to be released later this year. Featuring special guest Flea on bass, this song finds Conor Oberst and Nathaniel Walcott facing up to the realities of the latest stage of their lives against a backdrop of orchestral ‘Cassadega’-era soundscapes as Conor muses: ‘Have to suffer and repeat. I tend to agree what happens will be pain of my own making, cut short of eternity. Now I’ve recovered completely. Life is easy, hula-hooping around the sun’.

After references the multiverse and talking about building sandcastles in the sun with children, the song turns its attention to mundanity of ageing and the power of prescription drugs: ‘Turning 40, ending up like everyone. There’s no escaping the housework or the bank or the priest. They’re waiting for me in my Egyptian sheets. The Seroquel’s working. It’s fighting my fantasies’. Towards the end of the song, the gorgeous choir backs up Conor’s tender vocals as they harmonise ‘In the dark, at a distance, I see everything at once. Feel the wind through the window and I’m overcome with love’.