"All of This and Nothing" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song I really love, by an artist I haven't featured in the previous This Year, Portions For Foxes, or Better Things series. It alternates between Obscure and Famous songs; feel free to argue either way if you're so inclined. See the introduction for more.
This week's song is Dylan Thomas, by Better Oblivion Community Center - last week I had a big famous supergroup, so this week I have something that's a supergroup in its own way, a one-off project by Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers that lasted a couple of years and produced one record. This one was the single, and I think it was moderately successful, five years or so ago.
I put this on the Obscure side, since I doubt anyone really remembers this project, but it was prominent enough that there are Wikipedia articles and the song lyrics are available online. (That was my trigger, during last year's project, to think something was really obscure - nobody put the lyrics online anywhere. So now I'm second-guessing myself about whether this one really counts as "Obscure" - oh well, too late to change the whole plan for the year now.)
This is a catchy, bouncy song, sung in harmony by those two singers most of the time, with occasional lines by just one or the other. And what's it about? It's one of those complex, allusive songs I love, full of quick wordplay and solid rhymes - it's about whatever you can figure out, about itself, about the world, about the experience of being this song at this moment in the world's life.
It's not really about Dylan Thomas, but he is namechecked in the middle. That's close enough for a title.
They say you've gotta fake it
At least until you make it
That ghost is just a kid in a sheet
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