Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst crave the existential soap opera of modern politics just like the rest of us. At the beginning of “Dylan Thomas,” from the duo’s collaboration as Better Oblivion Community Center, they reveal the truth of their twisted compulsions to witness some jingoistic spectacle just down the street—a general speaking amid a cloud of confetti, flags waving and anthem blaring. Like a television broadcast where the sound and image never quite sync, a split second divides their voices, emphasizing that they’ve arrived here alone, driven by their own morbid fascination. It is the meatspace equivalent of thousands of people refreshing Twitter at once, waiting for the latest news or rumors about indictments or shutdowns or walls—a loneliness shared in our interconnected silos.
But in the second verse, they seem to stir awake, shaking off the malaise in a string of realizations and ripostes that summons the splendor of the Traveling Wilburys. Oberst and Bridgers trade barbed insults and inspirational bullet points—idiots don’t play four-dimensional chess, for instance—like lost friends who have found each other again. “I’m getting greedy with this private hell/I’ll go it alone, but that’s just as well,” they sing together in the chorus, their voices flexed like a pair of biceps. But it’s hard to believe them, as they stand there, fighting and singing side by side and finding strength in the solidarity.
