“Big Black Heart” by Better Oblivion Community Center is a Hidden Treasure
Sometimes I will listen to a song 40 times before I actually hear it. I didn’t know the reason I kept with “Big Black Heart” by Better Oblivion Community Center until I realized I might be in love with the song. Compelling at first, and then resonant and beautiful, I found it to be my personal favorite from Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst’s new project. It’s the second to last track on this group’s self-titled debut, buried by [also great] songs like “Dylan Thomas” and “Didn’t Know What I Was In For,” that claim a lot of the attention of this record. “Big Black Heart,” like many on the album, is a great example of how Bridgers and Oberst are able to merge their singular identities into a cohesive duo. In an interview, Oberst explained how the goal was to blend the sound of their voices together rather than split up the verses, allowing the two to transcend from a duet to certified band.
One of the major strengths of this duo is their honesty. And not just in the confessional, melodramatic way so characteristic to singer-songwriters, but rather honesty that is encased in vignettes of hyperbole or brash comparison that overall translate to a greater truth. Their voices have an almost translucent sonar-quality; it’s the listeners instinct to take the duo’s words as fact, even when they are spewing fiction. It is also this very quality that Bridgers and Oberst feel plagued by, lyrics popping up across the album like “We get burned for being honest” and “So sick of being honest,” outlining the exhausting effects of moral integrity in the era of fake news. BOCC is honest in the way that they share a specific part of their world as a portal for listeners to observe through, while seamlessly incorporating macro experiences from our frustrating socio-political climate. And somehow, they manage to add both humor and heartache in perfect doses that complete not just an image but a framed portrait.
“Big Black Heart” is one of my favorite examples of this ability, before even mentioning the great guitar work. Sonically, it is the loudest track on the album with a monster, distorted outro that adds to the turmoil that is lyrically present. It begins with a driving strumming pattern as Bridgers and Oberst speak in a calculated unison. The words they speak are contradictory with a restlessness that is better pegged as confusion. To know what is right and wrong is especially difficult while looking through the hazy filter of love, most prominently demonstrated in the second verse: “Your black heart is big, I’d ask you to cross but you’d never do it/ But then again you stopped in the middle of the street, just to kiss me.” A constant juxtaposition between logic and heart, the songwriters create a conflicted narrative before diving into truth. Spearheaded by massive drum reverb, the speakers use the outro as a chance to reluctantly conclude the “right” thing to do. Absent of drama’s romance, the last lines are a scrambled mix of actions that act as a tough pill to swallow. “Alright, alright for now/ I’ll wrap my head around it/ Make room for something else.”
The group shows how being honest with others may be hard, but being honest with oneself is the hardest, for knowing the truth but not confronting it is not honest at all. And for that aren’t we all a little guilty?
