“The first three are innocent in a way, because we didn’t have an audience when we were making them,” says Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. “But from ‘Lifted’ on, I was definitely aware of an audience. ‘Lifted’ was well received right away, and then everything happened with ‘Wide Awake’ and ‘Digital Ash’.” 

Those two albums came out simultaneously. And their lead singles - ‘Take It Easy (Love Nothing)’, from the austere, remote ‘Digital Ash’, and ‘Lua’, from the warm, folky ‘Wide Awake’ - debuted in the top two slots on the Billboard Hot 100. ‘First Day of My Life’, also from ‘Wide Awake’, would later be voted the Number One Love Song Of All Time by NPR Music’s readers’ poll. 

Bright Eyes had officially broken through. It was a heady, exciting time, but also fraught and tense, both because of the band’s careening new fame, and because of the state of the world. When Bright Eyes made their Tonight Show debut in 2006, they chose to perform none of their shiny new hits, instead delivering a searing, harrowing rendition of their caustic anti-Bush anthem, ‘When The President Talks To God’.