Cleanse Song

**Cleanse Song** is the ninth song on the Bright Eyes album Cassadaga.

## Lyrics

Hear the chimes, did you know that the wind when it blows

It is older than Rome and all of this sorrow

See the new pyramids down in old Manhattan

From the roof of a friend's, I watched an empire ending

Heard it loud and long, the river's Om

Time marching on to a madman's drum

Don't forget what you've learned, all you give is returned

And if life seems absurd, what you need is some laughter

And a season to sleep and a place to get clean

Maybe Los Angeles, somewhere no one's expecting

On a detox walk

Through a Glendale park

Over sidewalk chalk

Someone wrote in red, "start over"

So I muffled my scream

On an Oxnard beach

Full of fever dreams that scare you sober

Into saltless dinners

Take the fruit from the tree, break the skin with your teeth

Is it bitter or sweet? All depends on your timing

Like a meeting of chance with a train station glance

Many lifetimes have passed in a instant reminded

Of a millstone house in a seaside town

When your heart gave out in a mission bed

So your wife gave birth to a funeral dirge

As you woke up purged as a wailing infant

In Krung Thep, Thailand

Hear the chimes, did you know that the wind when it blows

It is older than Rome and our joy and our sorrow

## Credits

* Conor Oberst - voice, guitar
* Mike Mogis - bass, voice, lap steel, guitar, percussion, ukulele
* Shane Aspergen - percussion
* John McEntire - percussion
* Michael Zerang - percussion
* Jonathan Crawford - percussion
* Dan Bitney - percussion
* Dan Fliegel - percussion
* Sara Wass - flute
* Myka Miller - oboe
* Brian Walsh - clarinet

Woodwinds arranged by Nate Walcott

## Comments from Bright Eyes on this song

* **Interviewer**: “Cleanse Song” on the new album equates 9/11 with some sort of personal purge of bad influences. **Conor Oberst**: I think it’s about rebirth. I was in L.A. for about a month at the beginning of ’06 doing this cleanse: You don’t drink anything but water or coconut water and this ash stuff that sucks the toxins out of your bloodstream. And you can only eat raw fruits and vegetables. I was just feeling bad in every way. (SPIN interview, April 2007)
* “I did a cleanse early in 2006 with some friends in L.A. where we basically ate raw foods and drank these shakes made out of volcanic ash that suck the poison out of your bloodstream. No sugar, no caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes, any processed anything, and then you do colonics and different things. It's a pretty intense experience. You start to realize that there's a reason you're injecting all these chemicals into your system. When the fog clears you can see 10 miles instead of 10 feet in front of you." (Describing the colonics:) "[they] were wild. When they're happening they feel good. But afterward, you get a deep massage and get rid of all that. You're lying on this table and these stones push on different organs, your liver and colon." (On what drove him to have his colon irrigated:) "I felt pretty toxic after 2005. Ten months of touring and everything that goes along with the lifestyle, it was time to clean it out. That's what that portion of the song is about." (The Omaha Reader interview)
* "Cleanse Song, that's about colonics and Los Angeles and New York and you know... taking a bath, I guess, taking a very long, you know, overdue bath." (Track by track Cassadaga)

## Notes and references

* 'Om' (Sanskrit: ॐ) is a sacred sound in Hinduism. It is the essence of consciousness and the cosmic world and is a sonic representation of the divine. In this song, the Hudson River is the vessel of the nation's consciousness, predating time and certainly the foundation of the United States.

## Sources

**B-sides:** "Reinvent the Wheel" • "Smoke Without Fire" • "Stray Dog Freedom" • "Cartoon Blues" • "Tourist Trap" • "Endless Entertainment" • "Susan Miller Rag"