As soon as crazy career-killer Joanie Faircloth made her public apologies to Conor Oberst, we have some news from the man himself: a new video for his song ‘You Are Your Mother’s Child’ from his last album ‘Upside Down Mountain’, which was released on May 19th on Nonesuch Records. And you could not dream of a most dramatic contrast, it’s a tender, quiet and nostalgic little film, full of footage of children playing and having fun with space suit or squirrel costume, watched by a man wearing an Arcade-Fire-inspired papier-mâché bubblehead, while Conor is playing acoustic guitar through an old TV set. With Conor’s brightest voice ever as a soundtrack, a more innocent, straightforward song and video could not have been imagined, it almost looks like a mother day ad for the Hallmark channel, with mother and child peaceful scenes and the old guy reflecting on the past while crying behind his window… The song is catchy enough and the video mellow and sentimental… I mean there’s almost no mystery in this song, and Conor himself admitted it to Billboard magazine: ‘I definitely struggled with whether to put that one on the record. It has more sentimentality to it than any of the other songs, but I’ve seen a lot of friends go through that stuff. [Having kids] would be a cool thing to do someday. I don’t particularly feel ready for it right now, but I guess no one ever does.’ This certainly makes even more difficult to believe that Conor could have rapped a 16-year-old girl, I am saying this because, even though the woman has retracted her accusations, the story is still there and it is sad.. Just look at one-year-old story in the Guardian telling us that women crying rape are incredibly rare,… or this new article by Chris Osterndorf in the Daily Dot that declares that Oberst became an accidental MRA icon: ‘We won. Oberst’s defeat over Harris represents a victory for our entire community, against the oppressive regime of women everywhere,’ wrote some of these Mens’ Rights Activists somewhere on the internet… Wow, as if Conor was representing this anti-feminist culture! This other article in A Voice for Men, even reproaches Conor to donate the proceeds of his lawsuit to charities benefiting the victims of violence against women: ‘Faced with false rape allegations you’d imagine Oberst would want to help other men who have been falsely accused.’ I wish these people would watch this new video, and see how gentle and peaceful it is,… No matter how awful these false accusations were, Conor Oberst’s world could not be further away from this Men’s Rights Activist’ ideology.
