Worldwide

Album: Outer South (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Worldwide" is a folk-rock styled song written by Conor Oberst and performed with The Mystic Valley Band. It has trademark Oberst lyrics, meaning they're intricate, clever, and emotional. Oberst's wordplay has often earned him comparisons to Bob Dylan.
  • The song lyrics read like a brooding, reflective journal entry. The narrator ponders over how tired and repetitive his life is, and hopes for some sort of escape. The only solution he can see is spending time with the person he's in love with, but he worries that the dreariness of this world will poison that love. Throughout the song he wishes he could just run away and leave everything behind: to go anywhere, do anything new, as long as it's with the person he loves.
  • Although the lyrics were written by Oberst, it's sung by his bandmate Macey Taylor. This is because Oberst wanted to draw attention to the various member of The Mystic Valley Band on this album, and wrote it specifically for Taylor to sing.
  • The making of Outer South was chronicled in a documentary, One of My Kind, released in 2012. Taylor appears throughout the documentary.

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