Ed O'Brien on KCRW

Ed O'Brien is Novena Carmel's guest on Morning Becomes Eclectic, and they begin with “Obrigado”, the closing track of Blue Morpho, whose title is Portuguese for thank you. The record came out of a dark period he went into and came back from, and what he is left with is gratitude, for his life and for what he went through. He is convinced that someone who can sit in those stretches rather than flee them comes out more whole.

He is open about the framework he uses for that, a strong spiritual foundation that is not Buddhism but takes a good deal from it, including reincarnation and what people report from near-death experiences.

There came a point when he was finished with music itself. He stopped listening entirely and spent weeks hearing only birdsong, and when music came back it arrived from elsewhere: a great deal of jazz, Coltrane in particular, Brazilian records, and classical music, which returned him to a childhood of singing he had half forgotten.

On the band's teenage years, when they were still On a Friday, he draws the line that divided them, with himself on the side of the Smiths and Jonny Greenwood on the side of the Fall, and a great deal of overlap in the middle. He also plays R.E.M.'s “Finest Worksong”, a song they all loved back then.