Songfacts®:

• Released on August 21, 2020, during an era of Covid-19, climate change and a divided America, Down In The Weeds Where The World Once Was is a soundtrack to a troubled world. Here, Conor Oberst is looking up at Mount Everest, the highest point on earth. He's also looking down at the deepest place, The Mariana Trench, approximately 10,900 meters (36,000 ft.) below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
  
  Look up at that Everest
  Look down in that Mariana Trench
  Look now as the crumbling 405 falls down
  When the big one hits
  
  Said Oberst to The Sun: "I guess it's not the most creative metaphor in the world, but the idea is the juxtaposition of the highs and lows of everything,"
• Queens of the Stone Age's Jon Theodore and Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea formed the rhythm section. Oberst is a huge fan of Mars Volta's 2003 album De-Loused in the Comatorium, which Theodore and Flea both played on.
• Buffalo, New York singer-songwriter Miwi La Lupa supplied the additional harmonies. He contributed to four tracks on the album, including co-writing "Just Once In The World."
• Art Camp created the video, which they began at the beginning of quarantine and completed when the lockdown was easing. They said:
  
  "In 18 different bedrooms across the world, listening to Bright Eyes, keeping each other company, we got the chance to collaborate on a story about embracing and celebrating change. The animation is composed of 2,200 hand-illustrated ink paintings based on original 3D animation and archival footage."
• The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific is 6,831 miles deep. Here's some more trivia about the deepest place on earth:
  
  The pressure in the Marina Trench is over eight tons per square inch - or 50 jumbo jets piled on top of you.
  
  If a coin was dropped into the Marina Trench, it would take more than an hour to reach the bottom.
  
  On January 23, 1960, Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and US Navy Captain Don Walsh became the first humans to explore the deepest location on the surface of Earth's crust when they took the submersible Trieste to a depth of 10,916 m (35,814 ft) in the Mariana Trench.