Wednesday night, Josh Ritter OC ’99 came back to grace Finney Chapel with his folky presence. The singer/songwriter has been back to campus before, playing at a springtime FolkFest, but this was his first time playing in one of the school’s largest venues.

“My last time on this stage was the freshman talent show, which was really one of the defining moments of western civilization – for me,” joked Ritter.

Ritter fans abound here at Oberlin. From singer/songwriter hopefuls to girls with serious crushes, they all flooded Finney with enthusiastic applause upon his arrival. He began the concert with a ballad from his newest album, The Animal Years, called “Idaho.”

It was just short of a capella. He stretched for notes at times but eased into the performance gracefully, hitting high notes that must have initially made him nervous.

After this quiet introduction, he and his band kicked up the tempo, flinging themselves headfirst into “Good Man,” also from the new record. Ritter smiled into the microphone for the duration of the song, so clearly enjoying himself that it would be hard not to follow suit. Like many of the folk musician’s songs, “Good Man” has a semi-historical feel to it; the lyrics seem like they refer to a decade, or perhaps a century, that is not our own: “Babe we both had dry spells / Hard times, bad lands, I’m a good man.”

“All music is a chain that goes back to some place in the past,” said Ritter.

During his time here at Oberlin, Ritter designed his own major when he realized he did not want to become a scientist like his parents.

“I love the elegance of a scientific theory […] but I was more interested in those who figured these things out,” he said.

Instead, Ritter worked with advisors in both the College and the Con to create a College major, American History in Narrative Songs.

“I wanted to know where I was coming from,” he said. “I live my life by people’s songs.”

Ritter began his songwriting here on campus, writing lyrics that can be recognized in an Oberlin context. Wednesday, after his tunes from The Animal Years, he played his memories in a song from his album, The Golden Age of Radio, “Me & Jiggs.” “On a Saturday night in a town like this I forget all my songs about trains,” he said.

“The potential to tell really stupid stories is here tonight,” said Ritter, before moving into “The Bad Actress,” another song from years past. Ritter was having fun goofing around on stage, charming the audience. “Harrisburg,” a crowd favorite, followed in this same vein, leaving Ritter to yell lyrics into the expansive chapel while the sound equipment wavered in and out in a minor technical glitch.

“That’s the ghost of Charles Grandison Finney,” laughed Ritter. Apparently, Finney believed that you could become perfect in this life, and then, as Ritter put it, “go on to be perfect in heaven as well. We’ve come so far.”

The currently popular song “Wolves” was next on Ritter’s set list. The song is a bigger, louder version of his typical music. After The Animal Years came out last spring, fans worried that this new sound was due to the influences of Ritter’s recent ties to V2 Records. However, such sentiment has died down now as fans realize that, while they are slightly different, his new songs still carry much of the old folk tradition that saturates Ritter’s writing.

Ritter then departed from this louder style completely by playing “Wings,” a quiet song infused with history and his native Idaho. He had the lights completely shut off and picked out notes on his acoustic guitar.

A new song charged in afterwards. “The Next to the Last True Romantic” gave the audience a taste of what is coming in January, when Ritter plans to release his next album, a “big, loud, fun record with lots of words.”

“I have a lot more in common with Neil Young than Pete Seeger,” he said. “Folk music is rock ’n’ roll with words.”

Ritter remains true to his more obvious folk beginnings. The definition of this particular genre has always been a little fuzzy, but he believes it is “what you can remember from somewhere else” — songs that anyone can play, that stick in your head and that are more of a collective memory than something that belongs to just one person.

He emphasized this idea in his concert, when he played fellow folk musician John Prine’s “Daddy’s Little Pumpkin,” a current favorite of Ritter’s.

A wild crowd greeted “Kathleen,” a song from his 2003 record, Hello Starling, which details the thoughts of a boy bringing a girl home from a party — classic Americana from this decade and several of those which precede it.

An emotional tide swept over the audience with the next two songs, both from the new album. “Girl in the War” and “Thin Blue Flame” both address politics of today, however inadvertently. Ritter prefaced “Thin Blue Flame” by saying that he thought it was good to wake up confused, because most of the time it seems like those people who know all the answers are the ones who make the most mistakes.

“I don’t believe in bludgeoning an audience with my own personal beliefs,” said Ritter.

But this did not stop tears from sparkling in the corners of eyes and formerly jubilant faces from turning inward briefly.

Ritter made a smooth transition from this point by playing “The Golden Age of Radio,” a melancholy tune with positive undertones. He began solo, calm on the acoustic guitar, then the band broke free when he hit the chorus, pulling the crowd back up by their heartstrings.

He finished with “Lillian, Egypt,” a raucous song that he chose to celebrate “the foreplay of fall,” bringing the audience to its feet and having it sing the nonsensical chorus of “La didi da da da da da da da!”

After that, the audience pounded on the backs of the pews, calling for an encore, which it quickly received. Ritter played what is a hidden track on his first, self-titled, record, one which narrates with great hilarity the mixing of science and love. Finally, he ended with the Hello Starling tune, “Snow is Gone.” While not seasonally appropriate, all Obies recognize the release of spring in very similar ways. And it was with such release that Ritter sent them out into the chill pre-autumn air to aspire to a great number of things, songwriting included. Ritter continues to thrill and inspire through his memory-history songs.

“In music now you’re offered a shortcut or a longcut,” he said. “Take the long way.”

He encourages aspiring singer/songwriters to play open mics and free shows, and to not waste time courting record labels.

“Love what you do and let other people take care of everything else,” he said.

This method has worked brilliantly for Ritter, who is blatantly enamored with his work, smiling into the microphone continuously through his shows. He has come a long way since his Cat in the Cream days here at Oberlin.