The Sound of Rediscovering

Last weekend I strolled through Streetside Records with my man and ran across an AMAZING Death Cab for Cutie DVD that I picked up – check it . After popping it in while I assembled dinner on Sunday, I was reminded just how brilliant Ben Gibbard and the boys are.

I’ll forever have a special place in my heart for this band. Their music hit me at a particularly fertile season in my musical exploration, and I've now seen them 3 times in concert (the most I've ever seen an artist). Each time I'm even impressed with their energy (the drummer almost broke his arms at the end of their Bleeding Kansas finale of "Transatlanticism") and lyrical prowess.

One of my personal marks for a great band is when it can travel with me over different events and spaces in my life. Granted, I just found them in 2003, but life’s changed a lot since then.

When I “found them” I was falling in and out of love, finding myself and relearning how to be a poet. Lyrics that captured me then were like this:

“oh, instincts are misleading
you shouldn't think what you're feeling
they don't tell you what you know you should want.”
From Lightness (Translanticism)

That line still gets me.

The other night, probably as a result of how much I’m laughing lately, this one stuck with me:

“When we laugh indoors
the blissful tones bounce off the walls
and fall to the ground.
Peel the hardwood backs
and let them loose from decades trapped
and listen so still.”
From "We Laugh Indoors"

At the risk of sounding old...they just don't write songs like that much anymore.

Ben, pleasepleaseplease hurry up with your anticipated Postal Service follow-up or get the boys back together and jam!