They sang me to sleep every night, accompanied each road trip, eased my high school heartbreaks, and augmented my internal romantic.
I am in love, as I have been since I first picked up The Photo Album 8 years ago, which transitioned to Transatlanticism, then skipped back to We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, and back further to Something About Airplanes and You Can Play These Songs With Chords. This isn’t a band to me. It’s a relationship.
Ben Gibbard and his brilliant comrades put on a fabulous masterpiece- and once again, I’m reminded of why I felt in love with this music in the first place. In a journal, I have written out my favorite lyrics. The content spans several pages because so many of the words are much, much more than rhymes. Death Cab’s cryptic lyrics are haunting, and purely emotional. It’s very possible that the messaging carries a greater weight simply because it lead me through my teenage years, through a series of dark tunnels, seemingly devastating at the time. It was the adventure of growing up, the adventure that you love and hate, the frame of reference that you can’t grasp until you finally see everything in hindsight. It’s experiencing everything for the first time- a chain of events that can only happen once. Dominoes tipping over in a rhythmic trail of cause and effect. And chaos. And confusion.
And I still don’t expect anyone to understand.
But I love this band. And the experience of last night at The Pageant in St. Louis was as magical as it was when I first saw them through the eyes of a sixteen year old girl, who uncharacteristically screamed like a child in overwhelming excitement as the band members graced the stage in single file. Except last night I didn’t utter a sound. I just sat, alone, despite being surrounded by strangers, and allowed the melodic, enchanting, heavy music and lyrics of Death Cab for Cutie enfold me for the third time.
“I must admit, I was charmed by your advances; your advantage left me helplessly into you.” -Title Track
