![]() ![]() Since the band’s inception in the late ’90s, Death Cab have produced three of the most critically acclaimed indie albums in recent history. The first track is even called “The New Year”. This album, which hits stores on the 7th of October, encompasses all the beauty and change that goes along with the death and birth of each season. It can be difficult to communicate abstractions and ideas properly through language, and in this song, Death Cab does a perfect job of abandoning the abstract and coming back down to earth to convey this passing moment that may be impossible to properly explain.Listening to Death Cab for Cutie‘s newest album, Transatlanticism, somehow evokes the sensations of all the seasons: the icy stillness of winter, the frostiness of early spring mornings, summer’s heavy night air, and the first smell of cold. It’s tempting to get caught-up in the idea of dramatic, poetic language that is beautiful, perfect and endlessly multi-syllabic (like the first half of this sentence), but it doesn’t always work. The most important thing that “Passenger Seat” does is staying simple. There was a lot that he was trying to convey in those words – and I don’t mean to take away from the image of being someone’s guide “for all time”– but the song is best, I think, when it’s just descriptive. Whether the narrator said any of this out loud or just put the words together in his head, he was probably disappointed with their result. He hardly seems to say anything to his companion, except for a brief attempt at expressing himself at the end: “When you feel embarrassed, then I’ll be your pride / When you need directions, then I’ll be the guide / For all time.” It’s a little awkward: the only metaphor he can come up with is the situation in front of him, hardly a metaphor at all. Maybe it comes, somehow, from the way the passenger of any car places implicit trust in the person driving.īen Gibbard takes what is probably the most advisable route and doesn’t try to fully dissect the moment. If it is a long ride, you might suggest that it has to do with being in such close proximity to one person for an extended time. It’s hard to say why this happens or where it comes from. When two people are driving somewhere, there is some sort of connection between them that transcends a precise explanation. It is about an inexplicable yet very real experience that is best described as sparsely as possible. ![]() Ultimately, this simplicity of narration works well for the song. “Passenger Seat” gives us nothing more than the narrator’s thoughts as he is driven home. We don’t even know the person in the driver’s seat. Nothing particularly interesting happens, and we don’t know where the narrator is coming from or where he is headed. The entire song depicts a brief scene in which someone is driving the narrator home. Considering the song’s lyrics, this makes perfect sense. ![]() It is not a song that captivates the listener by any means, and can be overlooked as a follow up to the eight-minute title track. This is unsurprising, in reality, given that it’s comprised simply of piano, Ben Gibbard’s voice and the quiet drone of strings in the background. It was not until recently, however, that I really reflected on the song “Passenger Seat.” On first hearing it, I thought that it had a nice sound, learned the piano part and then let it be. ![]() Death Cab for Cutie’s album Transatlanticism came out just over 10 years ago, and has been in my life for about six years now. ![]()
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