This week's tune comes courtesy of another late night of not being able to sleep and channel surfing which somehow made it to VH-1 before finding anything else of interest to watch. Doesn't help the coolness quotient much, does it?
Every now and again while doing my half-assed weekly research for FNJ I'll come across a band that hasn't been as commercially successful as I would have guessed, but Death Cab for Cutie is the first that I recall as having been more successful than I would have thought. Formed in Bellingham, Washington is 1997, Death Cab for Cutie was originally a solo project for band leader Ben Gibbard, but after having been signed to a recording contract, he decided to make a band of it. Over the last twenty-one years they have released nine studio albums, six EPs, and thirty singles. They've had a #1 album, three other albums in the top ten, and one more in the top twenty. Surprisingly (at least to me), they've done this without much help from hit singles--of the thirty they've released, only two have hit the Billboard Hot 100, and those two topped out at #60 and #70. The band has also been nominated for eight Grammy Awards, toured the world over (they've done especially well in the UK--so many cool kids in the UK!), and have another five years to wait for their shot at being enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Damn fine career if you ask me....
Fun Fact: For the three people who probably don't know already, Death Cab for Cutie was named for a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band called, surprisingly enough, "Death Cab for Cutie." The song was originally released in 1967, making the band's name choice a bit odder than it already is (we're talking thirty years down the road, for God's sake). Gibbard has admitted if he'd known what a pain in the ass the name would become, he'd have chosen a different band name. For those who don't have my curiosity, the original song is actually quite listenable...and don't let the fact that it's a take off of Elvis (Presley, not Costello) stop you from giving it a listen. It's actually quite clever and catchy.
"I Will Follow You into the Dark" was the third single released from the band's 2005 album Plans. It was not one of the two singles they had that actually cracked the Billboard Hot 100, though in an odd turn of events, it was eventually certified as a gold single, and is the band's best selling single in their history. Sometimes greatness isn't as evident in the present as it should be (see also, Van Gogh, Vincent).
I've noted a time or two here on FNJ that simplicity is not an impediment to greatness in a pop song, and "I Will Follow You into the Dark" does nothing to dispel that notion--well, at least as simple as a song that's about following one's love into the Great Beyond at the end of one's days can be. The song is just Gibbard and acoustic guitar--Gibbard's vocals are a delight, almost reminding me of a softly played clarinet, and the guitar matches the whimsical nature of the song word for word. Gibbard has a way with turning a phrase ("...everything to see from Bangkok to Calgary" "...in Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule"), and takes what could easily have been a maudlin song and imbues it with a touch of humor and a lot of heart. In the end, it's a quirky masterpiece that'll bring a smile--and those are always most welcome.
Liner Notes: "If Heaven and Hell decide/That they both are satisfied/Illuminate the 'No's' on their vacancy signs/ If there's no one beside you/When your soul embarks/Then I'll follow you into the dark..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee
