MAKING PLANS

Who Called for a Taxi?

By Contributing Writer, 10-06-05

By Brian Staker

For being a twenty-something, Ben Gibbard sure thinks about death a lot. And his band, Death Cab For Cutie, isn’t some gloomy goth outfit in all black with bad makeup, but an indie (whatever that means anymore) unit named after a Bonzo Doo Dog Band song. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, and why should it, the Bonzos were a project of Monty Python alums; a comedy, uh, undertaking.

Technically, they aren’t ‘indie’ anymore anyway, having just released their first set on Atlantic Records, Plans. And when you are tripping off the lips of The O.C.’s network TV uber-nerd Seth Cohen, well, that’s just the kiss of death, street cred speaking. All this doesn’t make talking about the many less complicated, but it’s beside the point. Let’s get back to the muuusic.

Titling an album Plans makes it sound like some ambitious project. It’s more likely an ironic nod to the fact that most bands have big ‘plans’ to get on a major label period. Or, knowing the heart-on-sleeve-tongue-in-cheek lyrics that these indie folks usually pen, it’s probably a wink at romanticism. Most of this genre of musicians do go to college at some point. But what it irons out to is a liturgy of plans made to deal with loss, specifically the big one. Plan that!

But then it makes a kind of sense when you remember that the twenties is the age of the first glimmer that you aren’t going to live forever. It is the loss of youth and innocence, although some of us still cling to our adolescence decades later. But that’s a topic for another time, ahem. The twenties are when you simultaneously mourn your earliest self and make preparations for later bereavements. It’s a grand, time-honored theme. Then Plans really is an ambitious collection, not some little suite of noodlings.

So let’s run through the album vis-a-vis the Five Stages of Grief. Denial: On “Marching Bands of the Manhattan,� Gibbard sings “I wish we could open our eyes to see in all directions at the same time/Oh what a beautiful view, if you were never aware of what was around you.� It’s one of the few stabs at wish fulfillment here. It is a beautiful view, and a luscious sound to start with, but living with blinders on doesn’t work.

Anger: not a lot of anger in this indie nerd music. It’s not Metallica or Slayer. The closest Death Cab comes is the projected anger of “Crooked Teeth�: “at night the sun in retreat makes the skyline look like crooked teeth in the mouth of a man who was devouring us both.� The song is about the only one that could be called “rocking,� but his voice doesn’t hit harder than a pop warble. Then again, as Nick Lowe said, sometimes it’s cruel to be kind.

Bargaining: “It came to me that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time,� Gibbard recounts on “What Sarah Said.� He’s not bargaining over his own death but that of someone with whom he abides in a hospital. “There’s no comfort in the waiting room.� A metaphor for life, in a sense a perpetual waiting room. What was it Sarah said? “Love is watching someone die.� What is the alternative? Waiting for your turn to be watchee. Two is the loneliest number.

Depression: Ah, depression. The indie rocker’s friend, my prescribing physician’s closest ally. In “Stable Song,� Gibbard sighs, “I suffered a swift defeat/I’ll endure countless repeats/the gift of memory is an awful curse/With age it just gets much worse but I don’t mind.� This is an odd kind of dejection, reminding us that death isn’t the only thing to fear: the alternative, getting old, sucks as well. At least in his estimation.

Acceptance: “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,� Gibbard proclaims at his most romantic and touching. He also carries a dab of delusion into the equation, so what kind of acceptance is this really? But then, he is twenty-something, give him a break.

This band used to remind me of Built to Spill when they started out, with Gibbard’s understated yet remarkably clear vocal style and the instrumental sound, but they have gone far beyond their beginnings, to forge their own musical identity. This album has all the shimmering surfaces of the world when you see it through the eyes of a moment when all you can focus on is the pain you are feeling, the sharp smarting sensation that your life contains the seed of its own poison. It’s a kind of beauty that doesn’t compare to anything else in the world. All this will be laid out on the table at In the Venue October 7. Don’t forget to wear a trendy t-shirt.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.