236. Song No. 3,531: “For What Reason,” Death Cab for Cutie
We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, 2000

Speaking of songs that feel like homecomings! I have pilfered so many of these lyrics for overwrought collegiate away messages that this track is just indelibly burned into my brain and feels like it’s made of all my own words, even if I habitually confuse it with Something About Airplane‘s “President of What?” when there’s only a title to go by. Though, to be fair, both songs do bring an uncharacteristic amount of cynical snubs to DCFC’s typically quieter, mild sound and early Death Cab is, all unwelcome echoes of my younger, bitchier indie-snob aside, the best Death Cab.

Songs like this—entire albums like this!—are why DCFC were my favorite band for a not-insignificant stretch of high school and college, and are still a group I regard with oceans of fondness. Gentle melodies set against lyrics that lob bitter lines like “I hope that he keeps you up for weeks / Like you did to me” and “I will hold a candle up to you / To singe your skin” and especially “In the end, I win every time / As ink remains” (which, as a burgeoning young writer discovering the cathartic power of the only craft I already knew I could give myself up to completely for a lifetime, struck me with a particularly persistent ferocity) just do something to me with their unassuming slow boil churning just below the surface and plainly evident in the restraint on display.

Earlier in the month, one of my coworkers doled out copies of some other local journalist’s take on 2022’s best 100 albums, challenging us (a roomful of white creative types where the average age is about 10 years older than I am, which I only note for demographic reference) to see how many bands we could recognize. The point of the story isn’t that I tied for first: It’s that Death Cab’s latest offering, last year’s Asphalt Meadows, was included on said list, and another coworker blurted out something to the extent of, “Oh, Death Cab for Cutie, at least that’s one everyone knows,” which would have appalled me as a junior in high school but was weirdly validating more than half a lifetime later, an assurance that I backed the right horse early on with that one. Seeing the band that Teenage Me loved the most emerge as such musical stalwarts with a staying power the bands I love aren’t exactly known for (if they’re known by more than a dozen people at all) is a kind of indie-snob self-righteousness I didn’t really expect at this point but can’t say I mind all that much. At least I know how to carry it less obnoxiously these days.

Hearing the band as they were 20 years ago, the version of Death Cab I will always prefer and default to, isn’t as much of a retrospective whiplash as it is for other outfits. They’re certainly more polished and their sound’s a little fuller, for sure, but I can never really tell when that’s maturity or better production value. I’m a largely calmer human being now than I was two decades ago, too, but things like driving in Jersey keep me keenly in touch with the temper I’ve tempered over the years; being reminded that this band that’s wholly devoid of sharp edges now once had these brilliant flashes of barely suppressed anger and defensively wielded bitterness well-hidden beneath the misdirection of a charming veneer is kind of like seeing photos of the elders you admire when they were younger than you and in their prime, a revelatory peek into a past that’s home to some incredible snapshots and stories from a time that’s a veritable treasure trove of rewards every time you come back for more.