Stay Young, Go Dancing, Death Cab For Cutie
We’ve written a fair amount this summer here at Turntablr about Death Cab For Cutie’s new album, Codes and Keys. Not without good reason, however, because it boasts some of the best songwriting of their career. Sure, it may not have the elegiac, moody piano epics of Transatlanticism or the shimmering, quarter-life crisis stricken gems of Plans, but that’s mainly because finally, at long last, frontman Ben Gibbard seems to be happy. After marrying actress and She & Him crooner Zooey Deschanel, his songs have bright, sunny guitar solos and some of the most optimistic lyrics of his career. The finest example of this trend on DcFc’s newest effort is the closer, “Stay Young, Go Dancing.” The track consists primarily just of acoustic guitar strumming, with Gibbard’s opening lines of “life is sweet / in the belly of the beast.” Instead of wallowing in his own mortality and futilely battling it, as he might have in earlier releases, Gibbard seems to have embraced a happy acceptance of the passing of time, so long as he gets to spend it with the one he loves. The song’s arrangement is fairly simple, featuring occasionally fluttering strings and Gibbard’s characteristically striking vocal harmonies. It calls to mind summer days with friends, especially with its frequent references to the passing of the seasons. Regardless of what may happen, Gibbard will “stay young and go dancing,” pledging to maintain his optimistic outlook.
I think Mr. Bernstein said it best when he described this new album from Ben Gibbard and friends as much more upbeat than their previous work. Every song is infinitely more bouncy and focuses less on Gibbard’s exceptional lyricism and vocals and more on the collectivity of the band, acknowledging the undeniable talent of all the members. Doors Unlocked and Open is one of the best examples of Gibbard relinquishing most of his vocal power to the instrumentals for the most powerful emotional extraction. This song denies all previous Death Cab conceptions by being, without a doubt, funky. The snappy and quick drums combined with the slightly draggy and soulful guitar strums help establish the sense that one is in the ocean, where everything moves slower but is so much more accessible. Not to mention that the bass drives the song in its seemingly infinite loop, making the listener never want to stop dancing (and feel like they never have to). This song is so fantastic at immediately causing a sense of how one feels in the mysterious ocean, recognizing its power and hold on us mortals while excited at the enormous possibilities it offers. The abilities of Death Cab for Cutie are exactly why I love music. This song just repeats the same couple of words over and over again, and yet it is impossible to avoid the emotional connection to the ocean that the instruments illicit. “Live in slow motion / be free, doors unlocked and open.”
