transatlanticism (Patreon)

I planned on just posting A Lack of Color today, but over the past couple weeks I’ve connected with a different song on the album. I knew the song, I liked the song, but I had never lived the song. It’s taken on a completely different sound and different life to me. When I was a teenager and connected to Death Cab I hadn’t yet experienced what I’ve experienced now, so it’s weird to listen with new ears and connect to new things even 20 years later. 

What strikes me about the title track is of course the beautiful and deeply precise lyrical metaphor, but also that over half of the 8 minute song is repeating the same line. It cuts right to the heart of the matter only about a third of the way in, and it just doesn’t stop. For me that feels very representative of how it feels to live this reality. Continuous, and unrelenting. 

——————

Transatlanticism — Death Cab for Cutie 
Transatlanticism, 2003 

https://open.spotify.com/track/4zBFQh3OBdtoRFWn2XRrIr?si=_6N7V3ceQmGEw21uHlqlfg&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A7jwLAtPHF7TW7dtELtayOd

The Atlantic was born today and I'll tell you how
The clouds above opened up and let it out
I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean
Making islands where no islands should go
Oh, no 

Most people were overjoyed, they took to their boats
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door
Have been silenced forevermore
And the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh, no 

I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer

So come on, come on
So come on, come on
So come on, come on
So come on, come on