MaeLiveFree: Midweek Music P.9: Death Cab Overload

Last night I laid uncomfortably in bed trying to shut off my brain and go to sleep.

As a teenager I had many nights like that. It was a given that if I listened to Death Cab for Cutie I would fall asleep. I heard my first of Death Cab in '04 when my uncle (City Bear) of much better musical taste than myself gave me a burnt copy of The Photo Album. That CD was played to death, on repeat while I slept, in the car with my dad, when I needed to dance around numbly and thoughtlessly, and while I struggled to make myself do homework instead of just disappearing into the complex lyrics and simple yet deliriously good melodies. When Plans came out in '05 it was the number one thing on my Christmas wishlist, and when I got it I gobbled it up like The Photo Album before it. The songs and lyrics made their way into school projects, relationships, and who I would become as an adult. Narrow Stairs was then released in the Spring of '08 right around when I graduated high school. I bought it for myself as a graduation gift, and would have loved to have skipped the graduation to stay home listening to it. "I Will Posses Your Heart" played on my myspace profile when I met my husband online in '09. One of the things that instantly grabbed my attention about him was that he like Death Cab too. "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" played on his myspace page, and we played it during our wedding ceremony as well.

Every new album seemed to coincide with my life at the time. Every song struck me, and related to something that I was going through.

Back to last night...In my inability to sleep, I grabbed my iPod (the 2008 version of the nano, with the rounded square design and the ability to view videos!) and put it on Plans. I thought it would put me to sleep and it didn't. I couldn't not listen carefully to the songs that once meant so much to me, without reminiscing on what they meant to me, and what I was going through. So I took the trip down memory lane. Some good memories and some bad. Sometimes wishing that I had let what the songs made me feel when I first heard them take more of an affect on the choices I made and how I lived.

I think everyone with a love of music has a band, album, or period of music that they feel shaped them in some way. As I've always been very affected by music, I have to say that Death Cab is and always will be that band that played a big part in my life.

Since the Cure has been a huge part of my musical life as well, here is Death Cab's cover of "Lovesong".