Ivory Lines Lead

     Gibbard You Silver-Tongued Devil. It's a common known fact that Ben Gibbard, lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie, is a panty dropper. The eloquent way he strings lyrics together and his soothing man voice is enough for anyone to get googly eyes. My personal favorite is Lightness. A song about... Well its all up to interpretation isn't it? I, a man not even two decades old, cannot tell anyone what to think. I love that about poetry. It's all about what we perceive. What we want. What gets us hooked. Gibbard knows how to do this in a way that is expressed from indie punk to softcore acoustic to modern hipster. He is a Master.

     I just want to look at his song Lightness. This is a beautiful song. Gibbard is always writing about his love life, whether its going well or drowning in a toilet.

The first verse:

There's a tear in the fabric of your favorite dress

And I'm sneaking glances

Looking for patterns in the static

They start to make sense the longer I'm at it

     Now obviously he's talking about seeing past a woman's dress, although, I don't think he's talking in a perverted sense. I think that he saying that he is seeing past this woman's physical appearance and into her. Saying that he loves this person. When he talks about the "patterns" I think that Gibbard means that he doesn't really understand why he likes this person until he really thinks about it. You can't find a pattern in static. Static is a jumbled randomness that doesn't have any sort of direction, but the longer you look at static, you can find a shape (just like with clouds).

Second verse:

Your heart is a river that flows from your chest

Through every organ

Your brain is the dam

And I am the fish who can't reach the core

     The woman in this song is a loving person, very open to Gibbard, but there is something that's holding her back. Gibbard describes himself as a "fish" that can't seem to get into her mind. It sounds like he can get her to like him and be interested, but he can't get her to love him and commit to him. She thinks about things too much and needs to just accept her feelings for Gibbard. Something is holding her back from him.

Third and fourth verse:

Oh, instincts are misleading

You shouldn't think what you're feeling

They don't tell you what you know you should want

     This is all about the difference of the head and the heart. The difference between what you think you should want and what you want. I think Gibbard really touches that point that there is a fine line between what you want and what you actually should want. Gibbard is saying that, when it comes to love, you shouldn't go off of what you think is right. You should go off of what you feel is right.

     There really is a fine line between what your head knows and what your heart knows, metaphorically of course. Trust me, I know where the limbic system (emotions) is. Its my major. I agree with Gibbard though. When it comes to caring about someone, it doesn't have to make sense because if you truly care about them, then it will eventually make sense. When two people care about each other and don't have the same beliefs; I've seen those relationships work out. You don't have to believe in the same thing as much as you have to believe in each other. Obviously, yes, it would be harder, but what relationship isn't hard in itself. I'd say, "put up the fists," but in a loving and caring way. Yeah that makes sense. Oh who cares! It's love and I'm 18! Nothing of that importance makes sense to me yet.