Death Cab for Cutie: Company Calls Epilogue (2000)

Okay, I admit it: I kind of lied. I told you that I would bring you a straightforward narrative this week, and while it's true that this week's lyrics tell a sort of story, it's not really the one I was planning on. We've been doing a lot of heavy analysis recently and I wanted to look at something a little more personal.



Company Calls Epilogue

Synapse to synapse: the possibility's thin
I'm dressed up for free drinks and family greetings
On your wedding, your wedding, your wedding date
The figures in plastic on the wedding cake
That I took were so real

And I kept my distance: the complications cloud
The postcards and blip through fiberoptics
As the girls with the pigtails
Were running from little boys wearing bowties
Their parents bought them: "I'll catch you this time!"

Crashing through the parlor doors
What was your first reaction?
Screaming, drunk, disorderly: I'll tell you mine
You were the one
But I can't spit it out when the date's been set
The white routine to be ingested inaccurately

Synapse to synapse: the sneaky kids had attached
Beer cans to the bumper so they could drive
Up and down the main drag
People would turn to see who's making the racket
It's not the first time

When they lay down the fish will swim upstream
And I'll contest, but they won't listen
When the casualty rate's near 100%
And there isn't a pension for second best
Or for hardly moving

Crashing through the parlor doors
What was your first reaction?
Screaming, drunk, disorderly: I'll tell you mine
You were the one
But I can't spit it out when the date's been set
The white routine to be ingested inaccurately

You were the one
But I can't spit it out when the date's been set
The white routine to be ingested inaccurately
-----------------

An alternate version of this song exists on Death Cab for Cutie's Forbidden Love EP, but it has the same lyrics. That's where I first encountered it. My high school girlfriend bought the EP for me for my birthday, and I proceeded to listen to it all on repeat; every play through, the words reminded me that I was dreaming of being with her best friend. Way to appreciate a gift.

The meaning of the song itself is clear enough: it has to do with Ben Gibbard (operating on the assumption that he doubles as the song's narrator) attending the wedding of someone for whom he has strong feelings, and proceeding to generally cause a disturbance and embarass himself, possibly even by telling the bride of his affections.

I say "possibly" because it's less clear whether the mayhem that he creates is real or imagined. For example, Gibbard says that "the figures in plastic on the wedding cake/that [he] took were so real," so it seems like this is something that he's actually going through with. Conversely, though Gibbard claims that he "[crashes] through the parlor doors....screaming, drunk, disorderly," the later line that he "can't spit...out" how he really feels seems to cast doubt on this. Perhaps the scene that he's discussing is only describing what he plans to do. "Synapse to synapse"...the ideas and emotions fire through the neurons of his mind.

Adding to the likelihood that this scenario is only playing out in Gibbard's mind, he underlines the fact that his situation is almost hopeless. Is there anywhere but in movies that the guy shows up, madly professes his love, and gets the girl? Gibbard sings that he'll "contest, but they won't listen" and notes that "the casualty rate's near 100%/and there isn't a pension for second best". In other words, there's almost nothing to gain from going through with his plan.

I know I'm kind of skipping all over the place, but I really enjoy the entirety of the second verse. "And I kept my distance: the complications cloud/postcards and blip through fiberoptics". Gibbard has tried to stay away while this girl is with someone else, but he still keeps making his presence known through "complications": postcards and (I'm thinking that "blip through fiberoptics" in 2000 speak means) emails. And what seems like some innocent observations of the wedding guests' children is really just another message to the bride: the girls are running from the boys, who are shouting "I'll catch you this time!"

It was harder for me to decipher the subsequent verse, starting with "Synapse to synapse: the sneaky kids had attached...", but as Gibbard describes the couple's wedding car driving up and down the street making noise and getting noticed, it appears to be more a comment on the fact that he can't escape the couple. Them being together, and the entire wedding itself, is just continual "racket" to Gibbard-- "it's not the first time".

Gibbard ends the song with a refrain of the chorus, indicating that he still can't go through with it and admit his feelings to the girl. "The white routine" (ie- the wedding) will still be "ingested inaccurately"-- not the prettiest of lines, but essentially stating that the wedding will still go on "inaccurately". This is both a hint that the events are not unfolding in the way that he wants them to, and that his story is inaccurate as well.

With this song armed in the CD player of my 2002 Accord, I became convinced that I didn't want to become either version of Ben Gibbard; not the guy who bursts into the wedding regretful and drunk, and certainly not the guy who becomes so ineffectual at admitting his own feelings that he's basically eaten alive by them. But I was kind of already ineffectual at admitting my own feelings, so instead of taking action, I wrote a poem for my creative writing class. Try not to be too judgmental-- this is an authentic bit of my history. Anyway:

February Epilogue

The guests have been left
mingling in the bad blood between us and
I'm standing outside the room where
you lie, purple tapestries blowing in the wind.
Burning spent cigarettes, the smoke clouds
our eyes and it was love until you left.

The fire has been set,
swallowing the air from this place and
you're watching in slow motion the palace
unwind and collapse now and here.
Lighting the way with spent youth, these pictures
remind us that pictures are all that's left.

You were my dream
but I can't let it all go with the old routine.
These tapestries will be suspended
indefinitely.

And we've been left
hiding behind these shades of meaning and
I'm wishing I was younger when
you sigh, and time can never begin again.
Leaving this whole world behind with the plans you
devised. I'm the only one who's left.

You were my dream
but I can't let it all go with the old routine.
These tapestries will be suspended
in your memory.
-----------------

Maybe it leans way too heavily on the original influence, but there are still some bits that I like, almost a decade later. The "purple tapestries" refer, of all things, to the down comforter on the bed of the girl I wanted. And the imagery of everything burning up around the two of us does a decent job of expressing that I felt like to expose my true feelings would ruin both my relationships with these girls. I couldn't "let it all go" and felt like I had to stay trapped in "the old routine". Basically, the poem was about me being too chickenshit.

It took a lot more time and a big kick in my ass before I finally admitted how I felt. Of course, I ended up almost entirely wrong about everything. I did get the girl I wanted and hurt the girl I was with, and it seemed to destroy everything for a while. But when time passed and all was said and done, the two of them became best friends again, regardless of all that had happened.

It's funny how things work out. I don't think that I have really learned much since then, except that it's funny how things work out. The rest is still the same. The music spurs me onward and outward.

An interesting side note to end on: Mr. Gibbard and I aren't so different:. I'm talking about these events almost a decade after they happened. Similarly, this won't be the last we hear of this wedding scene; he'll include a song on 2008's Narrow Stairs that revisits it, albeit with a bit of a different perspective. I'm sure that we'll get to that one eventually.

Next week will be less wistful and more focused as we break down the song I meant to post this week, and we discuss storytelling and narrative in music lyrics. I'm going to say it here so I don't end up going back on my word again: it's The Decemberists' "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)".