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Best tunes of 2003: #5 Death Cab For Cutie “The sound of settling”

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“Bop-baaah… bop-baaah! This is the sound of settling!”

Yes. “The sound of settling”. This was my first of many favourite songs by Bellingham, Washington’s Death Cab for Cutie.

As I wrote back in August in relation to the number 10 song on this list, it was the many promotional posters, wallpaper style, in the windows of a local independent record store, The Record Runner, hundreds of blackbirds tangled in red yarn, that first piqued my interest in the band and their fourth album, “Transatlanticism“. I wasn’t immediately sold on their sound on first listen but there were a couple of tracks that did grab me right away, this one included, and those sustained me, drawing me back for repeat listens. Eventually, I picked up on the melancholic joy that “Transatlanticism” was laying down and the rest was history.

The band originally formed back in 1997, releasing three albums prior to “Transatlanticism” but those I could never really get into. Founding members Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla, and Nick Harmer found structure with their fourth drummer Jason McGerr in 2003 and this lineup remained a constant through their jump to the majors with their fifth album, 2005’s “Plans”, up until lead guitarist Walla departed the group in 2014. Without him, Death Cab has soldiered on, replacing him with a pair of guitarist/keyboardists, releasing three more albums and they remain active.

“Our youth is fleeting
Old age is just around the bend
And I can’t wait to go gray
And I’ll sit and wonder
Of every love that could have been
If I’d only thought of something charming to say”

But back to “The sound of settling”. The album’s second single was famously disliked at first by Gibbard because it was so upbeat but it had a big supporter in Walla, who was also producing the album. I’m so glad he won out*. The song is unbelievably catchy and immediately replayable. It’s got a driving beat that lasts the whole two minutes that is tailor-made for a mid-tempo pogo. It’s got the hand claps, the bopping baseline and Ben Gibbard’s unique voice and take on the dangers of searching for love, the anxiety, the fear that it might not be returned, and on the other side of the coin, the risks of not taking those risks. And yeah, those inescapable “bop-baaahs”!

Pure indie pop goodness.

*And I’m sure Ben and the rest of the band were also glad in the end given how universally loved it is.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1994: #24 Cranes “Shining road”

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Here’s another song by a band whose introduction came by way of a sampler. Yes, they really did work!

Back in the latter months of 1994, I was living in a basement apartment just north of Toronto while attending my second year at York University. Although it was definitely a shorter commute from that apartment than it was in my first year driving in from my hometown, it still meant hanging about on campus, killing time between classes, haunting the library, the student centre, the arcades and games rooms, and the pubs. At some point nearing the end of the fall term, I was in the campus general store* in the York Lanes Mall, perusing the magazine section for music mags. I came across one that I’d never heard of before called CMJ New Music Monthly and flipping through, saw names of artists I knew and respected, names I wouldn’t always see in the mainstream press, outside of the British music mags. I got to the end and saw a sampler CD was included and was impressed by the artists featured there as well. I was sold**.

The first track on the CD compilation was the Brauer mix of “Shining road” by Cranes and it hooked me right away with its haunting minimalist approach and the trademark childlike vocals of Alison Shaw. As it would turn out, my friend Tim*** was discovering the band concurrently while attending Waterloo university, about 100 kilometres away. The lucky jerk got to see them in March 1995 in Toronto and covered their show for his university paper. Granted, Cranes certainly fell neatly into Tim’s gothic, dark, and heavy musical oeuvre, which also included bands like Sisters of Mercy, New Model Army, KMFDM, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Indeed, though the English alternative rock band has often been labelled as ‘Gothic’****, the band has not been happy about it. Cranes was formed by Alison Shaw and her brother Jim all the way back in 1985 and save for a brief hiatus near the end of the 90s, they were active until the end of the 2000s. They reformed again a couple of years ago for some shows and a new album in 2024. In all, they’ve released nine full-length studio albums, a couple of mini-albums, and a litany of EPs.

“She’s been making plans to go (you know)
Hit the bright lights, hit the road
To the city lights this time
Just don’t worry I’ll be fine”

“Shining road” is the opening track off Cranes’ third studio album, “Loved”. It catches your attention right away with those thumping ritualistic beats. The guitar strumming is restrained and taut, ominous and foreboding. At the chorus, though, things rev up considerably, to almost evil sounding levels. Yes, it plays the quiet-loud-quiet game, alternating between traipsing amongst dark clouds and stomping heavily through muddy puddles. Set all of that against the aforementioned childlike and haunting vocals by Alison Shaw and its pure magic. Pure black magic.

*Probably not the right name. I’m sure it’s long since closed.

**And blew a third of that week’s grocery budget in the process.

***It’s actually Tim’s birthday today. So this one goes out to you Tim!

****I included the very song that is the subject of today’s post on a “Goth” playlist I created and posted to these pages almost seven years ago.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1994 list, click here.

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Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #77 Morrissey “Interesting drug” (1989)

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Song #77 on my Eighties’ best 100 list is Morrissey’s fourth solo single, “Interesting drug”.

Stephen Patrick Morrissey was quick in releasing his first solo album, “Viva hate”, less than a year after the dissolution of The Smiths. “Interesting drug” was released the following year in 1989 as a non-album single, though it would be included on the 1990 compilation “Bona drag”. The song features three former members of The Smiths (Rourke, Joyce, and Gannon) as Morrissey’s backing band, as well as the lovely, inimitable backing vocals of Kirsty MacColl*.

I’m near certain that “Interesting drug” was my introduction to Morrissey as a solo artist. It was track number two on a mixed tape (simply titled “Mixed tape”) that my friend Elliott made for me a very long time ago, a friend whom I haven’t seen or heard from in years, but who played an important part in my discovering my own personal musical tastes during my teen years**. I still have said mixed tape packed away in a shoebox in my basement, and though it hasn’t been played in decades, and likely wouldn’t play even if I could find a tape deck to play it on, I doubt very much that I could bring myself to part with it, like the other tapes in that box.

The song, notwithstanding the nostalgia piece, is one of my all-time favourite Morrissey tunes. Likely because it is also one of his more upbeat songs, the music, I mean, not the lyrical subject matter. “Interesting drug” sounds like it could have been a late Smiths track, given the jangly guitars, though the drumming is a bit heavier handed and funkier than most songs by that earlier band. It jumps and cavorts, getting deep under your skin and crawling up and down your spine, while Mr. Morrissey warbles and croons, giving it to the right. He’s defending the use of drugs for release and accusing the conservative government of the day of clamping down on drug use as a means of control.

It’s definitely an… interesting point of view. I didn’t know any of this back in the day but I did appreciate the anti-establishment sentiment. And of course, it had a great beat and I could dance to it.

 

*Spoiler alert: Despite not having her own song on this list, MacColl will likely get a couple more mentions in relation to other songs.

**Indeed, Elliott’s name has appeared a few times on these pages over the years and likely will again.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 80

Favourite lyric: “On a government scheme / Designed to kill your dream ” Does this really need a comment?

Where are they now?: Morrissey is still performing and making music but unfortunately, his career has been sidetracked by controversy of late, much of it of his own making. He just last week announced the upcoming release of a fourteenth studio album, his first since 2020.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.