Ben Gibbard: “Teardrop Windows”

Yesterday, I learned that The Postal Service‘s Give Up will soon be experiencing its tenth anniversary. This makes me feel extremely old. As an album, Give Up practically defined my freshman year of college. There were interpretative dance parties in a tiny dorm room, set to “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight”. Frustrated nights of trying to write a 17-page paper at the last minute, set to frat jocks shouting the lyrics to “Such Great Heights” and “Nothing Better” down the hallway.

The sheer omnipresence of these songs within our campus culture led me to explore further. I made it a point to track down every b-side possible, I downloaded every acoustic performance by frontman Ben Gibbard, and I eventually developed an obsession with Gibbard’s other band Death Cab For Cutie.

(There was a pathetic moment during my sophomore year where I’d lie on the ground, longingly caress a hickey on my neck and listen to “Tiny Vessels” on repeat.)

Today, ten years later, I have mixed feelings about the mere sound of Gibbard’s voice. It’s associated with a dark time in my life. A time full of confusion, self-discovery and heartbreak. A time when I thought it was cool to listen to Dashboard Confessional. A time I self-identified as “emo”.

These memories make it difficult to enjoy Gibbard’s first official solo project Former Lives. In a way, it feels regressive to listen to this new material, and I can’t let my guard down long enough to enjoy it… The one BIG exception has been “Bigger Than Love”, an Aimee Mann-assisted duet that’s been stuck on repeat in my cubicle.

However, I wasn’t too crazy about the lead single “Teardrop Windows”. It felt too post-Zooey Deschanel, falling somewhere between “too much Gibbard” and “not enough Gibbard”… And yet here I am, watching the music video out of some unspoken debt I have to this man, for capturing my innermost feelings in MP3 form.

It’s a cute video! So, um, maybe you’ll like it? Maybe.

– Dewitt

Click through to watch the music video for “Teardrop Windows”:

Just for fun, here’s that song with Aimee Mann I was talking about: