Song of the Day 6/22: Death Cab for Cutie, “Cath…”
Huzzah! Tonight’s Firefly lineup actually includes a band whose name I recognize. After a string of successful albums in the ’00s, Death Cab seemed to peak in 2008 with its “Narrow Stairs” album, which included this melancholy retelling of “Wuthering Heights.”
Songwriter Ben Gibbard, who started the band as a solo project, is known for his literate lyrics, which he hides here behind a wall of jangly guitars and melancholic regret, but lines like “She holds a smile/Like someone would hold/A crying child” shine through. The mini-movie video stars Lukas Haas, who starred in “Witness” as a child, in the Heathcliff role, but most of its plot points are taken directly from Gibbard’s cinematic wedding scene. BTW, I checked the set lists of the current tour. Expect to hear this tune near the end of the set.
You know you’re getting old when you don’t know who these people are! I only recognized the names of five of the performers at this year’s Firefly, including DCFC. Unless Yungblud are Jesse Colin Young’s new band.
DCFC got their name from a song written by Neil Innes and Viv Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Innes supposedly got the title of the song from a short story in an American detective fiction magazine which he found in a street market.
The Bonzos performed their song in the 1967 BBC TV performance of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour.” They were a very strange band. Stanshall was one of the most eccentric musicians/performers in England, and had a small cult following.
And now you know…the rest of the story!