TO THE GROUND – Death Cab for Cutie

Following the ninth studio album, Thank You for Today, Death Cab for Cutie released The Blue EP in September of 2019. The Blue EP is a set of tracks that didn’t quite meet the theme of the previous album, but still belonged in the Death Cab collection. The EP seems to follow the lines of destruction and the pursuit of tragedy in it’s wake. And yet while the album’s sound is another progression away from the delicate but pained nature of Death Cab’s former works, the song “To the Ground” brings it into focus.

It begins with distorted notes propagating between octaves and eerie background tones. This is cut into with heavy drums, creating a pulse for the song that is almost animal like in energy. Two guitars create a harmonic centerpiece that is eventually staved off to a single guitar melody.

Gibbard’s vocals come in while we are met with the story of a car crashing off the side of what is presumably a steep cliff. The car plummets into a valley where it burns up and with time, nature reclaims it. Vines and trees split though the center, animals begin to call it home, and it disintegrates back to the ground from which it came.

The chorus often repeated “../To the ground/..” and sections of the verses are elevated in a sense that the words are held onto while the music behind it continues to move forward in a strongly calculated rhythm. I quite enjoy how the words hold you there momentarily before dropping off that ledge and back into the rolling energy of the rest of the song.

After the second chorus everything begins to swiftly dive into chaos that ultimately builds into a solid note that is bridged into the vocal’s smooth plateaus of the chorus. The frenzy is reminiscent of The Beatles “A Day in the Life;” all pieces of the song completely swept up into this massive sound that makes your own thoughts hard to focus on.

Dropping back to the chorus, the music is peeled back until we are left with the same sound that kicked it off.

What I really enjoy about this song other than a good story – which I always appreciate – is the pure movement from the notes. Every piece has been fitted together and functioning so seamlessly, yet the sound is still vibrant and somewhat wild.

There is also a noticeable absence of the human element in the lyrics. Everything is addressed from the material standpoint of the car and the natural state that it erodes to. There is a central focus on the circle of life without the mention of the person or persons that would have been within the vehicle during the crash. This is a fairly unique way to approach a song about a crash this violent – most songwriters would simply play to the emotional loss for such an event.

I greatly appreciate that Death Cab found a way to get this song out; it is definitely one that should enjoy a limelight of its own.

Please take a listen to the song here and check out the full lyrics below.

Enjoy!

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“To the Ground” – Death Cab for Cutie

Lost, lost control
Slid and began to roll
And on the wings of an ocean gale
Crashed right through the rail
Down to the valley below
To the valley below

Down in the charred remains
Stripped the chassis clean
And the bramble grew through the frame
‘Til it swallowed everything
Swallowed everything

Return to the ground
To the ground
Return to the ground
To the ground

Trees growing tall
Weeds covering all
And the animals made their homes
Underneath its fusted dome
All things come around

All comes around
Comes around
Returns to the ground
To the ground

Ground
Around
Comes around
To the ground
To the ground
To the ground
To the ground

Just This Morning

I read the sentence three times. Again. Again. Again.

Life-altering injuries.

The words echoed in my head. I desperately sought to form them into something tangible. Something real. But right now they were just words on a paper. What did they mean? How much of life is altered?

My life?

Hers?

I sat the papers down and adjusted my glasses. Comforting was never the right word to describe a hospital waiting room. Stiff purple and black chairs with a grey carpet spotted with small yellow flowers. Sunflowers maybe? The walls were painted a dull white, littered with posters about heart disease and the latest wonder medications. And then one lonely window at the end. The shimmer of leaves moving just at it’s edge.

The soft clicking and murmurs from the nurses station caught my attention. I glance over and notice the surgeon bent over the desk, diligently directing a young woman about something. Every so often the woman quickly looks back at me as he talks. Her eyes feel like two black darts. I move in my seat, feeling the anxiety build once more.

The surgeon had been speaking to me a few minutes before. None of his speech had yet to register as he handed me the papers. My mind kept getting stuck on this morning. When we had both been at home, enjoying breakfast on the deck. The sun glinted on her hair and she was laughing.

What bothered me was I couldn’t remember why she was laughing. Was is something I said? Or her? She was so beautiful when she smiled.

But that moment rolled away as she left to run an errand.

Just going to the store, she said. She was going to plant some peonies today. They were just what they needed to finish the garden we had built up in the past year.

I have yet to see the car. Either of them. I now only what the sheriff told me. Head-on. Her car took the brunt of it. Ambulance to St. Josephs on 12th. They suspect alcohol was involved. The other driver had two priors.

I was screaming when I got to the hospital, at no one in particular. I just wanted to find her. Just the thought of her on a lying on a steel table, under the lights, her body relenting to the damage – it tore at me until my insides were on fire.

They have to let me see her.

I can’t wait.

She needs me.

I pleaded. I yelled. I cried.

I was wrenched with agony. They had seen it all before, I knew, but when you are the one breaking down, it’s hard to control any of it.

She has sustained life-altering injuries.

I shook my head, holding back the pain that once again welled in my chest. More of the surgeons words were coming through. The paper was beginning to make sense.

Shattered.

I held onto that one. Because the sum of this day felt wholly shattered. In seconds, my life was exchanged for another. And my wive’s stolen.

I winced and bent over, gasping for air as I began loudly sobbing once more. A flicker of movement on the edge, as the nursed dashed out to me. Gently, she moved her hand in a circle on my back.

“It’s going to be alright. She’s recovering now. Won’t be more than an hour before you can go back to her. I swear it,” she said.

I turned my head up, my eyes swollen and face aching from the tension. “She just wanted to plant some flowers. And now…n–n–now…n-n…” I stuttered and then stopped, unable to finish.

“It’s alright,” she repeated, “get it all out.”

I took a deep breath, feeling an emptiness rise within me. “And now she’ll never see them. Any of them.”

COLLISION

I saw her again.

This time I was driving, clocking well over eighty and that feeling–god that feeling–it passed over me like a shadow. This tremble goes up my spine and I put all my effort towards focusing on the road. My hands start to hurt from the grip on the wheel.

Like always, I couldn’t stop it. I start looking around at the cars around me.

To my right an older gentleman, his head full of gray and face speckled by the sun. He was hunched over, peering at the road rather than actually seeing it. He looked lonely.

In front of me, the soccer mom’s staple mini-van. A liquorish red with stickers of her children dotting the back window. Pride shines through the dust laden paint.

And on my left was her. It’s always her.

She was there, all blonde and beautiful in that little, blue car. Her windows were down and she was singing. Some new pop song, most likely.  She wore that slim lime green tank top; her nails painted to match. A miniature teddy bear dangled from the rearview mirror, ever so often colliding with a newly added tassel from her graduation. ’05 is what it said.

She was so carefree, so young. A new glowing light, dancing to the rhythmic traffic of a city.

The fleeting feeling of peace fades with me when I remember what happens. I had seen this too many times before. Over and over it plays in my head.

I motion to her. I scream at her. I plead with her. But she can’t hear me. She never does.

The pretty blonde smiles for an instant. And at the end of that moment she barrels into the back end of the stopped car in front of her.

Time speeds up then as that little blue car is crunched with her in it. A shockwave of forces spreads through the cars in line, totaling more than her. But she’s all that matters.

Dead instantly. From the bloody carnage of her that was left tangled in that metal jungle, I wanted to desperately believe it. I could never live knowing if she went through worse pain. If she thought about me in her last breathe. If she called for me and I wasn’t there.

An officer handed me the only pieces left intact the day after. I cried when I saw that bear and tassel. They were gifts from her mother and I. Gifts that we had given her just two days before.

My beautiful daughter was gone. Her life lost to a congested, unforgiving world. And a future robbed from me.