Death Cab For Cutie

The Photo Album

Barsuk Records
October 2001
Buy the CD |

Tracklisting

1. "Steadier Footing" – 1:47 lyrics

It's gotten late and now I want to be alone
All of our friends were here, they all have gone home
And here I sit on the front porch watching the drunks stumble forth into the night
"you gave me a heart attack; I did not see you there. I thought you had disappeared so early away from here."
And this is the chance I never got to make a move.
But we just talk about the people we've met in the last 5 years.
And will remember them in ten more?
I let you bum a smoke, you quit this winter past.
I've tried twice before but like this, it just will not last.




2. "A Movie Script Ending" – 4:19 lyrics

Whenever I come back, the air on railroad is making the same sounds.
And the shop fronts on holly are dirty words (asterisks in for the vowels).
We peered through the windows... new bottoms on barstools but the people remain the same, with prices inflating.

As if saved from the gallows.
There's a bellow of buzzers and the people stop working and they're all so excited.

Passing through unconscious states.
When I awoke I was on the highway.

With your hand on my shoulders, a meaningless movement... a movie script ending,
And the patrons are leaving, leaving.

Now we all know the words were true in the sappiest songs (yes, yes).
I'll put them to bed, but they won't sleep, they're just shuffling the sheets, they toss and turn,
(you can't begin to get it back).

Passing through unconscious states.
When I awoke I was on
The onset of a later stage... the headlights are beacons on the highway.

3. "We Laugh Indoors" – 4:58 lyrics

When we laugh indoors, the blissful tones bounce off the walls and fall to the ground.
Peel the hardwood back to let them loose from decades trapped and listen so still.
This city is my home, construction noise all day long and gutter punks are bumming change.
So I breed thicker skin and let me lustrous coat fill in and I’ll never admit that
I loved you Guinevere.

I've always fallen fast with too much trust in the promise that
"no one's ever been here, so you can quell those wet fears."
I want purity, I must have it here right now.
But don't you get me started now.

December's chill comes late, the days get darker and we wait for this direness to pass.
There are piles on the floor of artifacts from dresser drawers, and I’ll help you pack.

4. "Information Travels Faster" – 4:02 lyrics

I intentionally wrote it out to be an illegible mess
You wanted me to write you letters, but I’d rather lose your address
And forget that we'd ever met and what did or did not occur.
Sitting in the station, it's all a blur
Of dancehall hips, pretentious quips.
A boxers, bob and weave.

And here's the kicker of this whole shebang
You're in debt and completely fooled, that you can look into the mirror and objectively rank your wounds.
Sewing circles are not solely based in trades of cloth...
There's spinsters all around here taking notes, reporting on us.

As information travels faster in the modern age, in the modern age
As our days are crawling by so slowly
Information travels faster in the modern age, in the modern age
As our days are crawling by so slowly

Information travels faster in the modern age, in the modern age
As our days are crawling by so slowly
Information travels faster in the modern age, in the modern age
As our days are crawling by so slowly




5. "Why You'd Want to Live Here" – 4:44 lyrics

I'm in Los Angeles today...
It smells like an airport runway.
Jet fuel stenches in the cabin
And lights flickering at random.

I'm in Los Angeles today...
Garbage cans comprise the medians of freeways always creeping
Even when the population's sleeping.

And I can't see why you'd want to live here.

I'm in Los Angeles today...
Asked a gas station employee if he ever had trouble breathing
And he said "It varies from season to season, kid."

It's where our best are on display...
Motion picture actors' houses
Maps are never ever current
So save your film and $15.

And I can't see why you'd want to live here.
Billboards reach past the tallest buildings,
"We are not perfect - but we sure try."
As UV rays "degraded" our youth with time.

The vessel keeps pumping us through this entropic place
In the belly of the beast that is Californ-i-a,
I drank from a faucet and I kept my receipts
For when the weigh me on my way out
(Here nothing is free).
The greyhounds keep coming
Dumping locusts into the street
Until the gutters overflow
And Los Angeles thinks,
"I might explode someday soon."

It's a lovely summer's day
And I can almost see a skyline through a thickening shroud of egos.
(Is this the city of Angeles or demons?)
Here the names are what remain...
Stars encapsulate the gold lame
And they need constant cleaning for when the tourists begin salivating.

You can't swim in a town this shallow - you will most assuredly drown tomorrow.

6. "Blacking Out the Friction" – 3:27 lyrics

I don't mind the weather
I've got scarves and caps and sweaters
I've got long johns under slacks for blustery days.

I think that it's brainless to assume that making changes to your window's view will give a new perspective.

And the hardest part is yet to come

I don't mind restrictions or if you're blacking out the friction
It's just an escape (it's overrated anyways)

The hardest part is yet to come
When you will cross the country alone.

7. "I Was a Kaleidoscope" – 2:50 lyrics

I put on my overcoat and walked into winter - my teeth chattered rhythms
And they were grouped in twos or threes, like a morse code message was sent from me to me. cars on slippery slopes, they're stuck...
People pushing through their mittens as I was beginning to feel it soaking through my shoes, getting colder with every step I took to your apartment, dear.

And I was a kaleidoscope... the snow on my lenses distorting the image of what was only one of you and I didn't know which one to address as all your lips moved.

This is when I forget breathe all the things I scripted, they sound unfounded.
And the look that you're giving me, it tells me exactly what you are thinking...
"this ain't working anymore."

They got their mothers worked into a panic
Sledding down hills into oncoming traffic
The parents layered clothes until the children couldn't move then kept them outside till their noises were blue and I got left there, too.

I put on my overcoat and walked into winter, my teeth chattered rhythms.
And they were grouped in twos or threes like a morse code message was sent from me to me.




8. "Styrofoam Plates" – 5:24 lyrics

There's a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes... I threw them to sea but a gust blew them backwards and the sting in my eyes
That you then inflicted was par for the course just as when you were living.

It's no stretch to say you were not quite a father but a donor of seeds to a poor single mother that would raise us alone, we never saw the money that went down your throat
Through the hole in your belly.

Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver
Standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner at the catholic church. the servers wore crosses
To shield from the sufferance plaguing the others. Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables charity reeks of cheap wine and pity
And I’m thinking of you. I do every year
When we count all our blessings
And wonder what we're doing here.

You're a disgrace to the concept of family
The priest won't divulge that fact in his homily and I’ll stand up and scream
If the mourning remain quiet, you can deck out a lie in a suit but I won't buy it.
I won't join in the procession that's speaking their peace. using five dollar words while praising his integrity. and just cause he's gone it doesn't change the fact... he was a bastard in life thus a bastard in death.




9. "Coney Island" – 2:40 lyrics




Sitting on a carousel ride without any music or light.
Everything was closed at Coney Island, and I could not help from smiling.

I can hear the Atlantic echo back roller coaster screams from summers past.
And everything was closed at Coney Island, and I could not help from smiling.
Brooklyn will fill in the beach eventually and everyone will go except me.
10. "Debate Exposes Doubt" – 4:36 lyrics

The workadays were propping the bar quietly erasing the week and I was in a corner booth thinking
(pretending to read) about the impossibility of one to love unconditionally and the words that we drive into the ground...
Their repetition starts to thin their meaning.

Then everything got frighteningly still as they entered and intersected the floor and I tried to choke my stare at the perfection that others would kill for.
But all of the parts are the same on every face (few variables change).
The differences pale when compared to the similarity they share

Finally there is clarity and there is purpose after all, but every night ends the same as I’m collapsing once more by your side.
Finally there is clarity... this tiny life is making sense. and every drop numbs the both of us, but I alone am staggering.