A Study of Lyrics.

I have decided that Ben Gibbard is a brilliant lyricist, as well as an excellent singer.

Here are choice selections from each song from Give Up, by The Postal Service.

If you do not have that album, I highly recommend you pick it up, as it is still one of my most listened to albums, even after over a year of listening. I like to describe it as soft, lyrical, pop with an electronic hint.

It is one of the few albums I have bought after only listening to one song, and it was well worth it.

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

I’ll wear my badge: a vinyl sticker with big block letters adhered to my chest
Tells your new friends: I am a visitor here…
I am not permanent
And the only thing keeping me dry is

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key explaining that I’m just visiting
And I am finally seeing why I was the one worth leaving

Such Great Heights

I am thinking it’s a sign
that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images
and when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate
that God himself did make
us into corresponding shapes
like puzzle pieces from the clay

And true, it may seem like a stretch
but its thoughts like this that catch
my troubled head when you’re away
when I am missing you to death
when you are out there on the road
for several weeks of shows
and when you scan the radio
I hope this song will guide you home

Sleeping In

Again last night I had that strange dream
where everything was exactly how it seemed
concerns about the world getting warmer
people thought that they were just being rewarded
for treating others as they’d like to be treated
for obeying stop signs and curing diseases
for mailing letters with the address of the sender
now we can swim any day in november

Nothing Better

Will someone please call a surgeon
Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart
That you’re deserting for better company
I can’t accept that it’s over…
And I will block the door like a goalie tending the net
In the third quarter of a tied-game rivalry

I feel must I interject here you’re getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself
With these revisions and gaps in history
So let me help you remember.
I’ve made charts and graphs that should finally make it clear.
I’ve prepared a lecture on why I have to leave

Tell me am I right to think that there could be nothing better
Than making you my bride and slowly growing old together?

Recycled Air

I watch the patchwork farms’ slow fade into the ocean’s arms
And from here they can’t see me stare
The stale taste of recycled air
I watch the patchwork farms’ slow fade into the ocean’s arms
Calm down, release your cares
The stale taste of recycled air

Clark Gable

I want so badly to believe that “there is truth,
that love is real”
and I want life in every word to the extent
that it’s absurd
i know you’re wise beyond your years, but
do you ever get the feeling
that your perfect verse is just a lie
you tell yourself to help you get by

We Will Become Silhouettes

I wanted to walk through the empty streets
And feel something constant under my feet,
But all the news reports recommended that I stay indoors
Because the air outside will make
Our cells divide at an alarming rate
Until our shells simply cannot hold
All our insides in,
And that’s when we’ll explode
(And it won’t be a pretty sight)

And we’ll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go

This Place Is a Prison

I know there’s a big world out there
like the one i saw on the screen
in my living room late last night
it was almost too bright to see
i know that it’s not a party
if it happens every night
pretending there’s glamour and candelabra
when you’re drinking by candlelight

Brand New Colony

I’ll be the waterwings that save you if you
start drowning and an open tab when your
judgement’s on the brink.
I’ll be the phonograph that plays your favorite
albums back as you’re lying there, drifting off
to sleep… Drifting off to sleep…
I’ll be the platform shoes; undo what heredity’s done to you:
you won’t have to strain to look into my eyes.
I’ll be your winter coat buttoned and zipped
straight to the throat with the collar up so
you won’t catch a cold.

I want to take you far from the cynics in this town
and kiss you on the mouth.
We’ll cut our bodies free from the tethers of
this scene, start a brand new colony.
Where everything will change, we’ll give
ourselves new names. Identities erased.
The sun will heat the grounds, under our bare
feet in this brand new colony.
Brand new colony…

National Anthem

I?ll write you a song and it won’t be hard to sing
it will be a natural anthem, familiar it may seem
it will rally all the workers on strike for better pay
and its chorus will resound and boost morale throughout the day

I?ll write you a song and I hope that you won’t mind
because all the names and places I have taken from real life
so please don’t be upset at this portrait that I paint
it may be a little biased, but at least I spelt your name right…