bengibbardpoetry

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Creative Research

Ben Gibbard’s biggest struggles have been with depression and alcoholism, which he writes about most frequently in his music. As a straight white rich liberal man, he addresses gender, race, class, sexuality, and violence indirectly and mostly through a political lens on social media and in particular political music releases, but fails to address them directly in his music. He faces alcoholism and depression personally, so these issues rise to the top of his art. In some cases, his music actually negatively addresses issues such as gender. 

Ben Gibbard works with gender in his music through the lens of relationships. He often portrays himself as a bad partner who is taking advantage of or hurting women. In A Diamond and a Tether, he writes about how he will string women along and lead them on but never commit. In Someday You Will Be Loved and in Tiny Vessels, he writes about disappearing on and abandoning women. I have been investigating how Ben Gibbard maintains power as a man who gets to choose which women to give sexual and romantic attention to and these works display typical gender dynamics in sexual scenarios. In I Will Possess Your Heart, he writes from the perspective of a stalker who believes he has power over women. While I Will Possess Your Heart is more of a commentary against the stalker in the style of Nirvana’s Polly, Diamond and a Tether, Someday You Will Be Loved, and Tiny Vessels feel more like confessional songs that show him genuinely taking advantage of gender power dynamics.  

He lacks to comment on sexuality, as all of his romances have been straight and he writes about himself or characters similar to himself. Similarly, he mostly lacks to address race in his work. His band is all white and he is from a very white area in Seattle. The only time he recognized race was by covering music of many Black artists from the state of Georgia in his Georgia EP when Georgia voted blue in 2020. This brings up the question for me of how an artist should be writing about sexuality and race when the artist is straight and white and writing mostly about their own experiences. On social media, Ben Gibbard recognizes his privilege through political story posts, but I do not see this in his music outside of purely political songs. 

His music has addressed class through much of their political work, such as the album We Have The Facts and We’re Voting Yes and the song Million Dollar Loan where he makes fun of Donald Trump’s comments on the “small million dollar loan” he received from his father. He writes about being poor as a young singer on tour, writing “We lived off whiskey and twizzlers and youths discontent”, and “Always rolled into a pillow on some strangers floor” in Rand McNally. The energy is less of a commentary and more nostalgic for simpler youthful times. Ben Gibbard grew up middle-lower class and did write Styrofoam Plates about a character getting free church Thanksgiving dinner on a styrofoam plate after their alcoholic father used all of the money and then died. Overall, his music addresses class in an indirect way. Death Cab for Cutie responded to violence directly by not releasing their music video Roman Candles in the wake of a school shooting (https://americansongwriter.com/in-wake-of-texas-school-shooting-death-cab-for-cutie-does-not-release-new-music-video/), yet has not written many songs about violence. Even relationship songs do not depict any physical violence. I wonder why this is the case.

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Symbols

A hole

The glove compartment

A hickey

A tour bus

Kintsugi

The Atlantic Ocean

Alcohol

A sunburn

The trail

Asphalt 

Plans

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Revised: Research Questions

Ben Gibbard’s more successful albums have been the ones he wrote about and from heartbreak, depression, and alcoholism. What does it mean to profit off of your own suffering? To what extent is Ben writing about his struggles as a means of achieving success, versus seeking relief through the validation and attention of others on his pain?

If Ben Gibbard had never been heartbroken, would he still have become a songwriter? If I had never been lonely, would I still have become a writer?

Ben Gibbard writes about women as both deeply wanted and emotionally disposable - was he searching for connection, or for the validation of being the one who gets to choose who to give attention to? As a woman, when I receive attention, is it a gift or a liability? Is being wanted power, or is it just being at someone else’s mercy?

Ben Gibbard has had to give up many close connections for a life on the road full of recognition and fame. What is more satisfying and desireable - being liked and approved by many or being known intimately?

When Gibbard wrote “you are beautiful, but you don’t mean a thing to me,” was he confessing his own detachment, or was he performing heartbreak for an audience? When I write about sadness, am I exposing my real self, or crafting a version of myself that demands to be seen?

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Revised: How Ben Gibbard is a metaphor for me

Ben Gibbard is a metaphor for me because of both our desires to be seen. With Ben Gibbard, I can explore the third metaphorical space of the human desire to be paid attention to, both in a broader sense by society and in a personal sense by lovers and friends. As the frontman of Death Cab For Cutie, Ben Gibbard is the most visible artist of his band and his fans hold a constructed image of him in their head from what he puts out on social media, his lyrics, and news sources. Gibbard has said in interviews that his lyrics often reflect his stories and emotions, yet many are fictionalized or exaggerated. Although I am not a famous star with fans, I often wonder where the line between my constructed identity and true self lies and is blurred. I consider myself to be an adventurous hiker and skier and project this identity on my social media with adventure videos and selected photos. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve convinced myself of this identity and the way I act is influenced by that. I find myself struggling to go on a solo adventure like a ski tour without taking photos of it or talking about it at all. Similarly, I consider myself to be an artist, but I feel the need to show my art and craft journal to anyone who cares to see it. Just as Gibbard creates music to be heard, I want my art to be seen. What is the value and meaning of building yourself around activities that require an audience? Ben Gibbard has said that his worst fear isn’t bad reviews, but indifference and although it feels complicated and even self-centered, if I am being completely honest, I often feel the same way about my personality.

While some of Ben Gibbard’s songs are fictionalized, many of them are about his loneliness, heartbreak, and other dark times in his life. The albums he has written after his divorce and during his alcoholism and depression have been some of the most successful. His lyrics are a vessel for his emotions and a way of being seen. He also struggles to retain close friends because of years of being on the road. We both are looking for ways to be seen intimately. When I am lonely and sad, I immediately feel a strong need to tell my friends and family about it. I feel as if others close to me can see my internal struggles, then they are validated. I have a deep need to have friends pay attention to my inner struggles and emotions. Ben Gibbard puts his challenges out on a much larger scale, is lonely without close friends, and has the same human need to be paid attention to intimately. 

Outside of friends and family, I also have a strong desire to be paid attention to romantically and sexually. Ben Gibbard has written many songs about his similar needs and his frequent power role of being the one to decide which woman he gives his attention to.

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How Ben Gibbard is a metaphor for me

I consider a core root of who I am to be the battle between my adventurous spirit that wants to live on the run and my lonely self that requires deep consistent relationships who know me to my core. Ben Gibbard is a metaphor for me by representing this battle. In one way, Ben Gibbard represents the dream life and energy I am chasing and trying to design myself around by being born out of the Pacific Northwest indie music scene. He is an alternative, NorthFace, complex, artsy person who writes angsty music between his ultramarathons in the mountains. The existence of him draws me to Seattle and encourages me to leave my family and friends behind in pursuit of this dream energy. Simultaneously, Ben vocalizes my loneliness, my desire to be loved, and my dependence on deep relationships. I find myself listening and appreciating his music as true art because of how sad it is, and feeling like the most quality music is the saddest music. While my loneliness drives me to listen to this music, listening to this music makes me lonelier. These two parts of myself are in battle because they naturally contradict each other – being on the run prevents me from putting down deep roots, and putting down deep roots holds me back from adventure. Ben Gibbard himself represents the battle between these two pieces of myself because his albums and eras of his life lie similarly in stark contrast and he writes music from the pain of being pulled by many different things.

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Guidelines and Parameters

I want to use Ben Gibbard’s work as gift, but I want to cite him when I use his words or ideas.

I think it is okay to embody Ben’s experiences that are not mine as long as I cite him when used explicitly enough

The fact that Ben Gibbard leads a somewhat similar life with similar values to my own and is from a similar demographic makes it easier for me to embody his ideas and feel okay embodying them.

I recognize that Ben uses artistic liberty when writing songs and all of his lyrics are not necessarily a direct reflection of his life and feelings. For example, the whole Kintsugi album may not necessarily reflect his true and complete feelings on his ex-wife as internet circles often claim. Therefore, when writing about Ben himself, I will not use only lyrics to tell me about who he is and will be careful to use interviews as well.

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Kintsugi

How does Ben practice Kintsugi with his life, emotions, and exaggeration to build art?

You’ve had your head and heart so deep

you’re stumbling over yourself. Then you fall

Wasted all the time

I've been so active.

Improvisational.

I’m a songwriter. 

It’s fucking incredible.

I ate, slept, and dreamt

running around like a fucking crazy person.

I was drinking a lot.

the surgeon 

strips away ego, the place in the world you’ve built for yourself

in this unorthodox set up.

that technique is metaphorically what I’ve been trying to do with songwriting all of these years.

Kintsugi. 

refining how I’m able to talk.

Emotions, life, exaggeration – what gives Ben art to build?

A lot of people who claimed they wouldn’t license themselves

lose money.

I started

talking about my recovery

truly love

I’m writing for myself

For any asshole

what I feel. 

If I’m not crying 

I’m not doing it right.

I still want to be cool. 

My feelings have been hurt.

Does art build Ben or does Ben build art?

Kintsugi. 

That word connected with me. 

My first sex.

It feels like time is slipping away at an increasing rate with every year.

Every fucking interview,

the indie rock illuminati 

start the press cycle.

I was drinking a lot.

It’s failed. 

Other than trying to be cool, 

you have bills to pay.

We were burned out, 

just about to blow his nose, 

cram as much into it as I can.

I’d just found a new toy.

How does Ben build his life with gold-lined cracks of exaggeration?

if a war had been raged between the indie rock gatekeeper and Death Cab For Cutie, Death Cab won.

I’m chasing that 

Silver Bullet. 

drunk and disorderly or sleeping around

to get the courage 

and feed our families. 

people were in the palm of our hands.

If I push past the point of exhaustion, there’s a euphoria I find.

How do emotions art Ben’s life?

Every spectrum of emotion is being shot out of my body as a bolt of light.

It’s such a fucking hippie thing to say, but it’s true.

For all of the damage,

Snarky and mean,

Fuck it man. 

No person,

no drug has ever offered me that. words taken from Ben Gibbard's interview https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/ben-gibbard-death-cab-for-cutie and his idol Davy Jones' interview https://www.classicbands.com/DavyJonesInterview.html

Each line break represents where I start a new line from the interview.

[bengibbardpoetry]

Ben Gibbard

Ben Gibbard is the lead singer and songwriter of Death Cab For Cutie.

Ben Gibbard is the singer of the Postal Service, Pinwheel, and solo albums.

Ben Gibbard is the reason I want to live in the Pacific Northwest.

Ben Gibbard is the artist who sings me to sleep when I am restless.

Ben Gibbard is the artist who sings me to wake and dress when I am unmotivated.

Ben Gibbard is the reason I like poetry.

Ben Gibbard is the inspiration behind my emotions.

Ben Gibbard is the example I use to contextualize my own stories and feelings.

Ben Gibbard is the way I understand relationships.

Ben Gibbard is the reason my Dad and I talk about music.

Ben Gibbard is the reason I listen to rock.

Ben Gibbard is the reason I think of metaphors for things that happen in my life.

Ben Gibbard is the root of how I can talk about music with my friends.

Ben Gibbard is the man that comforts me when I don’t feel like myself.

Ben Gibbard is associated with my young teenage years.

Ben Gibbard is associated with my father.

Ben Gibbard is associated with long car rides to Newry, Maine at night.

Ben Gibbard is associated with self-discovery in my early ctollege years.

Ben Gibbard is the writer of music that I believe to be a part of my core.

Ben Gibbard is the reason I worry about boys’ ulterior motives.

Ben Gibbard is the way I consider scenarios from different perspectives.

Ben Gibbard is a man with flaws, who has done bad things.

Ben Gibbard is a creator of descriptions of emotions that I’ve felt.

Ben Gibbard is the soundtrack I cry to.

Ben Gibbard is the soundtrack I ski to.

Ben Gibbard is the soundtrack I drive to, happily, in the sun, with wind in my ears.

Ben Gibbard is on a poster in my dorm room.

Ben Gibbard is going to be a trigger for me when my dad dies.

Ben Gibbard is in my memories at three concerts.

Ben Gibbard is on three T-shirts I own.

[bengibbardpoetry]

Your Heart is an Empty Room

dark, dark room, red trim

I’m alone and surrounded

outside, the sun rains

[bengibbardpoetry]

Dad at Night

2012

Under the great dark sky, I

peel marshmallow off my oiled cheeks and strain

your neck like it is my

neck as I sit on your knee and warm my eyes

by the bonfire you built and

swallow your music until it becomes mine. You try

picking satellites like blueberries to

beat my count and win our nightly contest but I tell 

you of one so faint that the 

milk of extra time on your pupils and difference 

in our range secures my win between

the umbrella pines and thick smoke and pangs of shooting 

in the far woods. Sly stars 

slide through space when I stare directly at them and 

become false satellites,

tricking my eyes until they reappear. Do

you think they 

know when we are staring? Let my head collide

with your shoulder. I 

am tired now. Tomorrow we will hike and I can ask 

Mom if she’ll come too and 

then we’ll have another night sky and fire you 

will build and I will smile.

2024

Satellites, Dave Matthews Band. I

-roned into my head from strain

-ing ears to identify Dad’s songs. My

fire flickers in his oak-scarred eyes

to the strums of DMB while my beer flattens and

I think to myself we haven’t bonfired in months although I’m try

-ing to come home more often to

keep him from counting satellites in only his skin when he tell 

-s me about his solitude and my belly wrinkles at the 

thought of his aging and the difference 

he put in my eyes and my brain. Between

hiking and shooting 

I think of him every time I see stars 

with my friends and 

they don’t know about counting satellites.

I keep satellites of myself do

-tting the woods around our fireplace. They 

let eleven y/o me collide

with twenty-one y/o me and I 

wish we could still hang out every day. I ask 

for money and 

tells me “I love you”

and I smile.

Golden Shovel Poem, using lyrics from "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie

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My Research Questions

Are all of Ben’s stories in his songs true or are some invented?

If they are all true, how is he able to write deep dark songs when he is in a happy peaceful time of his life?

How is Ben able to write stories where he is the bad guy or has treated others badly in relationships without feeling judged by his current partner and friends?

How has the state of Ben’s emotions and life affected his art?

When writing darker narratives, is there a conscious decision to exaggerate certain feelings, or do they emerge naturally from his experiences?

[bengibbardpoetry]

Digital Writers Notebook

This notebook is a space to explore the poetry and emotions woven into Ben Gibbard’s lyrics. I will analyze his transition from challenges with alcohol, relationships, and depression into recovery and track how his art was affected during those changes. I will trace the connections between Death Cab for Cutie’s music and my own life, from nostalgic memories of my childhood in Maine and the early influences of family and self-discovery, to my love for words. I’ll also focus on the beauty of concept albums and analyze his, including Transatlanticism, Kintsugi, and Asphalt Meadows.