Ben Gibbard

smeared black ink: your palms are sweaty
and I'm barely listening to last demands
I'm staring at the asphalt wondering
what's buried underneath where I am

I'll wear my badge:
a vinyl sticker with big block letters
adherent to my chest
that 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 am just visiting
and I am finally seeing
why I was the one worth leaving

d.c. sleeps alone tonight

you seem so out of context
in this gaudy apartment complex
a stranger with your door key
explaining that I am just visiting
and I finally seeing
why I was the one worth leaving
the district sleeps alone tonight
after the bars turn out their lights
and send the autos swerving
into the loneliest evening
and I am finally seeing
why I was the one worth leaving"

If I could open my arms
And span the length of the isle of Manhattan
I'd bring it to where you are
Making a lake of the East River and Hudson
If I could open my mouth
Wide enough for a marching band to march out
They would make your name sing
And bend through alleys
and bounce off other buildings

I wish we could open our eyes
To see in all directions at the same time
Oh what a beautiful view
If you were never aware of what was around you
And it is true what you said
That I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again
I'll pull the curtains
and blinds to let the light in

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
Just like a faucet that leaks
and there is comfort in the sound
But while you do,
they're half empty and half full
It slowly rises,
your love is gonna drown

Your love is gonna drown
Your love is gonna drown
Your love is gonna drown
Your love is gonna drown
Your love is gonna...

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel, feel what its like to be new

Cause in my head there's a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they're far more suited than here

I cannot guess what we'll discover
We turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels
But I know our filthy hand can wash one another's
And not one speck will remain

I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
If the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you're the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body

I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
If the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you're the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

Squeaky swings and tall grass
The longest shadows ever cast
The water's warm and children swim
And we frolicked about in our summer skin

I don't recall a single care
Just greenery and humid air
Then Labor day came and went
And we shed what was left of our summer skin

On the night you left I came over
And we peeled the freckles from our shoulders
Our brand new coats so flushed and pink
And I knew your heart I couldn't win
Cause the seasons change was a conduit
And we left our love in our summer skin

Alone on a train
aimless in wonder
An outdated map
crumpled in my pocket
But I didn't care
where I was going
They're all different names
for the same place
Your ghost just appeared
with the scenes from the summer
I have no words to
share with anyone
The boundary of
language quietly coos
All the different names
for the same thing

There are different names
for the same things
There are different names
for the same things
There are different names
There are different names
There are different names
There are different names
There are different names
There are different names
There are different names
different names

There are different names
for the same things
There are different names
for the same things

Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles brusied by a lady in black
And I held my toungue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
Cause we'll hold each other soon
The blackest of rooms

If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark

Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue

Fall fades how it ages when you're away
Spring blooms and you find the love that's true
But you don't know what now to do
Cause the chase is all you know
And she stopped running months ago

And all you see is where else you could be
When you're at home out on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone

The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
And you shed not a single tear
for the things that you didn't need
Cause you knew you were finally free

Cause all you see is where else you could be
When you're at home out on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone

And all you see is where else you could be
When you're at home there on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone

I once knew a girl in the years of my youth
With eyes like the summer of beauty and truth
But in the morning I fled, left a note and it read
Someday you will be loved

I can not pretend that I felt any regret
Cause each broken heart will eventually mend
As the blood runs red down the needle and thread
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved, you'll be loved
Like you never have known
And the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

You may fell alone when you're falling asleep
And every time tears roll down you cheeks
But I know your heart belongs
to someone you've yet to meet
And someday you will be loved

You'll be loved, you'll be loved
Like you never have known
And the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved, you'll be loved
Like you never have known
And the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved
Someday you will be loved

It was one hundred degrees
As we sat beneath a willow tree
Who's tears didn't care,
they just hung in the air
And refused to fall, to fall

And I knew I'd made horrible call
And now the state line felt like the Berlin Wall
And there was no doubt about which side I was on

Cause I built you a home in my heart
With rotten wood, and it decayed from the start
Cause you can't find nothing at all
If there was nothing there all along
No, you can't find nothing at all
If there was nothing there all along

I braved treacherous streets
And kids strung out on homemade speed
And we shared a bed in which I could not sleep
At all, woohoo woohoooo

Cause at night the sun in the tree
Made the skyline look like crooked teeth
In the mouth of a man who was devouring us both

You're so cute when you're slurring your speech
But they're closing the bar
and they want us to leave
And you can't find nothing at all
If there was nothing there all along
No, you can't find nothing at all
If there was nothing there all along

I'm a war of head versus heart
And it's always this way
My head is weak, my heart always speaks
Before I know what it will say

And you can't find nothing at all
If there was nothing there all along
No, you can't find nothing at all
If there was nothing there all along

And it came to me then
That every plan
Is a tiny glance of father time
As I stared at my shoes
In the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409

And I rationed my breaths
As I said to myself
That I'd already taken to much today
As each descending peak
On the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me...

Amongst the vending machines
And year old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye
It's done like a violent limp
That our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds

And I knew that you were truth
I would rather lose
Than to have never laid in the sun at all
Then I looked around
At all the eyes on the ground
As the TV entertained itself

Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous spaces bracing for bad news
Then the nurse comes round
and everyone lifts their head
And I'm thinking of what Sarah said
But love is watching someone die...

So who's gonna watch you die?
So who's gonna watch you die?

Time for the final bow
Rows of deserted houses
All our stable mates are highway bound
Give us our measly sum
Getting the air inside my lungs is heavenly
We're starting out
with nothing but crippling doubt.
We'll rest easy justified
I've suffered a swift defeat
I'll endure countless repeats
The gift of memory's an awful curse.
With age it just gets much worse,
but I won't mind

The atlantic was born today and i'll tell you how
The clouds above opened up and let it out

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean
Making islands where no island should go
Oh no

Those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no

I need you so much closer [x8]

[instrumental break]

I need you so much closer [x4]
So come on, come on [x4]