(50) Sundays of Music: #30

#30: The Postal Service - Give Up

Ah, the stereotypical college years that you "find yourself" with your tastes and views on life changing. I'm no different. During my college years I've found new music styles, new movie tastes and new political and social views that matter to me. I will talk on this subject more as the countdown rolls on, but for now I take you back to my freshman year of college when my roommate had this indie-electronic side project from the guy in Death Cab for Cutie called The Postal Service.

Fun Fact: I actually got into the Postal Service before Death Cab.

My freshman year lineup of roommates (it's changed almost every year) included a guy who would always play his music pretty loud from the other side of the house. I didn't mind 90% of the time because mostly it was good music. I remember hearing the constant beat of "Such Great Heights" coming from his room and becoming intrigued.

However, it wasn't an instant love. Just a curiosity. My next step into diving deeper into this sound came during an English class in my first semester. We were told to analyze a song's lyrics. (sidenote: If I would have been told to do that now, my head would have exploded. But back then Frisco and I decided to analyze two version of "Boys of Summer" if you were interested in what we chose). One girl got up there and discussed "Clark Gable" by the Postal Service. When I got home that day, I went up to my roommate and asked him if I could borrow his cd.

I spent a lot of time with this disc and when I go back to it now, not only is it great music but it brings me back to a time before I had to start making any legitimate decisions in life.

I actually went back to it during my hectic break up in 2008. When trying to figure out what we were doing, I was scrolling through my iPod and came across this disc. I listened to the song "Nothing Better" and it became one of those songs that I actually listened to. For the sake of space, I won't post the lyrics, but check them out for yourself.

Because there has never been a follow up cd and it looks there won't be anytime soon due to the focus on the main bands, I'm going to include a cover of the song "Against All Odds" in today's songs.

Under My Covers, Vol. 4 (Garden State edition)

*So I usually try not to double post on a day, but hey -- first time for everything, right?

*Also, this post is going to be all over the place emotion wise.

So as much as I consider myself knowledgeable in music, I also consider myself somewhat of a movie buff. However, there are still some great movies out there that I haven't seen. Until tonight, one of those movies was Garden State.

I liked it. I think if I would have saw it at a time when everyone else saw it, I would have it up there in my top 10. But as of right now, I can't budge any movies out of there. To me, a really good movie is when I am still thinking about it afterward and this was one of those.

First off, I want to say that I am convinced that the girl I fall for and ultimately be with is someone who shares my taste in music and I find out and immediately become attracted. That is kinda what happened with the Norah chick. I was falling for her because of her playlist, hence the blog nickname. But the scene where Zach Braff meets Natalie Portman and she tells him to listen to the Shins, oh man, I probably would have asked her to marry me right there. I'm not a huge Shins fan or anything, but for a girl to do that is match made in Heaven material.

I related to some of the deep scenes in this movie. Like, the very beginning when it looked like the plane was crashing and he was just all calm. It reminded me of the scene in Fight Club when he prayed for a plane crash. Sometimes, I am just driving and my mind drifts to what would happen if I got in a wreck right at that moment. I know it sounds really weird, but these thoughts come to my head sometimes so it felt good to relate in a way. It's crazy because whether facing a wreck or a plane crashing (i have those images whenever I go to visit Cali) for some reason I am calm about it as well. I'm not ready to die or anything, far from it, but I guess it's just one of those "what are you gonna do about it" kinda things. Also, the scene where he is talking with his dad and he says something along the lines of "we don't have to be happy, we can just be ok being what we are" it made me think of me and my dad's relationship. We have never had that closeness that some father and sons have had, but in the past year or two we have gotten, not closer, but better. And I related somewhat because I think we are both reaching a point where we are ok with being ok.

My only gripe about the movie was at the very end. I liked the scene for what it was, but for the first time in any movie (or wonderfully fantastic tv show) I felt like Braff overacted. When he was talking to her on the steps and when he got her from the phone booth, it was hard to buy into it. But I still liked it. I just wish he would have toned it down a bit.

But of course, what did I like most about the movie? The soundtrack. I mean, the first song was a Coldplay track. For those of you who don't know, Taking Back Sunday and Coldplay alternate between my number 1 and number 2 favorite positions (A Rush of Blog to the Head is a reference to a Coldplay track). But then there was more great music throughout the movie, which prompts today's covers. That's right, two covers.

1) Such Great Heights -- This song was played in the second half of the movie and it was the Iron and Wine version. The original is by the Postal Service on a cd that brings back memories of freshman year of college for me. I love it because both versions are both so different, but sound so great.

Original version by The Postal Service

Cover version by Iron and Wine

2) We Will Become Silhouettes -- Ok, so this song wasn't in the movie. However, the above song was originally by The Postal Service and so is the one below and the cover is by the only band name dropped in the movie -- The Shins. Once again, both versions are different (though, not AS different -- one is just more acoustic). But both, once again, are great.

Original version by The Postal Service

Cover version by The Shins




So there's that.




Random lyric of the day:

We live in a beautiful world,
Yeah we do, yeah we do,
We live in a beautiful world,
Oh, we're sinking like stones,
All that we fought for,
All those places we've gone,
All of us are done for.