Oh Death Cab for Cutie, How I love thee: Part 1

Yep, Death Cab for Cutie gets two posts, because that is how much I love them.

If you don’t know of them, they’re a prolific indy band from the Pacific Northwest. I love their songs because they sound all tinkly and light and ethereal, although marvelously harmonic and layered. THEN they hit you with the crazy hardcore lyrics, like “Love is watching…someone die…” Nice, yes?

I will begin by saying I was late to the DCFC party. I started liking them 26 months ago. I know this because I was punkin pregnant with Baby W. I bought the CD at Target, on one of those last minute “Holy ^&^% I’m so pregnant I’d better buy diapers” runs. Then I proceeded to listen to it over and over and over again,for two days, till E and J couldn’t help but sing along. I was especially fascinated with a song called “Soul Meets Body”. Wonder why?

Here’s the song:

So after the two days, I picked Dan up at the airport. It was a Monday night…he’d been in Moscow playing a one-off. I wasn’t due for another two weeks, and I never go early. Right? Righhhhhht…

I said I would take the kids to school, so he could recover from what must have been some pretty brutal jetlag…48 hours to Russia and back will do it. But instead, I woke up at 5:30 am saying, “This can’t be labor…I never go early!” Except when I do. So my folks came over, and we got in the minivan and hopped on 270 to go to the now-defunct Maternity Center. Without thinking, I popped in DCFC’s “Plans” CD between contractions. Then we sat in traffic, waiting for Soul to Meet body smack dab in the middle of morning rush hour.

The chorus of the song is “A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere…” and I remember my brain jaggedly thinking, “Bull^%$%: Japanese bullet train through my hoochie.” We considered pulling over and calling 911, as the boy appeared to be coming even faster then his 2 hour sister counterpart. As we sat, van not moving, I cried, not because it hurt (it did though, uh-huh) but because everything was going to change. The next time we strapped our seat belts on, we’d be in charge of a family of five and it freaked me out. I kind of sort of knew that the whole pregnancy, but there’s nothing like labor to drive home the reality of a baby.

Then I heard the closing chorus of Soul Meets Body, and I calmed down. I knew it would be ok…I knew that we just needed to get this little soul out into the world, and then we’d put one foot in front of the other. And everything would change, and it would be the new normal. Now, of course, I can’t imagine this earth without my little punk^%$. And I swear to you, he relaxes and goes to sleep every time I play “Plans”.

(We did make it to the birth center, and actually had a nice relaxing two hour labor…actually made it into the hot tub that time! E was too fast.)

Made a bunch of cookies for J’s class tonight, so off to eat some and try to talk Dan into turning on The Office for me. Susan B (Trout Towers in my Blogroll!) and I met in real life yesterday, and had much fun discussing the wiring hazards of being married to an audiophile. (We both have one!) They’re just too good at hooking stuff up…or else we don’t have the mad skillz. Susan, I will see you at the Beachcomber ASAP!

xoxo all,
L