Luke recommends “Passenger Seat” & “When We Drive” by Death Cab for Cutie
In 2003, when Death Cab released Transatlanticism, and on it the lullaby-like “Passenger Seat,” I was 6-going-on-7. My father was unbuckling me from the passenger seat of the minivan and carrying me, half-asleep, on his shoulder into the house, into bed. I probably wouldn’t actually hear the song itself for another few years, when my parents caught onto Death Cab, but this is still the vignette I see whenever I hear the song today. “Darkest country roads, the strong scent of evergreen.” A question I might have asked: do shooting stars and satellites ever collide, way up there? That’s the sort of naivety the song inhabits, the kind that borders on saccharine but wins you with its earnestness.
And through the years, the song would enter my head almost every time I rode shotgun, no matter who was driving—my older brothers; the boy who liked me in highschool but who I was too afraid to like back; my best friend I’d eventually drift away from in that natural, tragic way. I’m in the passenger seat, and there’s a revolving door of drivers smiling as they ferry me along to wherever it is we’re going, my feet on the dash.
Then, about 15 years later, Death Cab released Thank You for Today, and on it the breezier but no less incantatory “When We Drive.” The song is a mirror to “Passenger Seat,” I like to think. Or maybe a response to “Passenger Seat’s” call. Less naive (“I can’t expect you to be honest / or to be faithful every day to the end”), more responsible (“Climb into the back seat and close your eyes / I’ve got the wheel.)” When I first heard it, I was driving my little sister home from after-school gymnastics, the sky dark and the roads icy, and I was buffeted by something like déjà vu. I nearly had to pull over.
Here, more than a decade later, Death Cab had completed a strange, small, and wonderful little sonic universe populated only by two people who wanted nothing more than to enjoy a moment together. Their characters are neatly shorthanded into “driver” and “passenger,” guardian and ward. Their relationship is defined in the simple terms of time, experience, and the center console between them.
Now, of course, I am both. My boyfriend and I swap driving duties as we make our way south to his mom’s house for the holiday. He places his hand on my thigh when mine is on the wheel, and when he drives he sneaks smiling glances my way as I watch out the window, my hand on his thigh, now.
We’re passenger and driver. I think maybe that’s what these songs are saying—I think maybe that’s all anyone ever is.
Luke Larkin lives and works in Missoula, Montana, where he earned his MFA from the University of Montana. His work has been featured or is forthcoming in places like HAD, Sonora Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and others. He edits the magazine Unstamatic.
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