I got a turntable for Christmas, and of the first few albums I bought to kick off my collection, I didn’t expect for the best sounding to be Give Up. Ben Gibbard’s voice would sound beautiful coming out of anything, but the album’s music pings out of the speakers and reverberates off our wood paneled living room walls, each beat a revelation.
Give Up is one of the first albums of my real-grown-up life, the life I live here. My first life out of my parent’s house or a dorm room. I never listen to albums when I am supposed to, nor do I listen to them how I am supposed to. Albums happen to me, a few songs collected here or there, perhaps, before I eventually pick up the whole thing. Give Up happened piecemeal, first the Iron and Wine version of “Such Great Heights,” then the Postal Service version. Then, a gifted burned cd of Ben Gibbard singing live, right around the time both Give Up and Transatlanticism were released. On that cd, Gibbard sings “Brand New Colony” with an acoustic guitar, and I had never loved a song more.
I was crazy, then, so there was a lot of that feeling. I loved songs and boys more than I ever thought I had.
The rest of the album came in medical school, here. We left an Indian restaurant and played the album in the car. I recognized the words of the first song from someone else (see above, boys and songs), but I had never heard them sung.
Joe had worked at the NIH before coming here, and he said that it was true, all of “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight,” everything about how young people live in that city. The gaudy apartment complexes outside of town, the commutes, a whole city of young people sleeping alone. He said it every time we listened to it, until I pointed out that he always said the same thing. Then, he never said it again, and I missed it. I knew as soon as I pointed it out that it was the last time I would hear it.
Right before Ryan left for the NIH, I burned him a cd of just that song, and I told him what Joe had said about it. After he died, I kept the playlist in the sidebar, labeled “For Ryan,” until iTunes spontaneously deleted it, and I cried.
I haven’t been to DC since I was 10. There were times when I was supposed to go, and the flight got canceled or we were too tired to drive over there. A lot of missed opportunities, but I imagine I’ll get there some day. Still, so many of the people I love have spent time passing through there, and since I have loved them, I have in some way loved it too.
The last phrase of the chorus, the last words of the song, they kick like they are supposed to:
And I am finally seeing why I was the one worth leaving.
The district sleeps alone tonight, and I miss my friend so very much. I hate people leaving, and I hate things changing, and I hate it when things are not like I want them to be. But I am lucky that I don’t sleep alone, not tonight or any night. And sometimes the leaving hurts just right, and sometime this song helps me remember that too.
