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Ben Gibbard Quotes

Benjamin Gibbard is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie, with which he has recorded nine studio albums, and as one half of the electronica act the Postal Service. Gibbard released his debut solo album, Former Lives, in 2012, and a collaborative studio album, One Fast Move or I'm Gone , with Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt's Jay Farrar.

While performing guitar in the band Pinwheel, Gibbard recorded a demo cassette under the moniker Death Cab for Cutie, titled You Can Play These Songs with Chords . After receiving a positive response to the material, Gibbard expanded the project into a full band, with the addition of Chris Walla , Nick Harmer and Nathan Good . The following year, the band released its debut album, Something About Airplanes , on Barsuk Records, and released its follow-up, We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, in 2000. Wikipedia  

✵ 11. August 1976
Ben Gibbard photo
Ben Gibbard: 29   quotes 1   like

Famous Ben Gibbard Quotes

“I once knew a girl
In the years of my youth
With eyes like the summer
All beauty and truth
In the morning I fled
Left a note and it read
Someday you will be loved.”

Ben Gibbard

Someday You Will Be Loved
Plans (2005)

“If you tell certain people that you like Kerouac, they assume that’s all you read, like you don’t know anything else about literature. I recognize all the things that people dislike about the way he writes — his tone and the sentimentality of it all. But those books were there for me at a very important point in my life.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, I

“I am waiting for something to go wrong
I am waiting for familiar resolve”

Ben Gibbard

Expo '86
Transatlanticism (2003)

“I don’t spend my time perusing message boards to find out what people think about me or if people think my songs are good or if people love that lyric or this or that. I just want to be happy with it myself — and if other people like it, that’s great.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, III

“You touch her skin
And then you think
That she is beautiful
But she don't mean a thing to me”

Ben Gibbard

Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism (2003)

“And tiny vessels oozed into your neck
And formed the bruises
That you said you didn't want to fade
But they did and so did I that day”

Ben Gibbard

Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism (2003)

Ben Gibbard Quotes about love

“Because of my age and what I do for a living and the amount of time that I’ve spent away from my family and loved ones, I’m starting to relate more to the late-period Kerouac stuff in the way that I once related to the fun and excitement of the early material. There’s a darkness inside of me that I’m only now starting to come to grips with and accept. And it’s starting to scare me.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, I

“It’s amazing to have people singing a song back to you on a stage. It’s great to finish recording a song and play it for your friend, and they love it. That feels good. But nothing feels better than when you’ve finished something and you know it’s good, and you know that those other responses will come in time.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

“Our Youth is fleeting
Old age is just around the bend
And I can't wait to go grey
And I'll sit and wonder
Of every love that could have been
If I'd only thought of something charming to say”

Ben Gibbard

The Sound of Settling
Transatlanticism (2003)

“You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved”

Ben Gibbard

Someday You Will Be Loved
Plans (2005)

“How I wish you could see the potential
The potential of you and me
It's like a book elegantly bound, but
In a language that you can't read just yet You got to spend some time, love
You got to spend some time with me
And I know that you'll find love
I will possess your heart”

Ben Gibbard

I Will Possess Your Heart
Narrow Stairs (2008)

“It seems that you live in someone else's dream
In a hand-me-down wedding dress
With the things that could have been are repressed
But you said your vows and you closed the door
On so many men who would have loved you more”

Ben Gibbard

Cath…
Narrow Stairs (2008)

Ben Gibbard Quotes about people

“An ex-girlfriend once got upset when I told her that music is the most important thing in my life. It’s more important than anyone else could ever be. I don’t want to be overly dramatic and say it’s the only thing that gets me up and keeps me going. But people in your life come and go. As you go through your life, you make friendships, you break friendships, you have relationships. Music is the one thing I’ve always been able to rely on. So why wouldn’t it be the most important thing in my life?”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, III

“I pulled On The Road off the shelf and found myself reading it between classes, and at that time in my life it was exactly what I craved, exactly what I needed to hear. I thought, “That’s the way, that’s the ideal life, that’s great. You get in a car and you drive and you see your friends and you end up in a city for a night and you go out drinking and you catch up and you share these really intense experiences. And then you’re on the road and you’re doing it again.” The romance of the road, particularly from Kerouac’s work, encapsulated how I wanted to live. I found a way to do it by being a musician, which is what I always wanted to be. The traveling and the being on tour and being away from home set a precedent for me where I thought, “Oh yeah, this is how it works.”
But then in reading Big Sur, it’s the end of the road. You end up with a series of failed relationships and you end up being an alcoholic and in your late 30s, and not having any kind of real grip on the lives of the people around you. That’s the potential other end of the spectrum when you’re never tied to anybody or anything. I run the risk of losing touch with the people in my life that mean the most to me because I have made the decision to live like this.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, I

“At some point I thought that, as I got older, I’d come to terms with a lot of things. I’d solve some big problems, and eventually I’d become content. It’s almost more depressing to think that the older you get, the more your problems multiply. When I’m old, I’d like to wake up in the morning and not really do anything — just be happy to exist. I’d like to look at my accomplishments and sit back and revel in my own achievement. But I don’t think that’ll ever happen.
Before I made a living playing music, I used to work shitty job after shitty job and think “Man, as soon as I’m able to make a living in music, it’s really going to come together then, it’s really going be amazing.” I remember hoping there’d be 10 people at a show in 1998 when there was an incredible write-up in the local weekly. I don’t want to go back to that period of being obscure and having nobody know who I am, let alone have to struggle to get people to come to the show. I remember what it was like, and it was shitty.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

“Our band is very polarizing. There are people who absolutely can’t stand us, and people who absolutely can’t live without us. I’d rather spark those kind of polar-opposite feelings than have people be indifferent.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, III

“A lot of the material is about the inevitable disappointment people feel as they move through life, and things don’t feel the way they expect. No experience will ever match up to the idealized version in your mind.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

Ben Gibbard Quotes

“It’s hard enough having a relationship with one person, but to have a relationship with three other bandmates that you are so intimately tied to and you spend so much time with — and to have that actually work and function — is just astounding. I have been in a band for more than 10 years now. I never thought I’d be doing anything for 10 years straight, let alone a band, and I feel so fortunate for that. I have been allowed for some reason to do that. But it’s even more amazing that we get along better now than we did 10 years ago.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, III

Feeling , Time , Personality

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

Ben Gibbard

I Will Follow You Into The Dark
Plans (2005)

Soul

“It wasn't quite what is seemed: a lack of pleasantries
(My able body isn't what it used to be)
I must admit I was charmed by your advances
Your advantage left me helplessly into you”

Ben Gibbard

Title Track
We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes (2000)

“Some fans get genuinely upset if I admit that a song that they held close to their heart was not based on actual events in my life. Like “What Sarah Said”: I was never in a waiting room in a hospital waiting for news that somebody was going to die.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

Life , Waiting , Heart

“I don't think there's necessarily a story, but there's definitely a theme here. One of my favorite kind of dark jokes is, "How do you make God laugh? You make a plan." Nobody ever makes a plan that they're gonna go out and get hit by a car. A plan almost always has a happy ending. Essentially, every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time. I really like the idea of a plan not being seen as having definite outcomes, but more like little wishes.”

Ben Gibbard

On the the title of the Death Cab for Cutie album Plans, as quoted in Mix online (1 January 2006) http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_death_cab_cutie_2/index.html

God , Cars , Idea , Thinking

“I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then i could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that could hold us back”

Ben Gibbard

The New Year
Transatlanticism (2003)

World , Travel , Speed , Training

“As the flashbulbs burst she holds a smile Like someone would hold a crying child Soon everybody will ask what became of you
Your heart was dying fast and you didn't know what to do.”

Ben Gibbard

Cath…
Narrow Stairs (2008)

Smile , Heart , Cry

“At this point in my life, I find myself obsessed with alternate paths I could’ve taken. I don’t think about this with a sense of regret, but with a sense of wonder…”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, III

Life , Thinking , Sense

“I decided a handful of years ago that I just want to write songs that you can understand as soon as you put the record on. There’s no need to veil what’s happening in the song the way I used to.
My goal as a songwriter now is to simply write some memorable turns of phrase.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

Way , Understanding

“I feel like there's a lot of beauty in the darkness of Narrow Stairs, but that's not really a place I'm ready to go to for a while. I'm interested in taking a different approach and having the next record be different in tone — I'm just not interested in making another dark, dark album.”

Ben Gibbard

Death Cab's Ben Gibbard: "The Next Record Will Be Softer" in SPIN magazine (8 October 2008) http://www.spin.com/articles/death-cabs-ben-gibbard-next-record-will-be-softer

Beauty , Feeling

“And it's strange
They are basically the same
So i don't ask names anymore”

Ben Gibbard

Expo '86
Transatlanticism (2003)

“Liking interesting things doesn’t make you interesting.”

Ben Gibbard

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

Making love

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