Revisiting Records: Death Cab for Cutie's Narrow Stairs
This is the first story in a series in which I revisit albums and discuss them in detail. I would like to extend great thanks to Malcolm Williamson, who edited this piece.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F35128179-aa5b-42b9-bccf-48b0c363b96f_1200x1200.jpeg)
Death Cab for Cutie’s Narrow Stairs
Death Cab for Cutie released Narrow Stairs on May 12th, 2008. It’s the third album in a trilogy of their most honest, effective, and best records: Transatlanticism, Plans, and Narrow Stairs. That’s a big, subjective statement. During this time period Death Cab for Cutie was producing music at their highest level - not just great songs, but material that matched their skills and ideas the best, music that sounded truest to themselves. Of the trilogy, Narrow Stairs has some of the most interesting things going on. I come back to it year after year, and end up discovering new things and enjoying it in a new light. This is a hallmark of all great records - they are timeless.
It’s hard to analyze records that you think are great without bringing along personal attachments. The aspiring audio engineer is constantly bewildered by each record they check out, asking themselves “how did they do that?” Pursuing the answer to this question after having this experience keeps you on the path to becoming a recording engineer. Returning to these formative records with experience in record making and critical listening adds a whole new dimension to these albums. I had this experience with Narrow Stairs. It was an impactful album for me when I was discovering alternative music as a young person. Later on, I decided I wanted to pursue a life in recording, and while at Ithaca College studying Sound Recording Technology, Narrow Stairs became even more important. This discussion will be biased in favor of Narrow Stairs (I’ve set it up as revisiting a great record!). I am not attempting to present a critique. As will be the same with all following revisiting records installments. In fact, I find the whole premise of critiquing music flawed, but as usual we are approaching an entirely different topic. I consider what follows an analysis and discussion.
A rock band
If you peel back the layers on Narrow Stairs, and ignore the label of Death Cab for Cutie as an “emo” band in the indie music scene of the late ‘90s and 2000s, it’s simply a rock album. Yes, we could discuss what level of “heaviness” defines rock, so we could stretch to say it’s an indie rock / alternative rock album. But with a simple view of just the word “rock” we can more fully appreciate this record and the band that Death Cab for Cutie was at this time. The first two tracks, “Bixby Canyon Bridge” and “I Will Posses Your Heart,” set up this idea. “Bixby Canyon Bridge” features a loud staccato riff based verse, a heavy jam section that dissolves into raucous noise, and a vocal tone that sounds like Ben Gibbard is singing through an old amplifier at a house show. Death Cab had experimented with heavier tones before (“Scientist Studies,” “The New Year,” “Expo ’86,” “Tiny Vessels” all come to mind), but this song strikes me as the first in which that sound is the bedrock. This song feels like it’s coming from a seasoned band that has been playing together for years but have never used a distortion pedal until now. Like you’re seeing a band known for its clean guitar tones dig in at a live show and play really loud. Spurred on by volume, distortion, and energy, the band begins to play wildly. I like to say this is “a band playing out” - performing live, playing off each other, playing more actively, playing with more embellishment, taking risks, playing loud. Playing like a rock band!
“I Will Possess Your Heart” features a four minute and thirty second opening jam based around a memorable bass riff that grounds the listener, with the entire band contributing developmental material on top of this. If you were listening to Death Cab around the time of We Have The Facts and are Voting Yes, and someone stepped out of a time machine from the future and told you that in four albums they’d be doing a jam such as this, you’d be surprised! And not because someone just stepped out of a time machine! As an aside, I imagine there were a lot of old school fans that thought the Transatlanticism - Plans - Narrow Stairs series was a very negative departure from Death Cab’s indie / emo beginnings.
The features of these first two songs - rawness, embellishment, long jams, distortion - set up a “straight up rock band” sound as the foundation for the rest of the album. Even though later songs might move a bit away from this sonic world, since the first two start this way, the lens with which I listen to the album is set here. These features make these two songs and the album itself stand out a bit from Death Cab’s catalog up until this point. That being said, they still feel like Death Cab for Cutie songs. The key to the Death Cab sound is the concise, tightly written song in service of a clear story and emotional impact. A simple song structure, a catchy motif that is developed (usually a guitar, bass, or piano riff), and excellent lyrics. Ben Gibbard’s songwriting is the forefront of the band, and this comes through just as strong as on their previous records and at times even stronger on Narrow Stairs. The tonal journey of “Bixby” matches the journey in the lyrics: The narrator is descending the Bixby Canyon, unsure of their place in the world, discovering that they still have a long, unknown path before them. The track progresses in it’s loudness through each verse until it reaches a long, raucous jam over which Gibbard vamps on singing “a dream.” The persistent and escalating opening of “I Will Possess Your Heart” matches the feeling of longing in the songwriting: the music literally makes you long for the beginning of the song. The bass riff’s monotonous nature makes you ask yourself, “is it every going to change?” The same feelings can be said about the story told, in which the narrator yearns for someone’s love. Elements like these have been present in Death Cab’s previous productions, it just feels like on Narrow Stairs that they are embracing the tonal world of being a “straight-up rock band.” The recording process further embraces this mentality: live in the studio (mainly), straight to tape. It’s a rock and roll, even punk approach: show up with your gear, plug in, sound great.
I imagine the band had wanted to embrace this sound more fully prior to Narrow Stairs. I think of the aforementioned songs with heavier sections - particularly “Expo ’86” and “Tiny Vessels” - this is a band that wants to get raucous, and not just for one song on the record or one moment in the set.
Jason McGerr
Narrow Stairs may be the first record from Death Cab for Cutie where the great dummer Jason McGerr brings his chops a little more to the forefront. Previously, on Transatlanticism and Plans, McGerr’s drumming shined in its subtly. When the groove feels great you don’t always notice it; it supports the song and propels it forward. A great example is “Lightness” off of Transatlanticism. When you get into this track you realize the drum groove is so solid yet nuanced - it provides a bedrock, adds to the song’s motion and development, and even tells a story in itself. A lovely detail is McGerr’s placement of rim shot snare hits in key places in the groove to create this sonic narrative. McGerr still does this kind of thing on Narrow Stairs, but the playing is largely more active. In the jam section before the ending of “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” in the opening jam of “I Will Posses Your Heart,” in the last chorus of “Cath…”, just to name a few, McGerr plays much more actively while still keeping the strong foundation. This sound further enforces the “straight-up rock band,” “band playing out” vibe. McGerr is an incredibly musical drummer, and his playing is filled with such important nuance. There are many videos of him showcasing his skills online [1, 2].
The traits I’ve outlined in McGerr’s playing allow him to effectively replace the metronome in a production, himself and his playing becoming the new rhythmic center. A mentor of mine called a drummer’s ability to do this “moving the click.” Playing to a click track is very important in music production for a myriad of reasons. But a static pulse can sometimes make certain styles of music feel lifeless. The drummer playing to a click track can subtly shift elements of their playing, can move notes forward or back in a beat, can shift a beat forward or back in respect to the click, to maintain a sense of life in a groove and a song. When this is done well the effect is the feeling that the click is now following the drummer, not the other way around. The drummer is “moving” the click in reference to their playing, now “the clock” in the song. This was instilled in me as a very important concept when I was learning the basics of producing, playing, and rhythm. McGerr is an example of a drummer who can “move the click.” At the end of [2], a poorly edited video that unfortunately cuts out key moments, McGerr is discussing how he shifts his playing perspective to create a specific rhythmic world for the beat that is the backbone of “I Will Possess Your Heart.”
Full Band Input
Narrow Stairs credits Harmer and McGerr for songwriting more than on previous records. On Transatlanticism, the full band has writing credits on two songs, and Harmer has a writing credit on one additional song. On Plans, the full band has writing credits on one song, and Harmer has a writing credit on one additional song. On Narrow Stairs, the full band has writing credits on one song, Harmer has a writing credit on three additional songs, and McGerr has a writing credit on one additional song. There is more full band input here, and the sonics show this. In a 2018 consequence.net article, Nina Corcoran notes: “Ten years since its release, it’s clearer than ever that Narrow Stairs was an experimentation in letting the band create atmospheres that didn’t need Gibbard’s storytelling to convey their core sentimentality.” I largely agree with this statement. I would add that these “atmospheres” offer great support to Gibbard’s songwriting, pushing the overall sonic space and emotional characteristics of each song to a different space than where they would have been previously. Yes, there is something to be said for the concise arrangement in which the main narrative is the driving force that takes center stage. I think of Plans in this way. Sometimes this results in a stronger emotional impact (keep it simple, stupid). But a strong song coupled with extremely strong support (“atmosphere”) produces a different kind of emotional impact that is just as effective. The presence of this supporting contribution provides new material to discover upon each listen, further deepening your emotional response and connection with the music.
Chris Walla
I’ll discuss in a bit the idea of researching an album’s recording techniques. It’s also important to research the producer and/or engineer, see what they like to do, see what kind of things they’ve done before. The production of all of Death Cab for Cutie’s records up until Narrow Stairs established Chris Walla as a skilled producer and recording engineer. His work with The Decemberists and Tegan and Sara around this time only add to this. Walla is still producing records, but my following comments relate to Walla during the Narrow Stairs era. From my research of Walla, he seems like a producer who follows the song and lets things move organically. He’s not often doing experiments during a recording session. This is not a criticism - in fact from my perception and taste this is a compliment and a skill I try to develop constantly. Plans was the band’s first digital recording, recorded on the RADAR 24 system, but Walla decided to go back to tape for Narrow Stairs. This is interesting and adds to the maybe even more hands-off approach Walla took on Narrow Stairs. In Death Cab for Cutie songs produced by Walla, especially those in the Transatlanicism-Plans-Narrow Stairs trilogy, the arrangements fit the songs perfectly - an added acoustic guitar layer here, a piano overdub there, etc. I believe this is all Walla’s doing. When you listen to Narrow Stairs with these ideas in mind, you can hear Walla, through his production and mixing, carry each song to its fullest potential.
Investigating Recordings
I had a mentor in college who encouraged us to be recording sleuths. Internet and social media make it extremely easy to research how an album was recorded (down to technical details). You couldn’t do this back in the day! Unless an artist is pretty secretive about their projects, or doesn’t post to the internet, you’ll likely be able to find Instagram and Facebook posts from them, their bandmates, the engineer, the studio, etc. that show the time when they were in studio working on the record. You may also be able to get information from promotional material released by the artist or the label. Technical credits are becoming less common, which is extremely unfortunate, but around the time when Narrow Stairs was released, you could purchase the CD and look up the names of everyone credited in the liner notes. Recorded at The Hall Of Justice (Chris Walla’s studio) for example? Maybe they have a website (they probably do!), maybe that website has a gear list (it probably does!). Maybe Tape Op - the excellent recording magazine - has an interview with Chris Walla! (There are a couple, this being the first.)
For Narrow Stairs, there is a lot out there to digest. Most important is this “live in the studio” YouTube video that Death Cab for Cutie recorded shortly before Narrow Stairs came out. Videos like this are a gold mine of insight into an album’s recording process. Sure, this is a live-in-the-studio video - recording choices may have been different, but there is still a ton of information. It is fun to play a gear version of “I Spy” here.
As you progress on your recording journey, you start “hearing mixes.” Once you’ve done enough recording and especially mixing, you start to get a pretty good idea for how broad and specific sounds were achieved in a mix. These ideas can be reinforced by researching the album’s recording process. And if you know an album was live tracked, these ideas (and thus this exercise and process of “hearing”) can come together pretty quickly. Then, it becomes more about guessing the signal chain. You’re never exactly right, but it’s good fun, and it helps your ear. It can be good practice to do this guessing, and then research the album to analyze your thoughts. On Narrow Stairs I can hear Walla moving faders and performing the mix. The mix is breathing in and out with the performance, it’s nothing fancy but it’s perfect. A good performance mixes itself, and I can hear Walla giving it that extra life. All of these things are informed by my research into the album’s recording process.
The Open Door EP
Death Cab for Cutie has kept a good practice of frequently releasing extended plays around album releases that feature live performances or tracks that didn’t make the full album release. The Open Door EP was released in March of 2009 (about a year after the release of Narrow Stairs) and contains 4 tracks recorded during the Narrow Stairs sessions that didn’t make the album (“Little Bribes,” “A Diamond and a Tether,” “My Mirror Speaks,” and “I Was Once a Loyal Lover”), and a demo recording of “Talking Bird.” Interestingly enough, the EP was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album for the 2010 Grammy awards. Narrow Stairs was nominated for the same award in 2009. The songs on this release offer interesting insight into the production and songwriting process of Narrow Stairs - they illuminate some attributes that perhaps made these songs not make the cut, and highlight some other ideas Ben Gibbard was experimenting in songwriting at the time.
Retrospective
I mentioned before that I consider Death Cab for Cutie’s succession of Transatlanticism, Plans and Narrow Stairs a trilogy of their best records. Codes and Keys, the record after Narrow Stairs, I really like - but on this record we saw the beginning of what the band has now become. On Codes and Keys the band started to introduce sequenced sounds and drum machines. I’m all for this, but the records following Codes and Keys fail to hit the mark for me. In hindsight, I bet that Walla’s production and direction made Codes and Keys a successful project. Again, I don’t want to get into critique territory - I’m not a music critic and I in fact despise the idea of a music critic. The introduction of sequenced and grid-locked material to Death Cab for Cutie songs goes against everything that I’ve said is working so well on Narrow Stairs - a band playing live. I saw Death Cab for Cutie for the second time in 2015 after they released Kintsugi with my friend Taylor Chadwick, a musician, mastering engineer, and fellow Death Cab for Cutie fan. We both noted how all the new songs they performed featured some locked-to-the-grid element, and they all felt lifeless. This may come as a surprise given how skilled McGerr is at “moving the click.” The difference is that now these locked-to-the-grid elements are the main parts of the song, unlike the metronome keeping time that you will never actually hear. I could go into more analysis of Death Cab for Cutie’s more recently catalog, but will hold off for now.
An interesting retrospective note I want to touch on is Ben Gibbard’s opinion of Narrow Stairs. There is a good interview with Ben Gibbard on Stereogum that discusses Narrow Stairs on it’s ten-year anniversary.
“STEREOGUM: I read an essay you wrote after Narrow Stairs came out. That was 10 years after you released Something About Airplanes, and you said you felt weird listening to Airplanes being so far removed from when you wrote it. Do you feel the same way now about Narrow Stairs?
BEN GIBBARD: I can relate to Narrow Stairs more now than I could relate to Airplanes then. More so because I feel like the songwriting style that I’m still employing started to really come together in those records between Transatlanticism and Narrow Stairs. I think the narratives on Trans, Plans, and Narrow Stairs moved away from the way I wrote on the first couple of records, which was a lot more impressionistic. I was writing those songs in my early 20s so I thought I was being more clear than I actually was.
As I got towards where we are now, literally the middle period of our band, I found myself wanting to write in a more narrative, literal style. When I listen to and play the songs from Narrow Stairs now, that record feels like a record where we had established a style that arguably was more our own than it was in the beginning. Going into that record, I felt a lot more confident in my songwriting. It was a fairly prolific time for me.”
Gibbard echoes some of the points I’ve been trying to make. Death Cab for Cutie entered a period with “the trilogy” in which they were most themselves.
Further along in the Stereogum article, Gibbard explains that the period after promoting and touring Plans was a dark time for him. He notes that Chris Walla described the record as “bloody” when it came out, something that left a lot for critics to interpret. Gibbard recalls this as an accurate description, noting how the album was recorded to tape, and is a lot “messier” in terms of lyrical matter and musical performance.
It seems that Gibbard looks back on the “darkness” that produced Narrow Stairs not so fondly. He retreated to a cabin in Big Sur in 2008 to write lyrics for Narrow Stairs and reminisce on Jack Kerouac, one of Gibbard’s heroes, who also spent time in Big Sur. Gibbard returned to this cabin six months later to write an essay printed in Paste Magazine. The angst around all of this is palpable, and there are some statements in this essay that I think a now more adult Gibbard would want to retract (Gibbard was 32 in 2008, by the way). In any case, I mention all of this to say how this very much informs the music and lyrics on Narrow Stairs.
On the darkness of Narrow Stairs, it is interesting to think about this idea in the context of the Transatlanticism - Plans - Narrow Stairs sequence. I would argue that Narrow Stairs is the easiest of the trilogy to throw on casually, independent of whatever mood you are in, and I believe most Death Cab fans would agree with me. Transatlanticism and Plans require some emotional preparedness upon each listen, and are sometimes not the right choices to put on if you are not in the right mood, or don’t want to be put in a mood. While Narrow Stairs may be the darkest of these three records upon analysis, to me it feels the lightest. Perhaps the “rock band” sound has something to do with this.
Interesting Sounds across Narrow Stairs
To wrap up, I’d like to go over some other songs on Narrow Stairs and highlight areas of interest to me. Of course there are many moments that can be discussed that I have left out here. I think the first two tracks have been discussed enough.
“Cath…” stands out as the single on the album, perhaps not the most interesting track, but maybe the most concisely written and most indicative of the sound of the album as a whole. It brings some of the raucousness of “Bixby Canyon Bridge” together with a tightly written song. It definitely has the vibe of “here is the single,” which can be hit or miss on some albums. Not a miss here, as it might be the best song on Narrow Stairs. The guitar arrangement on “Cath…” stands out, and greatly influenced my thoughts on putting together guitar parts. The guitar that is more left channel panned plays the main riff / figure with a capo on the 2nd fret, while the guitar that is more right channel panned has no capo, plays open chords, octave material in contrary motion, and higher-pitched lead-esque parts. What strikes me about this guitar arrangement is how a relatively simple chord progression can be made sonically interesting by having one of the guitars play the same chords with / without a capo, which thus places two unique voicings on top of each other and develops a captivating texture. This is a tool I’ve placed in my producing toolbox ever since hearing this song, and it has been very useful at times. Additionally, the more right panned part comes in and out throughout the song, playing the aforementioned chordal material or lead material in varying intensity and loudness. This part helps support and further drive the song’s structure and emotional transmission. This guitar part is arranged such that it is pretty much already “mixed” once it’s recorded. This is the hallmark of a great arrangement.
“Talking Bird” and “You Can Do Better Than Me” feel like the album’s interlude - or a break in the “rock band” sound before returning to it. “Talking Bird” ends Side A on the vinyl record, and has some of the best lyrics on the album in my opinion, content that has hit me deeper and deeper as I’ve gotten older and listened to this song. Conversely, I was initially very struck by “You Can Do Better Than Me,” which begins Side B. It’s possibly the album’s most angst-y point, and has hit me less and less emotionally as I’ve gotten older.
“Grapevine Fires” features a modified shuffle from McGerr that, due to the nature of the other parts, functions as the song’s “riff.” This is an interesting concept and spawns a new way to write a song. Here is a great example of a member other than Gibbard and Walla contributing to songwriting.
“Pity and Fear” feels like the album’s closer, with the playing returning to the raucousness found in the first couple of tracks. Further supporting this is the choice to end this song on an abrupt cut that occurred due to the tape running out while the band was recording and jamming on what can be assumed is the ending riff. I’ve listened to this song many times and the ending always manages to make me jump.
After an abrupt ending of a song that felt like the album’s closer, “The Ice Is Getting Thinner” catches you off-guard emotionally and sonically. Ending the album with “Pity and Fear” would have put a nice bow on things, but then there is this melancholic, almost-solo performance by Gibbard to close, instilling the listener with an un-easy sense, ending the album by cementing the overall feeling of darkness. It’s a very effective album closer.
Closing
Narrow Stairs is a record rich with interesting sounds, unique performances and arrangements, memorable songwriting, thought-provoking lyrics, and a recording background worth analyzing in the nearly all-digital world of modern record making. It is a record that can be examined closely, and upon each revisit you discover something new. It has all the qualities of a great record. What say you?