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We had friends who had a hit single on the radio and sold 500,000 records, and then they couldn’t get arrested a year later.

Ben Gibbard

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time.
BEN GIBBARD

Father Prayer Tiny
As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.
BEN GIBBARD

Life Myself Songwriters Writing
I’d like the songs to be more storytelling, but also have the turns of phrase within them that would hopefully distance my writing from the pack.
BEN GIBBARD

Distance Hopefully Song Storytelling
The story of our band is that we were this relentless touring band in those early years. We were leaving day jobs and going off on the road and having fun and seeing the country for the first time.
BEN GIBBARD

Adventure Country Fun
For me, a song doesn’t really take flight until it has a lyric on it. …Without a lyric that I’m happy with, it could be the greatest song ever melodically or arrangement-wise, but it doesn’t have any resonance.
BEN GIBBARD

Song Wise Writing
Hall & Oates is one of the few musical groups as satisfying now as it was back then. There’s something incredibly musically satisfying about their songs. Nothing has diminished my love for them.
BEN GIBBARD

Group Musical Song
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.
BEN GIBBARD

Age Darkness Fun
I have always been very open and earnest about some things in my life, some things that are not directly in my life, but they’re twirling around me at the time.
BEN GIBBARD

Directly Earnest Itself Twirling
When I listen to Airplanes record, it takes me back. I remember a lot of my thought processes when I was 20 or 21, writing those songs and recording that record.
BEN GIBBARD

Airplane Song Writing
The second ‘Postal Service’ album is threatening to become the ‘Chinese Democracy’ of indie rock. It will come out eventually, or maybe it won’t.
BEN GIBBARD

Chinese Indie Rock Rocks
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

Disappointment Moving People
I’ve always had a soft spot for Phil Collins. He’s a great vocalist.
BEN GIBBARD

Great Spots Vocalist
I think sometimes a narrative can come out of a single word.
BEN GIBBARD

Narrative Sometimes Thinking
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

Regret Taken Thinking
More times than not, it’s a failed endeavor. You will fail more times than you succeed. But I think you need those failed endeavors.
BEN GIBBARD

Needs Thinking Writing
We were playing Chinese restaurants and basements and record stores and houses. We were crashing on floors and it was all new and exciting. It was like a vacation. It didn’t feel like work.
BEN GIBBARD

Basement Exciting House Record Restaurant Vacation

We had friends who had a hit single on the radio and sold 500,000 records, and then they couldn’t get arrested a year later.

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We had friends who had a hit single on the radio and sold 500,000 records, and then they couldn’t get arrested a year later.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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