Everything Flows: Such Great Heights

Trust Me #76

Such Great Heights by The Postal Service

Such Great Heights bubbles into life with a persistent and beautifully bubbling synth riff that is allowed to run for a full 23-second before bass and a slightly distorted beat are slowly introduced. All coming to fruition at 40-seconds as Ben Gibbard begins to sing about being hopelessly head over heels in love.

I am thinking it’s a sign

That the freckles in our eyes

Are mirror images and when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned

Gibbard is a prolific singer-songwriter who began releasing music in 1997 under the moniker Death Cab For Cutie in the form of a cassette titled You Can Play These Songs With Chords. Gibbard seems to have barely paused for breath since!

Included in Ben’s discography are 11 albums with Death Cab For Cutie (which became a band after his cassette release), 5 solo albums (including one that covers Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque in its entirety) and Give Up by The Postal Service.

Gibbard was particularly prolific in 2003 when he released the aforementioned Give Up, the sole album by The Postal Service and Transatlantic by Death Cab For Cutie.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of these albums, Ben is taking them on the road, including a show at The Hydro in Glasgow. Being such a fan of Teenage Fanclub, Ben has invited the band to support them. Surely he’ll be joining them for a song or two?!

Ben also wrote the absolutely stunning Me & Magdalena (video) for The Monkees 2016 album Good Times, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band. Norman has covered it several times, so that could potentially be another collaboration at The Hydro?

Anyway, back to Such Great Heights, I remember downloading it on iTunes. I can’t remember how I discovered it. I used to go on iTunes binges as they would cleverly let you listen to 20-30 seconds of the song to entice you to check it out and download if you liked it. So, I think it came from an iTunes binge and I subsequently bought Give Up on CD.

Such Great Heights has Ben missing the love of his life as she is out on the road. He hopes she hears this song on the radio and it will guide her home.

Official video

The song breaks to a cracking scratchy guitar solo at 2-minutes 31 seconds. It sounds beautifully out of sync in comparison to Gibbard’s crystal clear melodic vocal and the sublime synths. Once finished, the slightly distorted beats return for one final run through the chorus and everything slowly fades to leave the synths bubbling away, as per the intro.

There is something about this song that just grabs me; the synth sounds, heart on sleeve declaration of love, Gibbard's vocals, the beats and guitar .... it all combines gloriously. Interestingly, the band/project name came through Ben's collaborator Jimmy Tamborello writing and recording instrumentals and sending them to Gibbard as DAT's via post. Gibbard would edit and add vocals and then post them back. Jenny Lewis also came into the project and became an official member of the band.