I Will Possess Your Heart

"I Will Possess Your Heart"
Single by Death Cab for Cutie
from the album Narrow Stairs
Released March 18, 2008 (U.S.)
April 15, 2008 (U.S., 7")
May 5, 2008 (UK)
Format CD, 7" vinyl, digital download
Recorded 2007
Genre Indie rock
Length 8:25 (album version)
4:08 (7" edit)
4:54 (10" edit)
Label Atlantic
Barsuk Records
Writer(s) Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla, Nick Harmer, Jason McGerr
Producer(s) Chris Walla
Death Cab for Cutie singles chronology
"I Will Follow You into the Dark"
(2006)		 "I Will Possess Your Heart"
(2008)		 "Cath..."
(2008)

"I Will Possess Your Heart" is a song by American band Death Cab for Cutie, the lead single from their sixth studio album, Narrow Stairs. The song depicts a one-sided, obsessive relationship. It is notable for its five-minute instrumental introduction, as well as its music video which included location shooting across four continents. It was released on March 18, 2008, initially as a "surprise stream" on the band's website, and soon after being picked up by radio stations.[1] In 2011 Paste Magazine named the song one of "the 25 creepiest songs about love".[2]

Composition

Songwriter and lead vocalist Ben Gibbard noted that, although fictional, the song was inspired by the experiences of some of his friends. He added:[3]

The song is basically about a stalker. It’s about this nice guy who wants this girl he can’t have, and he believes they’ll be together once she realizes how great he is—he just has to wait it out. That’s the part that makes the song really creepy, the delusion of thinking that they were meant to be together. It’s a really dark song. 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.

Gibbard credited Nick Harmer's bass line with being integral to the song, noting inspiration from bassists Eric Avery and Simon Gallup.[4] Harmer himself said of the bass line, "I immediately gravitated to the creepy, stalker-ish theme that Ben created with the lyrics and the piano chords.... I liked the idea that once a stalker gets obsessed with an idea, it just keeps repeating in his head, so I wanted the bass line to have a repetitive, incessant theme."[5]

Gibbard characterized the song as "five minutes of build and then a three-minute song."[3] The album version of the song is over eight minutes long, opening with a lengthy instrumental that takes up more than half the song. The radio edit largely removes this intro, shortening the song to four minutes.[1][6]

Music video

London
Paris
Frankfurt
Tunis/Carthage
Siem Reap
Phnom Penh
Bangkok
Tokyo
Hokkaido
New York
Locations used in the music video of "I Will Possess Your Heart"

The music video features scenes of a young woman traveling alone to various places around the world, interspersed with the band performing in an industrial freezer room.[6] Throughout her travels, the woman keeps a neutral expression and barely reacts to the sights around her. The music video for "I Will Possess Your Heart" was released on MTV.com and VH1.com on April 11, 2008, and immediately added to those channels' rotations.[7] Two versions of the video were released, a full length version running 8:31 which features the album version of the song, and a shorter 4:22 version which features the radio edit, omitting most of the instrumental introduction.[6][7]

The video was shot in New York City, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hokkaido, Tunis, Carthage, Bangkok, Siem Reap, and Phnom Penh.[6][7] The shoot involved the actress, director, and a crew of two traveling 27,977 miles in 13 days.[6] The young woman was portrayed by Lindsay Burdge, who would years later become known for lead roles in several independent films such as A Teacher and The Sideways Light.[8]

Aaron Stewart-Ahn was selected to direct the video based on his previous work directing the video for Death Cab For Cutie's "Stable Song", as well as work documenting the band's live performances.[9] Stewart-Ahn said that the theme of travel had been inspired by Death Cab for Cutie's earlier song "Transatlanticism", as well as his own extensive experience traveling solo, saying "I’ve always felt that travel is a defining human experience that changes you forever, and hope that this depiction of wanderlust, obsessiveness, repetition, and loneliness conveys some of that.”[6] He also said "The idea is that the band is performing in an incredibly cold environment while this woman is traveling around the world, moving toward progressively warmer climes. The farther she gets from the song's obsessive protagonist, the more her world opens up, and the less reliable his memories of her become."[9]

On his directing, Stewart-Ahn said "The goal was absolute realism; nothing was staged." Much of the film was shot on camcorder, including a Panasonic AG-HVX200 and a consumer-grade Canon HV30, so as to blend in by looking like tourists. He noted that the trip to Hokkaido was taken on a whim, and during the trip the team realized that daylight would be gone by the time they would reach their intended destination; they exited the train at Asari and took what would become the final shot of the video there.[9]

Stewart-Ahn selected Shawn Kim to direct the shots of the band, and although they never met in person they established visual motifs to unite their respective parts of the video.[9] The scenes of the band were shot in a food storage facility in Los Angeles at temperatures below 12°F.[7] Unlike Stewart-Ahn's section of the video, Kim used a professional Arriflex 435 camera and Panavision E-Series lenses, which he felt added to the coldness of the image. The two sets used were at different temperatures, and since bringing the large anamorphic lenses from a colder to a warmer temperature would result in condensation, a separate set of lenses needed to be used for each set.[9]

Reception

"I Will Possess Your Heart" was named the iTunes UK song of the year 2008,[10] was ranked #36 on the Triple J Hottest 100 of 2008 in Australia,[11] and reached number six on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks, making it one of Death Cab for Cutie's highest charting singles to date.[12] The song was nominated for the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song, but lost to "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" by Bruce Springsteen.[13] The video won 2008 MTV Video Music Award Best Editing for editors Aaron Stewart-Ahn and Jeff Buchanan. It was also nominated for the Best Cinematography award, but lost to Wyatt Troll for the White Stripes’ "Conquest".[6][14]

MTV News said of the song, "there are moments on Stairs that stop you dead in your tracks, send shivers up your spine and make you go 'Whoa'.... Like the first four-and-a-half minutes of 'I Will Possess Your Heart,' a propulsive whirl of stalking bass line, spindly guitars and stabbing piano."[15] Rolling Stone noted that the sense of menace in the song was "playing against type for a guy with one of rock's purest voices—a vibrato-less, bell-clear high tenor whose choirboy quality only throws the darkness here into relief."[16] Blender concurred, stating "it’s a pleasant surprise to hear Gibbard inhabit such a self-consciously creepy role, rather than play the occasionally errant, essentially good-hearted boyfriend who soft-shoes through so many of his tales."[17]

Track listing

US promo CD:

  1. "I Will Possess Your Heart" (7" edit)
  2. "I Will Possess Your Heart" (10" edit)
  3. "I Will Possess Your Heart" (album version)

US 7" vinyl:

  1. "I Will Possess Your Heart" (7" version)
  2. "I Will Possess Your Heart" (10" version)

UK CD (ATO310CD):

  1. "I Will Possess Your Heart"
  2. "No Sunlight" (demo)

UK 7" vinyl (ATO310):

  1. "I Will Possess Your Heart"
  2. "The Ice Is Getting Thinner" (demo)

Charts

Chart (2008) Peak
position
Canadian Hot 100 60
UK Singles Chart 85
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 70
U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks 6
U.S. Billboard Pop 100 61

References

  1. 1 2 Harding, Cortney (2008-04-12). "Bit by bit: Death Cab for Cutie's major-label debut took a slow, steady route to platinum. Is there still room for growth?". Billboard.
  2. ↑ Kane, Tyler (2011-09-04). "The 25 Creepiest Songs About Love". Paste Magazine. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  3. 1 2 Gibbard, Ben (2008-04-10). "The Meaning of Life". Paste Magazine. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  4. ↑ Charlton, Lauretta (2015-03-30). "Ben Gibbard Picks the Best Death Cab for Cutie Songs". Vulture. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  5. ↑ Lenker, George (2012-07-17). "Death Cab for Cutie to hit Mountain Park stage". MassLive. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 McLeod, Duncan (2008-09-11). "Death Cab For Cutie I Will Possess Your Heart". The Inspiration Room. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Press Release: Death Cab For Cutie Release Video for "I Will Possess Your Heart". Reuters. 15 Apr 2008
  8. ↑ Herman, James Patrick (2012). "Lindsay Burdge - Hot For Teacher". Verge. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Stasukevich, Iain (August 2008). "Short Takes: Touring the World for Death Cab for Cutie". American Cinematographer. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  10. ↑ "Death Cab For Cutie". Music On Vinyl. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  11. ↑ "Triple J Hottest 100 - 2008". ABC. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  12. ↑ "Death Cab for Cutie - Alternative Songs Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  13. ↑ "2009 Grammy Awards - Complete Winners and Nominees". HitFix. 2009-02-08. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  14. ↑ Harris, Chris (2008-09-04). "Kanye West, Gnarls Barkley, White Stripes Clips Pick Up VMAs In 2008 'Professional Categories'". MTV News. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  15. ↑ Montgomery, James (2008-03-04). "Death Cab For Cutie Make The Leap With Narrow Stairs, In Bigger Than The Sound". MTV News. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  16. ↑ Hermes, Will (2008-05-15). "Death Cab For Cutie Narrow Stairs Album Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  17. ↑ Weiner, Jonah (2008-05-13). "Death Cab for Cutie : Narrow Stairs Review on Blender :: The Ultimate Guide to Music and More". Blender. Archived from the original on 2008-05-21. Retrieved 2016-04-14.

External links

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