Plans Pt. II

"Plans" is also the title of the latest Death Cab For Cutie album, which I have been listening to lately. I was enjoying it until I came across the lyrics for Someday You Will Be Loved. The beginning goes like this, and gives you a feel for the whole song:

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.

I cannot pretend that I felt any regret
Cause each broken heart will eventually mend
As the blood runs red down the needle and thread
Someday you will be loved

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

You may feel alone when you're falling asleep
And everytime tears float down your cheeks
But I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet
Someday you will be loved


Now my problem with this is that, to my knowledge, Ben Gibbard has neither psychic powers nor a time machine, so it is impossible for him to know whether, in fact, she will be loved.

This may seem like a small beef, but my problem is with the greater implications of it all. This is quite a good example of what may be the number one malaise of our postmodern existence: responsibility, or rather, lack thereof. He clearly states that he doesn't feel guilty about (presumably) lying to her, stringing her along and sleeping with her, and he gets out of it by claiming (in a melodic croon) that someday she will be loved, again presumably by someone that's better for her than he is. But like I said, he can't know this for a fact. Maybe her life will consist of a series of men taking advantage of her like this and eventually she ends up dying alone and dissatisfied. It's nice to think that there's one, true match out there for all of us, but I just don't buy that. What pisses me off is that he's shirking the responsibility of confronting her about the break-up, and then making it sound romantic by singing a song about some idealized vision of the future. Again, I'm extrapolating to larger elements of life here, but that's like singing to people in sweatshops "Someday you will have reasonable hours and wages," or to starving Africans "Someday you will have food," but then going about our daily business and doing absolutely NOTHING to make this a reality.

Now I can accept that not every relationship works, and that sometimes break-ups are necessary, but seriously, take some responsibility for it. Apologize, dammit! Confront her and let her know it's not working out! Don't take off while she's asleep, leaving a note that's optimistic about the future, and then move on to the next chick. That's just selfish and irresponsible.

Now, I know some people will think that I've put too much thought into this, and maybe I have, however;
a) I'm willing to bet that since this record has been released, someone else, somewhere has pulled this stunt in order to get out of a break-up
b) I really do think it says something sad about our privileged, Western, consumeristic society that we leave it to 'fate' to decide things rather than acknowledging that, in reality, we have the ability to change things but we don't because we are too selfish and it would be too uncomfortable for us to help others. I guess that's the meat of it right there, really. That's the analogy I see: he could break-up to her face, but that would be hard for him to do, so he takes off, leaves a note and writes a song. We could actually drop third world debt (for example) but it would mean spending more money and giving up some of our things, and we're not willing to do it. We would rather let other people suffer, at our expense, so long as we don't have to see it happening.

I guess the other thing that bothers me is that I really like Ben Gibbard's side project, The Postal Service, but now I see him in a different light. Not that it affects the music at all, but, oh, I dunno.

I'm unemployed and want to do a Master's degree in Media Studies...posts like this were bound to happen sooner or later.