Get Lyrical: The Dismemberment Plan's "The City"
posted in: Artist Features • Features
For those who loved The Dismemberment Plan‘s weird, angular pop, the group’s ten-year career seemed to end abruptly and without proper closure in 2003. Maybe that’s why, on January 11th, the foursome released a vinyl reissue of their incredible 1999 album Emergency and I. It’s the first release from the band since their unfortunate break-up, and they even promoted it with a handful of sold-out tour dates across the east coast. This week, Get Lyrical succumbs to nostalgia and delves into The D-Plan’s The City, a track about how much it sucks to feel lost and abandoned in a place you used to call home. Depressing? Sure. But there’s no better time than the dead of winter to listen to a song whose themes include listlessness, loneliness and isolation!
The City opens with a description of all the little things about city life that add up to make it so depressing when you’re alone. Now I notice the streetlamp’s hum/the ghosts of graffiti they couldn’t quite erase/ the blank-faced stares on the subway as the people go home, frontman Travis Morrison croons. Those who have ever lived in a city, or even been to a city, will understand the inexplicable feeling of sorrow that those
three things can induce. Morrison’s descriptions of city life”including the bar fights and neon lights”are simple yet vivid. His words are elegant, but it’s almost like he’s just carrying on a conversation with the listener as he reveals his anguish through heartbreakingly honest lyrics. And when he delivers lines like, This is where I live, but I’ve never felt less at home, it isn’t difficult to understand exactly where he’s coming from. What is home without our friends, without the people whom we love?
His feelings of abandonment are palpable each time the song crescendoes around the words The city’s been dead since you’ve been gone, and in those momentsMorrison’s agony is fully on display. But I’m not unsympathetic, he admits. I see why you left. His attempt to be understanding even in the midst of all his sorrow makes him all the more endearing. He’s not angry, but sad. Not bitter, just lonely. As The City comes to a close with the words All I ever do now is say goodbye, we suddenly realize just how alone he’s feeling right now.
And while the words are bittersweet, maybe the D-Plan’s brief reunion tour and reissue of Emergency and I are giving them a chance to say it again” this time, to their fans.