Brand New Colony

This song has many meanings, but I would say it's straight up a love song. The way that Gibbard approaches love in this one is interesting, because he wants to become all these metaphysical things (the bottle of wine, the staircase, the fleece jacket) and they all, in turn, make sense because of what they serve purpose for. I think that the way the tempo in the song increases after he describes all these things is crucial and AMAZING. Who wouldn't think that wanting to "be your winter coat buttoned and zipped/ straight to the throat with the collar up so/ you won't catch cold" is not a love line? Wanting to take care of someone like that, that's true love. Although, my favorite lines in the song are: i want to take you far away/ from the cynics in this town/ and kiss you on the mouth/ we'll cut our bodies free/ from the tethers of this scene,/ start a brand new colony/ where everything will change,/ we'll give ourselves new names /(identities erased)" I feel like that sometimes. I feel like we need to be sincere and straight up about our feelings, and this is what the song is about: in the first part, he talks about all these complicated things, and then he goes into what he really wants to do: just kiss her on the mouth, and take her away from the cynics of their town...

SO BEAUTIFUL!

It's a beautiful song but I wonder about its true underlying message and emotional tone. I read on the wikipedia page for this album that Gibbard had proclaimed [Such Great Heights] "the only song he had ever written that was positive about love." If that was true at the time this album came out it can only mean this song [Brand New Colony] is not necessarily a positive love song, unless of course he didn't actually write it.

First of all, I'm not going to say the clicking noise at the beginning is a gun, as many people seem to think. My first thought was a wind up music box or a toy, etc...

Secondly, I'm not so sure there is "suicidal death" involved in the lyrical message as Kenious suggests. That's a little extreme in my opinion, and there are no "overly obvious" ties to this idea besides "cut our bodies free" which seems more likely related to the saying "cut ties" because the singer is suggesting that they cut ties with society or their current lives so they can be together.

The thing that DID stand out to me was the repetition of the words "everything will change" at the end of the song. The pace of the music slows down quite a bit, and just made me think, everything that was happy at the beginning of the song has the potential to fail (or change). When two people fall in love everything changes for the best. As it's repeated, however, maybe we are supposed to be reminded that love can fade and everything can change for the worst. [OR] maybe we are simply meant to think about how things can change for good or for bad in general, not just with love but with anything in life. Those are the thoughts I was left with.

Not as happy, not overwhelmingly sad either, but very deep and good none the less :)

This song is well I hate to say it...but so cute!I wish one day a guy can write a song like that for me!!!It's great...wonderful lyrics.It seems he loves this girl oh so very much!Well God bless <><

The theme of this song is pretty straightforward as a message of loving. This has been my favorite of Postal Service's songs for some time and I mainly liked it due to its frankness and bald sentimentality.

One particular point which catches my eye now that I read the lyrics again is that this song really matches the great poetry of the English Renaissance.

The lyrics start out with a load of awesome metaphysical conceits (is Ben Gibbard our modern Donne?), personifying himself in the roles of such absurd yet poignant objects such as the platform shoes and the phonograph. This reminded me of Donne's Renaissance masterpiece of a poem "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" in which he compares himself and his wife to the legs of a compass.

Then there is a shift where the speaker begins to speak more of dreams and the future, which matches perfectly the pastorals of seventeenth and eighteenth century England. Just as the pastoral poems idealized life out in the country, Gibbard romanticizes the notion of taking his lover "far from the cynics in this town" to a place where they can feel "the sun... heat the ground under [...their] bare feet".

In addition to the rural setting, the song also expresses itself in an idyllic, flighty fashion. Of course, I must also mention the other quality which can be matched up with Renaissance poetry, the fact that it is a wooing call from a lover.

This song alone stands as great proof that Ben Gibbard is indeed a poet with his songwriting, crafting a charming, yet modern, pastoral for this generation to enjoy.

"I'll be your winter coat Buttoned and zipped straight to the throat With the collar up so you won't catch cold"

I could fall in love with someone to refered to himself as a coat to keep me warm!

The beauty of the postal service and deathcab (ben gibbard in general) is that alot of the time, the music sets a different theme from the message conveyed in the lyrics. Brand New Colony is such a song.

To me, the song is about a premeditated homocide/suicide. Note the sound of a revolver clicking before the song. The speaker in the song is obsessed about protective someone from the evils of the earthly world and he sees no better way to do it than killing that person then himself. Note the line about cutting their "bodies free".

Twisted. And awesome. Pure fucking genius.

great song all of postal serivce is good

Jesus. This band is awesome. They're gunna be damn famous, soon.

This song is just about being in love and wanting to do and be everything to someone and... well, I hope I feel like that about someone someday.

my favorite postal service song. i think there's more to this song than just "being in love." it's sad that they were on mtv's you hear it first. it's kinda too early to be exposed to the mases. i will still have death cab for cutie though. oh well.