What is the best song on “Give Up” by The Postal Service?
Ranking the songs on “Give Up” is hard. I had forgotten how good more than two-thirds of them are, and there’s really no great way to do this without upsetting someone (myself).
So let’s delay a bit and get a few things out of the way: the Iron and Wine cover of “Such Great Heights” is stupid. This is simply how I feel, and it is not to be taken as a slight against the song or Samuel Ervin Beam as an artist. I should also say that the Shins’ cover of “We Will Become Silhouettes” is excellent, and this will impact how I rank the Postal Service version in this blog post.
If nothing else, you deserve honesty.
I have ranked the songs into tiers to try and help myself out a little bit. Tier 1 will have basically half of the album because I love almost everything on this album and I wanted to show that when we get to the top of the list we are going to be splitting some seriously fine hairs from track to track.
Let’s get started.
TIER III
10. Natural Anthem
This is an instrumental track that appears last on the album. We’ve got plenty to get to, so I don’t want to spend a ton of time on this. A decent long car ride jam. Cacophonous.
9. Recycled Air
This is a good song, and this exercise is frustrating. But I suppose the argument against it would be: Gibbard has earned the right to have a few self-indulgent slow jams on his various records, but this was the wrong beat to sing this slowly over. It, somehow, goes too hard for its own good?
TIER II
8. Clark Gable
This is a good song! I think determining whether it’s romantic to fake the production of a short film to land a kiss depends entirely on how attractive the song’s narrator is, but this is a good song!
7. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
I know, right?
I’m just as surprised as you.
Serious question: Do you love this song because it’s one of the best songs on the album or because it’s Track 1 on the album?
(Both can be true. I do not like this.)
6. Sleeping In
This is very similar to “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” for me. It’s one of the first three songs, and you’ve probably heard it more than you’ve heard “Brand New Colony.” But does that make it better than “Brand New Colony”? It does not.
5. Brand New Colony
This is a great late-album song. Boy, in Point A, wants girl to go with him to Point B. (That premise but there’s a Thesaurus.)
“I’ll be your platform shoes/winter coat…”
A Gibbard heat check. Some all-timer lyrics here.
TIER I
4. This Place Is A Prison
Oh, man.
Oh, boy.
Fuck, man. You know? Fuck.
Fuuuck.
In which Ben Gibbard sings about going to bars and not particularly liking it. It is the universal oppose to Usher’s “Love In This Club” in every way, I think.
Probably the record’s best late-song payoff?
This is the second-most “Give Up” song on “Give Up.”
3. Such Great Heights
I know, right?
I’m just as surprised as you.
I would pay more attention to the tiers than the numbers themselves.
2. We Will Become Silhouettes
Remember before when I said The Shins covered this song and it made me appreciate it on a deeper level that should definitely not be taken into account for this exercise? This is that.
1. Nothing Better
This is purely anecdotal. My friend James’ older brother was driving us home from soccer practice in middle school and I asked him: “What is this?” He turned it up and said: “Your new favorite song.” And he was right. The more I think about it, if they were trying to do one thing with this album it would be what this song does. Lyrics, music, tone, message, all of it.
“You’re getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself…”
It’s the most “Give Up” song on “Give Up” and I love it very much.
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