Ben Gibbard and Kerouac

As an addendum to the Kerouac post, I'll discuss Ben Gibbard's relationship to Kerouac's work. They have quite the history.

The clearest and most obvious example is "Bixby Canyon Ridge" off Death Cab's most recent full-length, Narrow Stairs.

Here it is below.

The song is a non-fiction account of Gibbard's trip to a sea-side shack off California's Route 1. There, Jack Kerouac wrote Big Sur and sunk into a drunken depression. Fun stuff, right?

"I descended a dusty gravel ridge, beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge," Gibbard sings. "Until I eventually arrived/at place where your soul had died . . . and waited for you to speak to me."

The song continues as a pretty damn poignant narrative of Gibbard seeking some sort of other-worldly guidance from Kerouac – guidance he didn't receive – as he found himself at a crossroads in his life.

Gibbard calls Kerouac is one of his biggest idols, but also said he knows Kerouac essentially met his end at the cabin in Big Sur. He didn't die there, but he did go crazy. Gibbard calls it the "place where [Kerouac's] soul had died."

In the song, Gibbard effectively said he felt himself going in the same direction as Kerouac, with the line, "And I want to know my fate, if I keep up this way/but it's hard to want to stay awake."

Gibbard went to the cabin seeking reassurance of his lifestyle from his fast-living idol.

But Gibbard "trudged back to where the car was parked/no closer to any kind of truth/as I must assume was the case with you."

He didn't find what he hoped to from his pilgrimage. And, from what I know of Kerouac's book, Big Sur, neither did he.

While Gibbard was at the cabin, he also wrote an essay titled "The Meaning of Life." He started the essay off with a simple description of why he took the trip to Kerouac's cabin.

Why did I think I was going to come here and have this place change my life? I wanted it so badly, as I’m sure Kerouac did. I wanted to cleanse myself with this place. I’d spent years wondering what it looked like, wondering what it would be like to be here. And now here I am, sleeping in the same room Kerouac slept in. I’m walking the same path he walked when he came to the beach and wrote. Jack Kerouac sat here and wrote poems about the sound of the ocean. He sat right here.

As the essay continues, it's evident that Kerouc was not only an idol for Gibbard, but a life changer.

Gibbard was an engineering student – hard to believe, I know. In the essay he said when he first read On The Road, he was in college, taking biology, calculus and physics. Kerouac's book was something he needed.

I thought, “That’s the way, that’s the ideal life, that’s great. You get in a car and you drive and you see your friends and you end up in a city for a night and you go out drinking and you catch up and you share these really intense experiences. And then you’re on the road and you’re doing it again.” The romance of the road, particularly from Kerouac’s work, encapsulated how I wanted to live. I found a way to do it by being a musician, which is what I always wanted to be.

Without Kerouac, Gibbard could be working in an engineering firm right now. Think about that. Thank god.

But Gibbard realized in reading Big Sur that the wild life has its consequences. It's reflected in the later sections of the essay and in the last line of Bixby Canyon Bridge, mentioned above.

Gibbard is approaching that age now. According to Wikipedia, he's 33. Personally, I feel Gibbard has the wherewithal Kerouac didn't, and he'll be able to transition better into later life. And I mean, he's married to Zoey Deschanel. How bad can life be?

Lucky bastard.

In any case, Kerouac was an idol and inspiration for Gibbard. Hopefully Gibbard can avoid what happened to Kerouac. Actually, maybe he shouldn't. Then the door would open for me to marry Zoey. I assure you, folks, that will happen. Just you wait and see.