The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Deluxe Anniversary Edition)

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

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And it stars Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona.

It premiered at Cannes, where it got rave reviews.

And it's distributed by Neon.

And for me, that's huge because I trust Neon the way that I trust my favorite record labels.

I will definitely check out anything that they put their name on.

So I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Splitsville is already playing now in select theaters, and it'll be playing everywhere on September 5th.

Somewhere around the end of 2012, I started daydreaming about Song Exploder as a vague idea.

Just a show where you could hear the inner workings of a song and the ideas that went into making all the different parts.

I finally decided to try and make some kind of pilot episode in the spring of 2013.

I'd never interviewed somebody before, but I asked my friend Jimmy Tamborello if he would be up for letting me try this concept with him.

We'd known each other for years at that point.

We'd gone on tour together, and I've been a huge fan of his music for a long time.

He makes music under the name Dintel, and he's one half of the band, The Postal Service, along with Ben Gibbard.

They were just getting ready to go on tour to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their album, Give Up.

And so Jimmy had already been working with the different stems of their songs to get ready for playing them live.

So one day I went to his home studio in LA and we sat together in front of his computer and he played me different parts of my favorite Postal Service song, The District Sleeps Alone Tonight.

And I tried to explain what my idea was and what I wanted to get out of the interview.

Like, let's listen to the song and then you point out things that you hear to me.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Like this, I've never heard this stuff.

Yeah, let's just all the bass parts together.

That would be awesome to leave that, but then I cut.

Yeah, I could play those.

Yeah.

The The synth parts.

Yeah, the beat.

While we were talking, I just got more and more excited about this idea.

And then eventually I put it all together and that became the first episode of this podcast.

And that first episode came out 10 years ago this month in January 2014.

And so I thought, to celebrate, what if we do what bands do on their anniversaries and put out an expanded deluxe version of our very first release?

My name's.

I'm going to look at you while I yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

What's going on?

What's happening?

My name is Jay.

And then I'll say...

Say, today we're listening to you or something.

I've been trying to figure out a way to do it entirely where my voice isn't there at all.

You have a good radio voice, though.

You could just come out and

just a really anonymous at the beginning, just being like, you know, this is blah, blah, blah.

Today, blah, blah, blah.

And then.

Yeah.

The Postal Service formed in 2001.

Their debut album came out in 2003, and it was a game changer.

Their combination of electronic music and indie rock not only sold over a million copies, their songs were everywhere on TV and in film and influenced a generation of artists.

Last year, they played sold-out concerts across the U.S.

in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the album.

And there are more shows to come in 2024.

A few weeks ago, I spoke to Ben Gibbard, and I combined that with my original interview from 2013 with Jimmy Tamborello.

And here, together, the two of them tell the story of how they made their song, The District Sleeps Alone Tonight.

My name is Jimmy Tamborello from the Postal Service.

My name is Ben Gibbard.

I play in Death Cab for Cutie and I'm Moonlight in the Postal Service.

And this was kind of like an electronic side project we did together.

Jimmy and I first met in spring of 2000.

Death Cab was playing at Spaceland in Los Angeles, and there was a band on the bill called ARCA, and Jimmy was playing bass.

Allegedly, we met that first night, but very briefly.

And, you know, Jimmy is a fairly soft-spoken individual.

But about a year later, I was going down to Los Angeles to visit my friend Pedro Benito.

And he had said, oh, my roommate, Jimmy Tamborello, he was in that band that you guys played with last year.

And I was like, okay, don't remember it.

But

he was like, yeah, he has this electronic music project called Dintel.

and he's having guest vocalists on his record.

Would you mind if I put you guys in contact and he send you a song to work on?

And I was like, sure, yeah, why not?

I mean, at that age, maybe 24, 25, where you just kind of say yes to everything without questioning it.

And he sent me the music that became This is the Dream of Evan and Sean, this kind of really cool, glitchy kind of piece.

I wrote atop that, sent him back, I think, a cassette, and we made a plan to record it when I was down in Los Angeles.

So Jimmy and I spent an afternoon in his bedroom working on the song.

It was familiar to me.

The smoke too thick to breathe.

The tiled floors glistened.

I slowly stirred my drink.

And over the course of the weekend of just hanging out and becoming kind of friendly, I asked him if he might want to do some more stuff like this because it was so fun and so easy.

And he, in his very kind of subdued way, kind of smiled a bit.

He was like, Yeah, that could be good.

So we kind of concocted this plan to do a project together.

And I believe the name the Postal Service was

thrown about maybe even that weekend based on how we had made the first song.

Both of us had dial-up connections in 2001.

It wasn't like it is now.

So, yeah, it'll be called the Postal Service because we have to mail things, you know, back and forth.

One of the many things that attracted me to Jimmy's music was that it felt experimental and it felt new and interesting, but it also felt as if it kind of had a soul to it, like there was a human behind it.

So when Ben and I decided to make this record, my first job was just to make a couple instrumentals to send to him to get the ball rolling.

And then I would write to that.

Kind of like a conversation where he's starting it and I'm hopefully finishing it.

My computer at the time, I think it was a quadra or something.

It was an old Mac.

It still wasn't really powerful enough to record audio into it.

So I'd mostly use it as like a sequencer.

All the music that I was making back then in the early 2000s, I was using mostly one sampler/slash synthesizer called the K2000 from Kurzweil.

So all the sounds would be coming out of the K2000, but controlled by the computer.

I think in this song the drum programming definitely is indebted to Bjork Homogenic.

When I was making this song I was kind of imagining it as a

song for Bjork.

The K2000 is pretty flexible as a synthesizer.

It comes with a lot of preset bass and pad and

all sorts of synthesizer sounds that you can edit.

Any sound I used, I would try to change it from the preset just so it would be more original.

And then also,

I was able to sample outside sound sources and use those in the same machine.

So almost everything on the Postal Service album came out of that machine.

So I sent an instrumental version of the song to Ben.

So this was the first thing that Jimmy sent to me.

And I remember I lived in this attic apartment on Mercer Street in Seattle, and this mail shows up.

You know, it's an envelope.

It's kind of scraggly writing, Jimmy's handwriting.

Open it up, just a CD, no note, no letter.

No, hey, I was thinking this could be about just a CD that said like PS1 or something on it.

I put it in like a CD walkman.

And I just walked around my neighborhood, Capitol Hill in Seattle.

It's just like a rainy Seattle night, as they tend to be in December, and just listen to it over and over again.

There was just something about

those organ chords that start the song.

It was just a very kind of melancholic mood immediately.

And so it was fairly easy to enter that space where I was reacting to someone else's ideas rather than the idea beginning with me.

Because half the work was already done.

What he sent me didn't require any editing.

It allowed my mind to kind of go places lyrically.

Thoughts kind of floated across the front of my brain.

And I remember listening to it and thinking, oh, I know exactly what I'm going to do with this.

So the story is taking place in front of the Black Cat in DC, which is a kind of legendary club.

I had been on tour with Death Cab

and I was seeing a woman who was basically my first adult girlfriend.

We had moved to Seattle together.

We'd gotten an apartment.

She was a teacher.

She had like a real job.

And I was trying to do music and working temp jobs and stuff.

And, you know, as often are the case with these relationships, when we are young, it didn't work out.

And she had moved to Washington, D.C.

She was teaching there.

So, you know, we had had this kind of day driving around, her introducing me to like her new life, you know, having her show me her school and where she lived.

And

it was a new experience for me.

The idea that a relationship can end and somebody can move across the country and start a totally different life, it was really over, you know?

Like this person had started anew 3,000 miles away.

So we were trying to find a space to kind of talk and catch up, but the backstage at the Black Cat was not really a conducive place to talk.

And there was also a line of people going into the show.

So I remember we were sitting kind of on the stoop in front of the club and, you know, she had like written down a number of things she wanted to talk about on her hand because she was nervous that she would forget.

Specifically, things that she perceived that I had done wrong.

So that was a pretty indelible image to me from that experience.

Smeared black.

kink.

It was almost like the eulogy for the relationship.

I was torn between trying to listen while also being very acutely aware of my role and who I was as a member of this band because we were in front of however many hundred people who were trying to go into the club to literally see me play music.

So it was a very awkward place to have this conversation and it was also an awkward conversation.

I'm being kind of read a particular type of riot act in the first verse, but then the chorus is almost a dig on this person who's like, this doesn't seem right that you're here.

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex.

She lived in this very kind of bland apartment complex in Arlington, I think.

Like one of those places that bureaucrats would live.

There's a slight indictment in there as well of like, is this who you are now?

Are you no longer cool?

Which I think is the kind of thought that a 25-year-old has.

I don't remember how quickly I turned it around and sent it back to Jimmy, but it was within a week.

It wasn't that long.

I was so excited to work on it.

I did vocals.

It might have been this mic I'm talking into right now is Audio Technica 4033.

And I think this might be the actual mic.

And that was it.

Then I just burned a mix and sent it back to Jimmy.

you know, awaited his response a couple days.

I think he just said, sounds good.

Exclamation point.

And then any any notes?

No.

That was kind of how it was.

There weren't a lot of conversations about things to change or adjustments to make.

Maybe just because we still didn't know each other that well, it was probably weird to ask too much.

A lot of it had to do with just Jimmy's personality.

He obviously cares deeply about the music that he's making as I do, but we were kind of doing this for a laugh.

Ben added this guitar, I think, when he was recording the demo.

There was this break in the middle,

and then all of a sudden he's like, do snap, today.

And I just wanted to put something small in there to kind of just mark it as a bridge, kind of like a death cab style guitar thing.

This kind of chimey part really added a lot to the second section of the song.

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex.

A stranger with your door key, explaining that I'm just visiting.

Ben, he did the main vocal as well as a bunch of harmonies and kind of background vocals, but it was all his own voice.

Once we got further into the recording process, we decided there should be some other voices besides just all Ben.

What made you decide that you didn't want it to just be Ben?

What was the thought process behind that?

I think maybe it was nice to not have it be a one-man band type of sound.

Maybe it would be too lonely or something if it was just all.

Ben's vocals.

I had had this vision of having a female vocalist, at least doing backups.

It just felt as if like that was a tone that I think would bring a lot to how I sang because I have such a small kind of reedy voice.

So this seemed like because Jimmy and I were basically making the rules as we went along, we could invite whomever we wanted to come be a part of it.

Ben's band, Death Cab for Cutie, was on Barsook Records at the time.

And one of their label mates was Rylo Kiley.

So I asked Jenny Lewis to sing on the record.

I did not not know Jenny Lewis.

We were not friends.

But her band, Rylo Kiley, had just put a record out on Barsook, Takeoffs and Landings.

And I liked that record.

So he got in touch with her and asked if she'd be up for doing these background vocals.

And she was like, yeah, sure.

Where

I

am.

One more time.

Yeah, I mean, this is just a testament to how people roll when they're young.

You don't ask a lot of questions.

You're just like, yeah, do you want to hang out with these two weird dudes you've never met before and make a record?

Yeah, sounds great.

So she picked me up at Burbank Airport in the Rylo-Kylie tour van.

Which is nice because it was also a time where we could all get to know each other because we really, none of us had hung out very much.

Hi, nice to meet you.

We got Mexican food and then went to go make give up.

That's how it went.

Almost immediately I had this thought of like, oof, okay, well.

We're going to go right into the studio and start making this album.

And we have never sung together before.

So I don't really know if her voices are going to work together.

But from the jump, she just got it.

Where

I

am.

You know, Jimmy's behind his computer, Jenny's in front of a mic, I'm on a set of headphones.

You know, I remember Jenny just having this grin on her face like, hey, this is, this is, we're doing this.

This is weird.

This is new, you know?

And she would sing one of these things.

She'd kind of look over at me and just kind of like, and I'd be like, yeah, sounds great.

I am a visitor here.

I am not permanent.

And then Jimmy would just kind of like nod a bit and like we'd move on to the next one.

I think my favorite part in the song is the DC Sleeps Alone Tonight harmony.

DC

sleeps alone

tonight.

By the time we got Ben and Jenny's vocals together, we were pretty close to finishing the record.

It was mostly just some refining.

And in some of the songs, I felt like maybe there needed to be a little bit more variety in the sound, so I would add parts.

And it might have been just an accident with a delay pedal, but I looped a little bit of Jenny's vocals

and made it into a texture in the song.

This vocal loop comes in after the second verse when it's kind of going into the more dancey outro part.

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex.

A stranger with your door key, explaining that I'm just visiting.

And I am finally seeing

where I was the one worth leaving.

It felt as if that moment, now, with the benefit of hindsight, is like the introduction of like, hey, guys, we can have these indie rock guitars and we can put them on these beats.

It's fine.

We're not breaking any rules here.

Like, no one's going to get arrested.

And it would be very easy to sit here 20 plus years later and retrofit our origin story and pretend as if we knew we were making some landmark album at the time.

It's like, no, we were just two dudes who

had just met, didn't know each other very well, and thought this would be a good idea.

Coming up, you'll hear how all of these ideas and elements came together in the final song.

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and now here's the district sleeps alone tonight by the postal service in its entirety

Smeared

black

ink

Your palms are sweaty and I'm barely listening to last

demands

I'm staring at the asphalt wondering what's buried underneath

wear

my

badge

final sticker with big block letters

And here into my chest,

tells

your new friends

I am a visitor here.

I am not permanent

in my only

thing.

Keep

being

dried.

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex.

A stranger with your door key,

explaining that I'm just visiting,

and I am finally seen.

Well, I was the one worth leaving.

Well, I was the one worth leaving.

DC

sleeps alone

tonight

They seem so out of context.

In a scotty apartment complex,

a stranger with your doorkey.

Explaining that I'm just visiting.

I am finally seeing

what I was the one worth leaving.

When I was the one worth leaving.

The district sleeps alone tonight.

After the bars turn out their lights.

Send the auto swerving.

If only it's deeply,

I can finally see

that I was the one worth leaving.

When I was the one worth leaving,

when I was the one worth leaving,

when I was the one worth leaving.

To learn more, visit songexploder.net.

You'll find links to buy or stream The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, and you can watch the music video.

And check out PostalServicemusic.net for the Postal Service's upcoming tour dates.

If you liked this episode, I also did an episode with Ben Gibbard about a Death Cap for Cutie song back in 2015.

You'll find that and all the other episodes of the show at songexploder.net.

The original version of this episode was produced and edited by me.

This expanded version was produced by Craig Ely, Theo Balcombe, Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan, and myself.

The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo.

I've thanked him before many times, but my deep thanks to Jimmy Tamborello for agreeing to let me try the idea for this podcast out with him, and special thanks to Ben Gibbard and Jordan Curland as well.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts.

You can learn more about all our shows at radiotopia.fm.

You can follow me on social media at Rishi Hirway, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder.

You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/slash shirt.

I'm Rishi Ke Shirwe.

Thanks for listening.

Radiotopia

from PRX.

There's this part that was

like an edit of Jenny's vocals that we used.

That's awesome.

I had no idea that that was in there.

I was listening to that song so it was in there.

Yeah, you can hear the

Jenny part

really far in the background.

Oh my god.