I think this song returns to a lot of old Death Cab themes, particularly those of their album The Photo Album, which basically tried to musically emulate a photo album. The songs were really just a collection of different moments, and they would usually begin by describing in detail the situation and then going in and analyzing it.
One song off the Photo Album is called "Information Travels Faster," and it was about how alienating new technology was to Gibbard and how the days seemed to be slower despite the technology. One lyric off of "The New Year" has a similar meaning; "I wish the world were flat like the old days, then I could travel just by holding a map. No airplanes or speedtrains or freeways. There'd be no distance that could hold us back." Even though technology advances, people seem farther apart.
Oh Atlas could not understand
The world was so much smaller than
The one he used to hold before
But the weight it brought him to the floor
This repeats the theme about how the world seems to be larger the more interconnected we are.
This extended metaphor about the photo harkens back to their songs "The Photobooth" and "No Room in Frame." In Photobooth, Gibbard refers to the printout he is given.
And this is all that's left:
Scraping paper to document.
In Binary Sea, he says:
For if there is no document
We cannot build our monument
So look into the lens and I'll
Make sure this moment never dies
This all explains the metaphor in "No Room in Frame," how not being allowed to be part of someone's "document" is so upsetting.
Binary Sea in the end is about trying to swim in a "binary sea" of an ever-changing world and about preserving memories. I really think that this is what Death Cab is all about: documenting moments and making monuments to them and trying to communicate in a world that makes connecting so easy and so hard at the same time. Amazing lyrics and really rewarding for Death Cab fans who know their older stuff, easily my favorite song off the album.
I think this song returns to a lot of old Death Cab themes, particularly those of their album The Photo Album, which basically tried to musically emulate a photo album. The songs were really just a collection of different moments, and they would usually begin by describing in detail the situation and then going in and analyzing it.
One song off the Photo Album is called "Information Travels Faster," and it was about how alienating new technology was to Gibbard and how the days seemed to be slower despite the technology. One lyric off of "The New Year" has a similar meaning; "I wish the world were flat like the old days, then I could travel just by holding a map. No airplanes or speedtrains or freeways. There'd be no distance that could hold us back." Even though technology advances, people seem farther apart.
Oh Atlas could not understand The world was so much smaller than The one he used to hold before But the weight it brought him to the floor
This repeats the theme about how the world seems to be larger the more interconnected we are.
This extended metaphor about the photo harkens back to their songs "The Photobooth" and "No Room in Frame." In Photobooth, Gibbard refers to the printout he is given.
And this is all that's left: Scraping paper to document.
In Binary Sea, he says:
For if there is no document We cannot build our monument So look into the lens and I'll Make sure this moment never dies
This all explains the metaphor in "No Room in Frame," how not being allowed to be part of someone's "document" is so upsetting.
Binary Sea in the end is about trying to swim in a "binary sea" of an ever-changing world and about preserving memories. I really think that this is what Death Cab is all about: documenting moments and making monuments to them and trying to communicate in a world that makes connecting so easy and so hard at the same time. Amazing lyrics and really rewarding for Death Cab fans who know their older stuff, easily my favorite song off the album.