Not long after dark I found myself winding up the 405 listening to Mark Goodman count down the Sirius Spectrum top dozen of the week. Seemingly voted on by the listeners… Who calls a radio station? Who e-mails a radio station? Not me. But it was interesting, hearing the adult alternative favorites. Just shy of Mulholland, Mark got to number one, Death Cab For Cutie. I was digging the record and then I realized…I’D HEARD IT BEFORE!

I was lying on the couch in Lyor Cohen’s hotel room. Having listened to Lyor’s analogies and explication of the direction of the Warner Music Group for an hour, he then told me he was going to play me some music. I HATE THIS! These are not ideal listening conditions, in front of the purveyor. Let me listen in the privacy of my own home, I’ll give your music a chance. I told Lyor this. He said fine, then he wouldn’t play me some music, it was my choice. But he said it in such a distant, almost put-down way, that I said fine, fire up some tunes.

Got to tell you, the sound systems at the Beverly Hills Hotel suck. At least in this room. The CD player was balky, there was not enough power to fire the speakers at rock and roll level. And the first track Lyor played me…wasn’t crap, but it wasn’t MAGNIFICENT! Lyor had told me Warner was only interested in magnificent. And after hearing his rap, I saw no reason to be a sycophant, I told him, it wasn’t that good. You’d think he’d back off, take umbrage, refuse to play me anything more, tell me I’m a moron, that’s what most executives tell you when you don’t agree that their music is outstanding. But Lyor reached into his bag, extracted a disc and said LISTEN TO THIS!

I get it, I get it. He’s going to keep playing me music until I like something, until I agree with him, am I EVER going to get out of here?

But what flowed out of the speakers was completely unexpected. It sounded more like 1972 than 2008. More prog rock than Top Forty radio fodder. Dark like a Golden Earring record, but more musical. There was a long intro that reminded me of Bowie’s Berlin interlude, psychologically anyway. This intro went on seemingly forever. Eventually some guitars swooped in to play along with the bass. I was waiting for the track to falter. But I remained hooked, captured. The keyboard was a delicious flourish. The track slowly sped up and built like something from Kraftwerk. Then, nearly FIVE MINUTES into the track, someone started to sing. Without the melisma-riddled vocal of the era, but the thin, but mellifluous, voice of someone seeming to vocalize from outer space. I was now rooting for this number, keep it going, don’t disappoint me, don’t deliver a lame chorus. And I wasn’t. Disappointed that is. I was reminded of a great Porcupine Tree track. This number, it was TRULY MAGNIFICENT!

This is Death Cab For Cutie’s "I Will Possess Your Heart".

Lyor wouldn’t tell me who did it. Said it wasn’t the act’s first album. That I’d just have to wait. Which I did, until Saturday night. I never fired up the CD that came in the mail. I don’t hate Death Cab, but there’s never been this one track that’s taken me to the limit…and beyond.

If you want to know what the early seventies were like, fire up a doobie, turn off the lights, lie down on the floor and listen to "I Will Possess Your Heart". Not the short version, which Mark Goodman, played, but the full 8:35 track. You’ll be taken on an adventure. And isn’t that what great music does? Grasp your hand and take you somewhere you didn’t know existed? Leaving you somewhere completely different as a result of the experience?

Check it out at: MySpace Death Cab for Cutie

Or, listen, but don’t watch, video supplants the creation of your own mental movie, at:

imeem I Will Possess Your Heart (Album Version video)

AND CRANK IT!