Death Cab for Cutie's Style

Style is the way an author conveys their work or message to the audience through the use of different literary devices and techniques. Each author uses or manipulates style differently based on how they want the audience to interpret their work. In the song “Why You’d Want to Live Here,” Death Cab for Cutie use diction, tone, mood, and imagery to create a very cynical and dark song and express their perspective on the environment. The lyrics of the Death Cab for Cutie song really impact the meaning and reception of the song. The one lyric that is repeated throughout the song (“And I can’t see why you’d want to live here”) reinforces the message of the song that the pollution caused by man has made Los Angeles a place of squalor. The instrumentals in “Why You’d Want to Live Here” are quite contradictory from the lyrics of the song. The chords and vocals are very soothing and melodic in contrast with the lyrics, creating a melancholy mood within the audience. Like the Beach Boys, Death Cab for Cutie sing the song in a similar style of using soft, comforting voices while discussing the current issues with the environment. Along with the melancholy mood of the song, phrases such as “Garbage cans comprise the medians of freeways” and “it smells like an airport runway” create the image of a dirty, litter-filled city. The overall style used within “Why You’d Want to Live Here” convey the disturbing message that places that were once deemed beautiful, are now wastelands.

The Beach Boys' Use of Logos

Like the song “Why You’d Want to Live Here” by Death Cab for Cutie, “Don’t Go Near the Water” by the Beach Boys uses no direct appeal to logos.  The overall theme of water pollution and ecological toxins underlies the entire song, but is referenced using metaphorical lyrics instead of statistics and facts.  The song relies on the listener to be able to understand what the Beach Boys are singing about.  This creates more of an engagement between the Beach Boys and the listener.

Death Cab for Cutie's Appeal to Logos

In “Why You’d Want to Live Here,” there is no direct use of an appeal to logos in the lyrics of the song.  Instead of statistics, facts, or primary sources, lyrical style forms a personal story.  The main idea of the song, however, is based upon scientific observation even though this observation is stated somewhat implicitly through personal experience.  Therefore, the appeal to logos comes from the personal lyrics from which the listener is able to connect current scientific knowledge about environmental issues.  For example, the lyrics, “As UV rays degraded our youth with time,” refers to the phenomenon of UV radiation and its negative effects but doesn’t explain what it is.  Instead, it is up to the listener to already know about UV light.  Songs usually do not need to appeal to logos as much as pathos or ethos because it is difficult to fit statistics and such into the structured format of a song.

The Beach Boys' Style

The Beach Boys' style in their song "Don't Go Near the Water" makes the message of this song very obvious. They used phrases like "poisons floating" and "bubble bath" to describe the effect of human impact on oceans, rivers, and lakes. This imaginative, yet negative diction creates an eerily truthful style that when compared with the equally spooky sound, forces the audience to realize how much harm we are causing nature's waters. The Beach Boys sing in low, soft voices while describing the detrimental damage we are doing to the waters. This eerie style peaks when the band sings "Don't go near the water" like a warning. This warning could be interpreted as a warning to stay away from the water because it is filthy and unhealthy, but I believe it is The Beach Boys' way of telling people to stay away from the water because they will cause the water harm because of their tone. The tone of the song is portrayed through a combination of the diction and sound they used. At the end of the song, however, the tone switched to more hopeful and encouraging because The Beach Boys were trying to get their audience to realize that taking action to try to save the health of the waters would have a real impact, unlike Death Cab for Cutie, who were very cynical throughout the entire song.

Death Cab for Cutie's Appeal to Ethos

Death Cab for Cutie, is an indie alternative rock band that formed in 1997.  The frontman, Ben Gibbard, studied environmental chemistry before touring full time, which establishes some extrinsic ethos.  Gibbard has a background in science, allowing him to understand the complexities and nuances of environmental concerns such as pollution and waste management.  But mostly, the song, “Why You’d Want to Live Here” establishes intrinsic ethos through its narrative lyrics.  The entire song is a critique of the band’s experience in Los Angeles and a comment on the environmental problems that are occurring there. The band is known for being antiestablishment and rebellious, making them exciting to their audience, teenagers and other alternative music listeners.  To appeal even further, the register of the song is very informal and conversational, using first and second person perspective.  While Death Cab for Cutie may not be experts in the environmental science field or have any authority in the science community whatsoever, their credibility is established through personal experience and by appealing to the audience’s nonconformist lifestyle.

The Beach Boys' appeal to Ethos

In Greek, Ethos means character. In writing or any other form of rhetoric, ethos is used to establish the credibility of the author and also provide an appeal to ethos within the audience. The appeal to ethos can be seen commonly in music, especially music from the 1960's. As a time of change, social movements and reformation, the music from the 1960's was heavily filled with rhetoric. The artists on the 1960's used rhetoric in the forms of different appeals to convey their message to their audience and, in many cases, persuade the audience to join in protest. This is the case for the very popular 1960's band, the Beach Boys. In their song "Don't Go Near the Water," the Beach Boys use various appeals to ethos both extrinsically and intrinsically. Extrinsic ethos refers to the credibility that an author possess outside of the argument itself. The Beach Boys were a wildly known and popular band of the 1960's that originated in the early 1960's. In the song "Don't Go Near the Water" the Beach Boys explicitly state their fixed opinion on the pollution of water sources and, by extension, the environmental movement. The nature of the Beach Boys position to the public as a band, known for their love of water and recreational water sports, leads the target audience to conclude that the Beach Boys are credible.
The Beach Boys also use "Don't Go Near the Water" to appeal to their target audience's morals and ethics. In discussing the pollution to the earth's water, the Beach Boys appeal to an audience with similar views on the environmental movement. The Beach Boys express the correlation or relationship of man and the environment in their song to establish intrinsic ethos within the audience. By connecting man's actions with the resulting environmental change and pollution, the audience is inclined to think about or realize how their small changes and choices can greatly impact the environment. In establishing intrinsic ethos, however, the Beach Boys fall short on the aspect of addressing the opposing side. "Don't Go Near the Water" was made specifically with the idea of informing people of the repercussions of their actions, but does not discuss or entertain the rival viewpoints.

Pathos of Death Cab for Cutie

In their song, "Why You'd Want to Live Here", Death Cab for Cutie appealed to pathos using imagery. The tone of the song was very low beat and critical. Death Cab for Cutie kept repeating, "I can't see why you'd want to live here" to encourage the reader to question why anyone would want to live in a big, filthy city. Throughout the song they also repeated the phrase "I'm in Los Angeles today...", followed by an experience or observation that illustrated the horrible environmental conditions in they city, such as "garbage cans comprise the medians of freeways" and "asked a gas station employee if he ever had trouble breathing and he said 'it varies from season to season, kid'". When the listener hears things like that it immediately creates an image in their head of a garbage filled city with smog and people having trouble breathing. The intended effect of this imagery on the listener is to realize the dump we are turning our cities into. This effect was strengthened by Death Cab for Cutie's choice of city. When people think of LA they think of blue skies, Hollywood, summertime, movie stars, and happiness. Therefore, this change in the listener's image of LA, from beautiful to filthy, combined with the song's tone has a significant impact on the listener's awareness of the environmental and aesthetic problems that humans have caused in big cities.