The Postal Service has only 1 album, Give Up. They did after this one.

"Such Great Heights" was the lead single from the album- it gained popularity and was featured on Grey's Anatomy, several commercials, the trailer for Garden State, etc. I initially dismissed the album as pop trash due to how accessible/peppy/light/loving this song is.





That God himself did make Us into corresponding shapes

Eek.





But it turns out my initial impression was incorrect: the lead single is the honeymoon love phase that stands in the contrast/context to an album about an existential internal/external meltdown. I have found this to be true of many great artists; a band gets popular for its lone cheesy single that stands alone in a truly devastating album.





Beach Boy's impossibly cheerful "Wouldn't It Be Nice" being followed by an album dedicated to Brian Wilson's conclusion that his love is dead and he's an outcast that "Wasn't Made for These Times". Modest Mouse's ridiculously optimistic "Float On" in the setting of a discography that epitomizes frustration and creatively expressed depression.





Lyrically, Give Up combines a post-apocalyptic global-warming-esque world with a recent break-up.





I want to take a look at this album through the lens of Attachment Theory. In particular, I want to show how nearly every lyric in the album fits the psychology of someone with a pre-occupied attachment strategy undergoing a break-up and struggling with psychic equivalence.





First a little about Attachment theory. It combines Freudian psychoanalytics with empirical observations of children. It is deceptively simple. Often while reading about it, I'll find myself saying, "duh, that's obvious, I already knew that". It can seem so obvious because it's so steeped into our understanding of things, but the more you read about it the more you see it everywhere. It's a very powerful theory, and you can use it sheds light to an impressively large set of human behavior.





A quick overview is that as children have an inborn evolutionary behavioral mechanism to develop attachments to a caregiver. This attachment system interacts early on with primary caregivers to develop internal working models for what strategies work best to maintain connections to others. These strategies include how/what/the depth of what we pay attention to when it comes to relationships, and carries onto our adult relationships. There are 4 main attachment types: secure, pre-occupied, avoidant, and disorganized. Quickly: Secure individuals have high self-esteem, are self-reliant when necessary, but are able to make healthy relationships. Insecure includes pre-occupied, avoidant, and disorganized. Pre-occupied individuals are hyper/over-attuned to abandonment behaviors, avoidant individuals are avoidant of close attachments. Disorganized individuals is the most insecure, as have no consistent attachment strategy (think trauma).





So pre-occupied attachment is an insecure adult attachment style that follows from an anxious-ambivalent strategy in infanthood. It's best understood as a reaction to inconsistent parenting. The infant learns from the parent that its needs are met unpredictably, so in order to secure that the parent will provide for the infant, it responds by amplifying its physiological response to abandonment. Because mom isn't properly attuned to the infant's minor distresses, the infant turns their abandonment detector antenna settings to high and has their affect ready to go into DEFCON 5. Because mom responds to this.

When mom leaves a secure baby, the baby will experience: "shit where is mom? I hope she comes back". When mom leaves a pre-occupied baby, the baby experiences: "I've been abandoned, the world is fucking imploding".





These early attachment lessons lead to long-lasting internal working models. Essentially the inborn attachment system creates mental representations of how relationships are supposed to function. Put another way, a person's preset emotional responses are developed in reaction to which affective (emotional) responses best secured attachment to the primary caregiver. These working models remain pretty darn fixed over a lifetime. The preoccupied infant that learns that it needs to freak the fuck out to guarantee his mom's attention becomes the adult that freaks the fuck out to get his girlfriend's attention.





For the following chart, pay close attention to the pre-occupied classification.





Preoccupied = Anxious Ambivalent = Your Crazy-ex

So these individuals have a negative model of the self, high dependence on others, positive model of others, and low avoidance. I'll go into more detail as we go on.

With this in mind, let's go to Give Up, who's lyrics are written by Ben Gibbard (so I'll use his name as our protagonist). The album lyrically goes tit-for-tat between Relationship Break-Up and Global Warming Post Apocalypse. Psychologically these are the same thing for this guy. Why? Because this break-up is activating what he learned earlier: "I've been abandoned, the world is fucking imploding".





The album opens up with "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight", we get the context of where the relationship/Gibbard is at right now.

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex A stranger with your door key explaining that I am just visiting

He's at his ex-girlfriend's apartment giving back her door key. The main take away from this is that his ex now feels like a stranger, and her apartment is now foreign to him.





D.C. sleeps alone tonight





Dude... only you are sleeping alone tonight. Here we get the first clue that Gibbard experiences psychic equivalence; he confuses his internal reality (I'm sleeping alone tonight) with the external world (DC sleep alone tonight).

And I am finally seeing Why I was the one worth leaving

We also get a good feel for Gibbard's model of his self as he blames the break-up on his self worth. When an infant experiences parents that don't meet their needs they has 2 options: "my needs aren't met because the world is a bad place" or "my needs aren't met because I'm a bad person". Why not always pick the first option? The second option is actually a lot more appealing than it sounds; it allows the individual to maintain a sense of control over his/her safety. If I'm bad that means that I can change. As the album goes forward it plays with this sense of control. -------- Next up, "Such Great Heights" takes us a step back chronologically to the nice cheese-ball that this relationship was. Here we experience the clinginess mode of the pre-occupied attacher. These people have their emotional volume knob turned up to 11, so when things are good, oh there's passion baby...





I am thinking it's a sign That the freckles in our eyes Are mirror images and when We kiss they're perfectly aligned

And I have to speculate That God himself did make Us into corresponding shapes Like puzzle pieces from the clay





I tried my best to leave This all on your machine

Wait, dude, you're leaving this drivel on her machine? And you're going over the time? Jesus. No wonder the calls are going to voicemail. Chill.





If I thought a girl wrote the album, this would be about borderline personality disorder. Damn you gender bias.

But the persistent beat it sounded thin Upon listening

I'm gonna stretch this to make a point: our attachment system is set in place by modulating our perception, modulating what we pay attention, modulating what we feel. The queues that our brain allows us to see and focus on are in place to protect our (primary attachment). If you stopped texting all your friends right now, each one would notice you fell off the map at completely times. One friend would notice after a few days (pre-occupied), one friend would notice after a week (secure), and another friend wouldn't see you until the funeral (avoidant). The crazy in this guy makes it so the beeps signalling the end of machine aren't loud.





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To understand "Sleeping In" I'll need to explain how Gibbard plays with psychic equivalence on the album. Here's a slide from a lecture from Peter Fonagy:

Note that the title of this slide "The Modes of Psychic Reality That Antedate Mentalisation and Characterize Suicide/Self-Harm" can feel a little extreme for use as a comparison of the album we have at hand. But let's remember the album title is: Give Up. Given the themes here, how could "give up" not make you think of... suicide.

Last week I had the strangest dream Where everything was exactly how it seemed Where there was never any mystery of who shot John F. Kennedy It was just a man with something to prove....

Don't wake me I plan on sleeping in Don't wake me I plan on sleeping OOo oOo oOo

During sleep we follow dream logic, where our internal thoughts/concepts/ideas are acted out in the external world. So "Sleeping In" serves as a transition point in the album from internal reality --> dream world --> external reality. This makes the jump to psychic equivalence (where the world becomes apocalyptic) feel less extreme. So this dream world allows him to recreate and understand a historical event (JFK), just like how the rest of the album he recreates and understands his relationship through apocalyptic events.





In the words of Ben Gibbard, OOo oOo oOo.

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"Nothing Better" gives us a look at the relationship from the girl's perspective. The song flits back and forth between Gibbard's proclamations of love/ requests conciliation and the girlfriend's pespective / rejection of Gibbard.

She says:

I feel I must interject here You're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself With these revisions and gaps in history

Here we experience one of the points on the Fonagy slide, "intolerance of alternative perspectives". To understand what's going on here let's keep in mind: "Preoccupied adults cannot collaboratively reflect; their narratives are chaotic and confusing."

So let me help you remember I've made charts and graphs that should finally make it clear I've prepared a lecture on why I have to leave

"This is the bar that shows you're a piece of shit"





Tell me: Am I right to think that there could be nothing better Than making you my bride and slowly growing old together? Don't you feed me lines about some idealistic future Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures

"Recall that in order to secure the parent’s unreliable attention, such infants had learned to amplify their expressions of distress. Similarly, the preoccupied parents appeared vulnerable to feelings of distress that they seemed unable (or unwilling) to manage." Gibbard's attachment strategy of PANIC MODE is activating in full force. Despite not being great in the relationship (remember he "was the one worth leaving"), he now is having fantasies of being married. Kinda extreme in both directions.

I can't my darling I love you so Oh, oh I know that I have made mistakes And I swear I'll never wrong you again

"Secure attachment is clearly associated with a reflective stance toward experience. In Main’s (1991) account, this stance rests on the metacognitive capacity to recognize the “merely representational nature” of our own beliefs and feelings. With such a stance, we can step back from the immediate “reality” of experience and respond in light of the mental states that might underlie it—to use Fonagy’s term, we can “mentalize.”





Gibbard struggles with mentalizing- recognizing that his current thoughts of reconciliation are just the result of his heightened panic to separation. If they get back together, he'll go back to being a dick.

You've got a lure I can't deny But you've had your chance so say goodbye

The girlfriend is demonstrating mentalization: she recognizes that this relationship doesn't work, and that he's just hurting himself by making up these idealistic reveries. She recognizes the mental state of Gibbard and knows his pleas are bullshit.

------ "Recycled Air" is a reference to the air that is circulating in an airplane.

I watch the patchwork farms' slow fade into the ocean's arms And from here they can't see me stare The stale taste of recycled air

The airplane air gives us images of shitty air quality and starts us thinking of the apocalypse coming up. The lyrics also serve as a direct mirror/contrast to the lyrics In Such Great Heights. In that song "everything looks perfect from far away", but in this song, the distance (represented by the visual on an airplane of patchwork farms/oceans) just serves as a shield to protect others from seeing him. He has trouble with perspectives.

Ba ba ba ba...









------ Human relationships are very complex and the complexity is what makes them difficult. In "Clark Gable', Ben decides to forgo that complexity by just making his perfect love story a movie. Can't fuck that up.

That I've been waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie So I changed my plans I rented a camera and a van and then I called you "I need you to pretend that we are in love again" and you agreed to

The selective screening of emotional/causal information that is initially adaptive in our attachments in infancy end up being maladaptive in our adult relationships, so working models end up being inconsistent, not in our best interest, and possibly even self-perpetuating. So individuals that are insecurely attached (this includes pre-occupied, avoidant, and disorganized) have a tough time maintaining relationships. It's understandable someone would want to use a script to make their life events more palatable. Where does a kid turn to in order to understand how the drama of a relationship unfolds: the generation above them with a 50% divorce rate... or television? That shit is burnt deeper in your brain than you could ever fathom.

I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real" And I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd





I know you're wise beyond your years, but do you ever get the fear That your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?

Gibbard is actually doing some good mentalizing here. He recognizes that these lyrics are just the lies he tells himself to not... Give Up. OOo oOo oOo.

--------- In "We Will Become Silhouettes", the apocalypse is finally here.





I've got a cupboard with cans of food, filtered water, And pictures of you and I'm not coming out Until this is all over

Now to clarify for people who don't understand what I'm trying to argue: I'm not saying Gibbard is a nut or that he's intentionally writing about a pre-occupied attachment style. I'm saying that due to his fear of abandonment, Gibbard's brain naturally makes associations between abandonment and the world ending. So that when he writes about the world ending, he's really just expressing an emotion. I've seen many people tell me they want to kill themselves when the last things they want is to be dead; sometimes you need to ignore the content of what someone is saying in order to get access to the information.





And I'm screaming at the top of my lungs pretending The echoes belong to someone Someone I used to know

While in isolation and hiding, he's screaming and making pretend the echo coming back is the girlfriend. This is exactly mirrored in what Gibbard did when he wrote the song "Nothing Better". In that song he wrote a back and forth between him and his ex. But we know that the exchange that occurred in that song didn't actually happen. He wrote her part. This album is him screaming at the top of my lungs, and he's using the echoes of her memory to write it.





And we'll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go

What's weird about this song is how peppy the music is. It's undeniably a happy sounding song. To get this, it's important to note the lyric is We'll become silhouettes rather than I'll become a silhouette. Which makes me think it was a conscious choice considering the previous lyrics are about him being isolated. These fantasies of the world ending are a solace to him- because it makes him feel less alone. Mixing up internal/external allows him to turn the situation from my problem to our problem. And that feels better for him.





Ba ba ba...

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"This Place Is A Prison" continues with the hostility of the outside world (again reflecting his inner state).





This place is a prison And these people aren't your friends

It feels fair to say he's depressed over all this stuff, which paints everything he sees.





Inhaling thrills through $20 bills And the tumblers are drained and then flooded again And again

Cocaine and alcohol. Externalizing the problem by numbing- all addictions stem from a failure of connection. This is not an exaggeration.

And you may case the grounds from the cascades to puget sound, But you are not permitted to leave

You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave (livinnnnnn' it up at the Hotel California). Here's the control thing I talked about earlier. If the world is bad, you're stuck in it. It's no wonder this is the darkest song on the album.





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"Brand New Colony" describes starting a brand new colony, and on this colony he is perfectly attuned to the girlfriend. Makes me think Gibbard wants to form a secure base:





"...it was only secure individuals who could actually be said to have a singular “model” of attachment. Their experience with a consistently sensitive caregiver—who provided a secure base—seemed to have resulted in the relatively stable expectation that others would be responsive to their needs. Insecure individuals, by contrast, had grown up with parents who provided no such secure base but instead were rejecting, unpredictable, or frightening."





I'll be the grapes fermented, Bottled and served with the table set in my finest suit Like a perfect gentlemen I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick Where you will sit and contemplate your day

The control thing again: he wants to be that perfect puzzle piece for his girlfriend, and he thinks that if he can change then everything will be perfect. It's his internal working model of a relationship that's warped; you're not supposed to be a perfect puzzle piece for your spouse. You will have differences and you will be inadequate at times, and that's okay. Life isn't a movie (like "Clark Gable"), relationships sometimes are work.





I want to take you far from the cynics in this town And kiss you on the mouth We'll cut our bodies free from the tethers of this scene, Start a brand new colony Where everything will change, We'll give ourselves new names (identities erased)

Our attachment security can be fluid throughout our lives. New relationships can alter the scripts we have on attachment. These occur through corrective experiences. This can occur through a new boyfriend/girlfriend or friend or mentor or therapist. Sounds like Gibbard is desperately seeking this. He wants to start a secure base (aka a Brand New Colony) with someone. If he is able to find that someone to change his attachment style, he of course will have a new identity. Internally he will be good ("a perfect gentleman") and externally the world will be good. He seems to think that this is only possible by finding love.





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"Natural Anthem" is the last song of the album. If you're going to start a new colony you need an anthem.





I'll write you a song and it won't be hard to sing It will be a natural anthem, familiar it will seem It will rally all the workers on strike for better pay And its chorus will resound and boost morale throughout the day

I'll write you a song and I hope that you won't mind Because all the names and places I have taken from real life

I feel like Gibbard is addressing himself here. The Natural Anthem that he's referring to seems to be the album. Music and writing for him seems to be a catharsis, it allows him to sublimate his tragedies into something bigger. The happier workers and boosted morale is a reference to the fact that this music is what allows him to process lost love, and the lost love is what allows him to write music. Sure this ex is what caused all the heartache and pain and even the world to end, but it also allowed him to create this music. His rocky love life (*cough* attachment *cough*) and the music are the thesis of his life; these are his anthem.





It may be a little biased, but at least I spelled your name right...

All is said and done and in the last line we see Gibbard is able to mentalize about his own bias with regards to his writing this album.