“A Movie Script Ending” by Death Cab for Cutie

Ben Gibbard wrote "A Movie Script Ending" not long after he traded Bellingham, Washington, the quiet college town Death Cab for Cutie called home, for Seattle, and the song is thick with that homesickness. It sits on the band's third album, The Photo Album, from 2001, and went out as its lead single in February 2002.

The lyric plays like a walking tour of the old town, name-checking Railroad and Holly, two streets that cross downtown, and dropping by a local haunt, the Beaver Inn. Chris Walla produced, recorded and mixed it and plays guitar next to Gibbard, who adds organ, with Nick Harmer on bass pedals and Michael Schorr on drums. On stage the band tends to push it a little faster these days, and a band demo rode along on The Photo Album's 20th-anniversary reissue in 2021.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.