Death Cab for Cutie - Gold Rush (Lyric Video)

Filmed by Nicholas Harmer

They’re digging for gold in my neighborhood
Where all the old buildings stood
And they keep digging down, down
So that their cars can live underground
The swinging of a wrecking ball
Through these lathe and plaster walls
Is letting all the shadows free
The ones I wished still followed me

Change, please don’t change
Stay, stay the same

I remember a winter’s night
When we kissed beneath the street lamp light
Outside our bar near the record store
That have been condos for a year or more
And now that our haunts have taken flight
And been replaced with construction sites
Oh how I feel like a stranger here
Searching for something that’s disappeared

They’re digging for gold in my neighborhood
For what they say is the greater good
But all I see is a long goodbye
A requiem for a skyline
It seems I never stop losing you
As every dive becomes something new
And all our ghosts get swept away
It didn’t used to be this way

Change, please don’t change
Stay, stay the same
Cranes devour the light
Strange appetites

I’ve ascribed these monuments
A false sense of permanence
I’ve placed faith in geography
To hold you in my memory
I’m sifting through these wreckage piles
Through the rubble of bricks and wires
Looking for something I’ll never find

They’re digging for gold in my neighborhood
Where all the old buildings stood
And they keep digging down, down
So that their cars can live underground
It seems I never stop losing you
As every dive becomes something new
And all our ghosts get swept away
It didn’t used to be this way

[bulwyf]

I love this song. You can never go back home again. Everything changes even when you live in a city or town it is constantly changing. I suffer from strong bouts of nostalgia and this song perfectly encapsulates the sense of loss I feel when I return to an old haunt.

[Ahrimancp]

As a devout metal head, this song falls well outside my normal listening spectrum. But a good tune is still a good tune...period!

[ravisinha]

The lyrics in this song give me goosebumps. You know.... Nostalgia has a way to make us feel good. It must be the endorphins trying to remember better days. I think that's what I contribute this song to. 'Now that our haunts have taken flight and been replaced with construction sites. How I feel like a stranger here searching for something that's disappeared.' Very deep.

[jackallen]

There is an old saying "You can never go home" I think this song sums that up quite nicely! My daughter moved 800 miles away the day she graduated high school and came back to visit after being gone 8 years and she was blown away. By all that had happened to this place and that place, lol. I told her  then this is why you can never go home after you leave because home has moved on...

[joshpurvis]

They dispense nostalgia like a warm familiar blanket. They are everything an artist should strive to attain.

[daviddennis]

As a lifelong Manhattanite, this song hits me in the gut very hard . The Upper Westside is just gone. And I mourn its loss every day!

[squirrelonmapletree]

After a number of years, I got to visit the town I was born and grew up in. It changed so much that I didn't recognize some streets, I didn't recognize any of the stores, couldn't find my way to the old apartment my family used to live in. And where there used to be a large plot of farm, it was dug over and a new urban complex was there, with a brand new highway in the distance. The place I used to know only exists in my memory now. This song describes the feeling.

[djadshead]

Prefer this to the official vid. Feels more honest through its simplicity and the fact it was made by just Nick and Ben. More self produced vids please!

[saipitre]

I love how halfway through a Death Cab For Cutie song, the lyrics just hit you smack in the face and you just wanna write them down somewhere because they're so apt.
"Now that our haunts have taken flight
And been replaced with construction sites
Oh, how I feel like a stranger here
Searching for something that's disappeared"

[Elizabeth-depm]

Anyone who loves Death Cab For Cutie is automatically my friend no question!!!!😁❤

[gpl]

I think the song has now itself become nostalgic... summer, travel and places I've been pre-covid. The words are incredible- true, evocative and bittersweet.

[ddiamondr]

Love this song - and this message is so close to my heart. I grew up in Canmore Alberta in the 60’s - Canmore has now become a mountain spa town where celebrities build vacation mansions used a couple of weeks a year. The only people from my school who can afford to live there now inherited family homes. Out of 60 in my class only two still lives in what was once a mountain paradise. Great song.

[Truedoogie]

Man. This hits me in the feels. Especially as someone from Seattle. But just in general, he encompasses this otherworldly feeling so well with lyrics and the band wraps it up in this perfect sound.

[joshuaedmond]

This video is SUPER DOPE!!! The man himself holding the cards and then the walk away after it’s all said and done

[ProjectDv]

As a native San Franciscan, this song hits hard. The city has changed so much in recent years compared to whole decades before. Institutions around since the 1800s suddenly swept away to be replaced with a laundromat that sells beer or a live-work loft. And each of those landmarks that disappear taking the shadows of beloved memories with them. The music store my friends and I spent hours in. The diner where the girl I loved rested her head on my shoulder. The arcade where my friend was murdered. Places that were once iconic, now gone with no trace that they ever were, except for the memories locked inside the heads of the people that were there. It's crazy how much this song encapsulates the glowing nostalgia and melancholy of the loss of time, all at once.

[shivercanada]

Most underrated band on the Planet. This song in infectious and intelligent, perfection!

[talhakamal]

This song is so underrated. It deserves at least a million views.

[Binspiration]

I love this. Benjamin's face/eyes speak a thousand words. There's a lot of heart in this song.

[carolinemenezesx]

I couldnt walk away like he did without looking back

[drwfan]

Reminds me of how much my hometown has changed so much in the last 20 years. Now it's more bars, restaurants, and parking garages. It used to be such a wonderful downtown. Now it's just jammed with all the same things. All the niche places are long gone.