There are four things called “Death Cab for Cutie.” The first is the band led by Ben Gibbard, which began as a spin-off from a band called Pinwhell. This side project was with guitarist Chris Walla and was called All-Time Quarterback. They released one cassette recorded in a basement. When that didn’t gain them any traction, they opted for another strange time: Death Cab for Cutie. Where did that come from?
This was the name of a song by a weird British group called The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, who were contemporaries of The Beatles and appeared in the 1967 film, Magical Mystery Tour. So where did they get the title? From the title of an old trashy American pulp fiction crime magazine.
And where did that phrase come from? The fourth source is a 1957 academic book on British pop culture entitled The Uses of Literacy.
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