Crooked Teeth (Death Cab for Cutie song)

"Crooked Teeth"
Single by Death Cab for Cutie
from the album Plans
Released2006
RecordedSpring 2005
GenreIndie rock
Length3:23
LabelAtlantic
Songwriter(s)Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla
Producer(s)Chris Walla
Death Cab for Cutie singles chronology
"Soul Meets Body"
(2005) 		"Crooked Teeth"
(2006) 		"I Will Follow You into the Dark"
(2005)

"Crooked Teeth" is a song by indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie, the second single from their 2005 album, Plans.

The single was released on Atlantic Records, featuring the song "Crooked Teeth" and two B-side tracks: "Talking Like Turnstiles", and a cover of the Julian Cope song "World Shut Your Mouth", which was originally released two years earlier as a B-side on the internet-only single "Title and Registration", from the band's previous album, Transatlanticism. The single peaked at number 10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart, making it Death Cab for Cutie's seventh highest charting song in the United States to-date.[1]

Background

The song was co-written by lead singer and guitarist Ben Gibbard and guitarist Chris Walla. In a 2011 episode of VH1 Storytellers, Gibbard spoke about the back story behind the lyrical content of "Crooked Teeth":[2]

One of my favorite, favorite writers in the whole world is a man named Raymond Carver and he had this way of writing stories about people living small lives going through some very, uh... their very own trials and tribulations in ways that I've always really admired. I wanted to kind of create a story that involved two characters that were trapped by geography in Southern Florida and that they were kind of keeping themselves captive and the city that surrounded them was seemingly closing in on them and this was the outcome of that experiment. This is my attempt to be a junior Raymond Carver.

— Benjamin Gibbard, VH1 Storytellers

Track listing

UK 7" single #1

  1. "Crooked Teeth"
  2. "World Shut Your Mouth"

UK 7" single #2

  1. "Crooked Teeth"
  2. "Talking Like Turnstiles"

UK CD Single

  1. "Crooked Teeth"
  2. "Talking Like Turnstiles"
  3. "Crooked Teeth" (Music Video)
  4. "Making of Plans" (Documentary Video)

Chart positions

Chart (2006) Peak
position
Australian ARIA singles chart 100
Canada Rock Top 30 (Radio & Records)[3] 30
Scotland (OCC)[4] 43
UK Singles (OCC)[5] 69
US Alternative Airplay (Billboard)[6] 10

Certifications

Region Certification Certified units/sales
United States (RIAA)[7] Gold 500,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

References

  1. ^ "Death Cab for Cutie Chart History: Alternative Songs". Billboard. Retrieved June 24, 2018.
  2. ^ VH1 Storytellers. "Death Cab for Cutie." 77. May 27, 2011. Accessed from: [1]
  3. ^ "RR Canada Rock Top 30" (PDF). p. 54. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  4. ^ "Official Scottish Singles Sales Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Death Cab for Cutie: Artist Chart History". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  6. ^ "Death Cab for Cutie Chart History (Alternative Airplay)". Billboard. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  7. ^ "American single certifications – Death Cab For Cutie – Crooked Teeth". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved June 2, 2022.