Death Cab For YouTube

Chad of rock blog Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands has thoughtfully compiled a half dozen YouTube videos of assorted fans covering Death Cab For Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" with the camera rolling. Like the song itself, the performances are maudlin and kitschy but ultimately so earnest and affecting you can't really help but get a warm feeling watching them.

I'm not sure if I should consider Death Cab a guilty pleasure (and, personally, don't really care). Sure, there's something self-important and overly weighty about them, and they seem to draw unusually strong adverse reactions from their detractors, but I happen to like 'em quite a bit. Transatlanticism is an outright classic, and Plans is pretty damn close. And, hey, if you're going to sing about love lasting even past death -- a sentiment that will necessarily come with a touch of blecchiness -- it's hard to picture doing it more poetically than this song.

Incidentally, the Everybody Cares post does NOT include video of the original. So, just to clear up that little oversight: