“The Sound of Settling” is a song by American indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie, the second single from their fourth studio album, Transatlanticism, released on December 26, 2003. The song reached number 84 on the UK Singles Chart, was featured on various movie soundtracks, and became the third song by the band to be featured on the television show The O.C..
An acoustic demo for “The Sound of Settling” was featured on the Transatlanticism Demos LP released by Barsuk Records in 2013, to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of Transatlanticism’s release.
Music video
The video begins with a picture frame containing an image of velvet curtains. When the song starts the camera zooms out from the picture frame mounted on an easel, a scene is performed for a few seconds before the camera zooms out again, and the cycle repeats until the end of the song. These scenes alternate between the band members playing their instruments seriously, and humorous unrelated scenes featuring gospel singers, a drunk man, cheerleaders, an astronaut, chefs, a gingerbread man, as well as the band playing miniature instruments.
The video bears a resemblance to the music video for The New Pornographers‘ song “Letter from an Occupant”.
