”Why You'd Want To Live Here” by Death Cab For Cutie, Album: The Photo Album (2001)

I'm in Los Angeles today: It smells like an airport runway.
Jet fuel stenches in the cabin and lights flickering at random.
I'm in Los Angeles today:
Garbage cans comprise the medians of freeways always creeping
even when the population's sleeping.
And I can't see why you'd want to live here.

I'm in Los Angeles today:
Asked a gas station employee if he ever had trouble breathing
and he said, "It varies from season to season, kid."
It's where our best are on display:
motion picture actors' houses maps are never ever current,
so save your film and fifteen dollars.
And I can't see why you'd want to live here,

Billboards reach past the tallest buildings,
"We are not perfect
but we sure try" as UV rays "degradate" our youth with time.
The vessel keeps pumping us through this entropic place
in the belly of the beast that is Californ-i-a,
I drank from the faucet and I kept my receipt
for when they weigh me on the way out (here nothing is for free).
The greyhounds keep coming dumping locusts into the street
until the gutters overflow and Los Angeles thinks,
"I might explode someday soon."

It's a lovely summer's day
I can almost see a skyline through a thickening shroud of egos.
Is this the city of angels or demons?
And here the names are what remain: stars encapsulate the golden lame
and they need constant cleaning for when the tourists begin salivating.
And I can't see why you'd want to live here.
Billboards reach past the tallest buildings,
You can't swim in a town this shallow
because you will most assuredly drown tomorrow.

A song that wonders what attracts people to be gathered in big polluted cities and live a life with stress, health problems, with no sign of future improvement of their condition.

You can hear this song in youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrI1_FwTmtg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhRv-MbPRy4