Although Ben seems to act calm and has the ability to sing throughout the procedure, he was not given anesthetics nor was he on any form of life support. The video, directed by Patrick Daughters, consists of frontman Ben Gibbard lying on an operating table while undergoing a ' surgery' (as done by the other band members) to receive a new heart.
Since the band has expanded to a five-piece, without Walla, the song has been able to be performed live without any instrument swapping. In later tours, Gibbard kept his electric guitar strapped on for the entirety of the song, but used a shaker as percussion during the song's first two verses. In the band's 2008 tour, Gibbard performed the entire first two verses as lead vocalist, without a guitar or drums, before picking up his guitar as Walla switched to the keyboard. All of these involved guitarist Chris Walla switching halfway through the song from lead guitar to keyboards, whilst singer/guitarist Ben Gibbard took over the guitar part.įor the first half of the song, initially, both Gibbard and drummer Jason McGerr used electronic drums in order to replicate the distinctive drum machine sound used at the beginning of the song. Due to the song's layered instrumentation, 'Title and Registration' has been difficult to play during live performances in the past, and thus has been performed a variety of ways.
