Title And Registration

This song is about a man who stumbles upon old pictures of his girlfriend ("Souveniers from better times") in his glove compartment before she left him ("Before the gleam of your taillights fading east") and the detached sorrow he has for the relationship leads him to obsess over why it's called the glove compartment, since people don't put their gloves there - they put their title and registration.

Lead singer Ben Gibbard (Rolling Stone, September 22, 2005): "This is a pretty honest portrayal of a real occurrence: I did find an old photo in a glove compartment. When you're not expecting to run into stuff like that, it affects you the most."