Songfacts®:

• Roman Candles are traditional aerial fireworks that eject multiple shots into the sky from a single, elongated tube. Here, frontman Ben Gibbard reflects on his anxiety during the isolation and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  
  I am learning to let go
  Of everything I tried to hold
  Too long 'cause they all explode
  Like roman candles
  
  Gibbard likens his inability to accept the change of circumstances to the titular firework. Everything that was once normal has gone and he needs to accept the new normal. "'Roman Candles' is about the crippling, existential dread that goes hand in hand with living in a nervous city on a dying planet," Death Cab For Cutie said. "And that the only way to be in the moment is to let it all go."
• Gibbard cobbled the lyrics for "Roman Candles" from a couple of different songs dealing with his general sense of anxiety. "The feeling that the fabric that weaves a functioning society together was crumbling during the pandemic," he explained.
• At a 2:10 running time, "Roman Candles" is brief by Death Cab standards. It has an upbeat tempo that builds into a loud and distorted crescendo in contrast to the introspective lyrics.
• The five Death Cab For Cutie members wrote "Roman Candles" and released it as the lead single from Asphalt Meadows. John Congleton (Nelly Furtado, St. Vincent) produced the album, whose lyrical content reflects the pandemic era the band created it in. "Asphalt Meadows, our 10th album, was begun separately from each other during a time of great uncertainty," said the Washington-based rock group. "It was completed together during joyous and inspiring sessions with a new friend and producer, John Congleton. Ironically, the isolated circumstances in which it began led to us creating our most collaborative album to date."
• Filmmaker Lance Bangs shot the video in one take in the handheld style of a "found footage" film. Filled with colorful smoke and exploding pyrotechnics, all the fiery effects were anything but fake. So much so that the crew needed to run in to put gas masks on each band member, except for vocalist Gibbard.
• Lance Bangs has previously directed videos for Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Kanye West. He also shot Death Cab For Cutie's 2005 clip for "Talking Like Turnstiles."
  
  "We've known Lance for years and it was great to get a chance to work with him again," Gibbard said. "He took this concept I had come up with and made it better than we could ever have imagined. The dude is brilliant and a total blast to work with."
• What other examples are there of a roman candle used as a simile or metaphor in a lyric? Step forward:
  
  "I Just Wanna" by Kiss ("I'm gonna set the night on fire, shootin' like a Roman Candle").
  
  "The Wall" by Willie Nelson ("I'm gonna set the night on fire, shootin' like a Roman Candle").
  
  "Firecracker" by Josh Turner ("And she packs a punch like a roman candle").
  
  "Promenade" by U2 ("Roman candle lightning lights up the sky").
  
  "Tiffany Blews" by Fall Out Boy ("A Roman candle heart keep us far apart").
• The pandemic reinforced the sense of dread that Gibbard already had. The Death Cab For Cutie frontman explained to Billboard he felt anxious "about how fraught our sense of human connection and unity has been, how seemingly perilously close we have been to societal breakdown and chaos. And the pandemic was just kind of the match thrown into the barrel of gasoline."