That's How It Starts...

I'm reading JR Moehringer's astoundingly good The Tender Bar right now. It's the story of a young man whose father abandoned him. In addition to his strong and loving mother, he found refuge in the unlikeliest of places: a bar in Manhasset, New Jersey. The regulars (most all male) taught JR the lessons in life that would have normally come from a father. As the product of a single-parent environment, the book obviously strikes a chord. What's more astounding is that Moehringer, despite some horrendous economic hardships, managed to snag a scholarship to Yale and eventually graduated.

It's the sumer. I should be attempting to read Infinite Jest or try to plod through a Norman Mailer book. As a journalist, I've been told repeatedly by English professors that journalism is disposable and on a lower level than literature. If it's easy to read, then it's not challenging and somehow, that lowers its status. But as a journalist, you're taught to shape your story so that a person with an eighth grade education can easy grasp your story. To me, if you can make a high school dropout understand an article about nuclear waste disposal, you've done your job.

The best type of journalism reverts back to storytelling. And not by coincidence, so does some of the best songwriting. I'll concede that Kurt Cobain was a good songwriter. As was Elliott Smith. But there's something transcendent when a song unfolds like a novella. Be it Jarvis Cocker's story of a school age boy's crush on a girl who doesn't feel the same way, some of Nick Cave's Biblical-focused songs or John Prine's goofy anecdotes.

For today's song, it's James Murphy's (LCD Soundsystem) "All My Friends". Its themes of futilely halt the advancement of age have been addressed in countless other songs. But few songs have been able to encapsulate the feeling, the moment, in such a concise way.

The song begins with a simple piano chord that repeats through the six-minute duration of the song. Eventually, a few other instruments show up, mainly drums. Then Murphy says "That's how it starts / we go back to your house."

Like a great writer, Murphy is guiding the listener through the song, setting up some noticeable landmarks.

About a third of the way through, Murphy sings:

You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan / And the next five years trying to be with your friends again

But friends come and go. Some friends you outgrow. Other friends mature faster than your pace. Others are home with their newborns. And the pace keeps accelerating.

You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can / And the next ten people trying to be polite

Finally, Murphy repeats

Where are your friends tonight?

If I could see all my friends tonight

The topic and the ache of trying to recapture a moment that cannot be replicated sounds depressing, and on paper, it is. But the music continues, building up to an amazing finish. Getting old isn't pretty, but in this case, Murphy makes the mess sound triumphant.