Friendship in LCD

One of my great flaws is a serious partiality for sentimentality in media. Certain movies, songs, etc. really catch me with their sticky, saccarine melodrama. On the downside, this results in that ever-so-annoying, "this movie/song really speaks to me" reaction, but on the plus side it means that even the lamest pop drivel can serve as a catalyst for much more interesting, substantial flights of self-discovery.

Take for example the song, "all my friends," by the band LCD Soundsystem from their latest album, Sounds of Silver. (audio link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDRLW748j68. there is a music video, but it's half as long, thus missing several good bits)

This is no pop mega-hit, but within certain circles it found national attention, and I happen to dabble in one such circle. I slapped it on my mp3 player as a last minute addition before leaving in May, and it has become one of my most-listened-to tunes (on par with Dracula, just ahead of Sufjan Stevens, and just behind the Mountain Goats).

It starts, disappointingly, with what as a jazz fan I must describe as a rather sorry piano riff, but the overall song structure continues to build from this in a slow progression so that the song is one long, continuous, uphill journey toward something more and more... defiant, resolved, upbeat, but also melancholy. It's a song about traveling, maybe, leaving, time and the ruin it brings on the things we value in the present. It's about friends, as the title suggests, and I won't ascribe much more brilliance to the song than I do to most other chart-toppers, but in my repeatedly listenings I found many triggers, quick lyrics together with the music that kept setting my mind in motion. I don't pretend to know what the song is actually "about," but here are a few excerpts and the reactions they prompted while I was somewhere over the frigid North Atlantic.

"It comes apart, the way it does in bad films."
A big theme in this song (for me) is the disintegration of social groups. The diaspora of friends and loved ones that occurs over time, but most noticeably in the post-college years. Our closest associates move hundreds, thousands of miles away, and while Facebook and Skype have made this easier to deal with, the absence is still unavoidable and we drift apart, emotionally as well as geographically. We're still friends, close friends, but paradoxically we only act like it when we're thrust back into proximity. Like a bad film, the irrationality of these "plot holes" is unavoidable, but we ignore it to enjoy the greater whole, the picture for its message, not the gritty celuloid details. It's a hard thing for me to deal with. I had some good friends when I was younger, and I'm quite pleased to say that I still think fondly of them all, look them up when I'm in the same state, and bore my girlfriend with tales of our adolescent adventures and manifold nicknames. But college. I really came out of my shell in college, and I was blessed to do so surrounded by (or because of) an especially wonderful cluster of individuals. After college a few stayed in San Antonio, about half went to Austin, and just a few ventured further out. With each successive year, one or two more has continued thier outbound trajectory, and now it's my turn to blast off. The excitement of New York (and the close friends I have there) cannot temper the utter remorse I have in leaving behind my friends.

"Where are your friends tonight?"
This effectively serves as the chorus, and picks up where the earlier verse left off. It's such a profoundly sad question. If you're friends were near at hand, this question would be unnecessary. But they aren't. It's a challenge, a rhetorical insult. Where are your friends tonight? Do you even know? The answer is that they're not here, they aren't with you (possibly even when you need them). I have friends who move and I don't know about it. On more than one occasion I've e-mailed someone to see if they wanted to hang out, only to discover they moved out of state, even out of country. I dial phone numbers that are disconnected. How many numbers in my phone give me the false sense that I could reach someone if I wanted to? How many friends could I have lost completely without even knowing it? I just changed e-mail addresses, which is not helping me feel secure about finding even people I consider very close.
You're reading this, my very personal blog, and I have no idea where you are tonight. I might not even know when the last time was we spoke, and that makes it hard for me to pretend that I'm still being the type of friend I want to be; that we're as close as I remember.

"To Tell the Truth, this could be the last time... So here we go, Like a Sales Force Into the Night"
the first part just re-hashes the earlier sentiments of loss and finality. But what about that closing image? A sales force (business, capitalism) rallying forth courageously into the black abyss of night. Salesmen have a lot of bad stereotypes, most of them deserved, but can we consider what might be good about them? Tenacious, persistent, patient, cunning? I like the image of a dozen, maybe even a hundred, plaid-suited mid-40s career salesmen with winning smiles and widening bald spots charging out of the office; their cell phones and sales charts thrust nobly forward and their briefcases and sample bags clutched to their side as shields. They pour out of the elevator like huns, they wash through the lobby as a deluge and out into the vacant parking lot where even the pale street lights and vast emptiness don't dilute their passioned, single-minded charge into the unknown future, the challenge laid before them. Is this an attitude we can apply? Can we look at the obstacles ahead in our lives and the casualties of lost friends we'll suffer with such determination? I don't know if I can, but I guess I'm going to find out, and that scares me.

"It's the Memory of our Betters that is Keeping us on our Feet"
Friendship is a very dangerous prospect. The people we get to know, the people we get close to, care about, admire and respect. These people have more influence on us than perhaps anyone else in our entire lives. They aren't sages, they aren't licensed counselors or even amateur social strategists. They're just our buddies, and odds are they're as confused and messed up as we are. At its worst, this can lead us into all manner of debacles and pitfalls. How do we recognize a bad action when it's presented to us by someone we consider a good friend? On the upside, the opposite can occur as well. In the very best of times, our friends drive us to be someone better than perhaps we would have been otherwise. I know on many occasions I've worked harder, been more patient, more open-minded, more positive because I recognized that my friends needed that of me. If left to my own devices, I spiral down into petulance, lassitude, sloth. It's the responsibility I have to my friends that often keeps me going.

"I wouldn't trade one stupid decision for another 5 years of life"
Now this is interesting. I see what he's going for, the whole youthful no-regrets, live-life-to-the-fullest-and-never-look-back vibe. But I don't agree, and more to the point I'm not sure the lyricist even believes this. Don't get me wrong - I Love stupid decisions. I think stupid decisions are one of the primary motivators for us to keep growing as people, but I also know a lot of my stupid decisions have been just that - stupid, wasteful, uneventful, uninspiring. I wouldn't mind trade many of them for a used toothbrush, much less 5 whole years. 5 years to make more stupid decisions, or even to make better choices.
What bugs me is that the song writer isn't some starry-eyed punk 16 year old who's convinced life ends at 30 so who cares about 5 more years. He's an adult and he knows better, but stuck this lyric in to appeal to his fan base, to seem cool, or maybe just to fit the rhyme scheme. The audacity of it, the bold-faced lie of his counter-wisdom assertion, just drives me crazy. Maybe there are a few stupid decisions I wouldn't trade for anything, but those are the exception, not the rule.

"If I could see all my friends tonight."
This is the counter-point to the chorus, injected as a rebuttal near the end of the song. It's an incomplete conditional phrase. If _____ then... what? There is no answer, there isn't something that seeing all his friends tonight would actually solve, but we're talking about the impression here - the impression that if he could just see all his friends again, somehow everything would be better. But he can't. It's impossible. It will never be possible again.
Over time it becomes more and more difficult to gather our friends together. Maybe we travel to see them, but still we get one or two nights, spent with one or two friends, and then poof, we're back into the isolation, patting ourselves on the back for "staying in touch" with someone we formerly shared our life with for hours every day. That's life, we grow apart and we lose some of the naive grandeur of our earlier friendships. Best-Friends-Forever is not a concept that translates well into college, and maybe college friendships don't translate into the real world. I'm no culture warrior - I'm not trying to start a revolution here - but I can still say, for the record, that this unavoidable and unreconcilable distancing of time, like icebergs sheered off of glaciers, sucks. It just sucks.


As a quick testament to all those people who have helped me become a better person, kept me sane, or put up with my oddities, I'd like to offer this minor tribute: a list of the people I call friend, new and old, close and distant. It's not complete, and for that I must apologize, please don't take offense.

Davey, Shelley, Mom & Dad, Brad and Duff, Lani, Lenneville, Keeler, Face, Livia, Danielle, Kristin, K-Lee, Ragnar, Em, Jordan, Kimi, Laura, Mike, Paul, Galen, Lyz, Manny, Prado-Fleeger and all the KRTU crew, Jordan and Jayme, Willy and Cam, Radu, Walker, Jules, Tiffany, Jo, Holly, Chapa, Thrasher, Jarny, Jeremy, Jerm La-Z, Kate, Alisha, Reavis, Critter, Stolio, BenG, Veronica, Sarah, Kinniborough, Jay and Micah, Mary T and Rev Tev, Dr's. Christ, Burton, and Huesca, Patty McMillan, Marcus, Amy, Dan, Larissa, Palandri, George, Mr's. Henzel and Meyers, Jacob Andrew Armstrong and Doug Young, Ben, Tao, Ruth, Brandi, Quentin, Marta, Andrew, Matt Murphy, Cody Cundiff, and an innumerable cast of family, acquaintances, instructors and even a few strangers.

thanks.
Weber (on the Lamb)