Where are your friends tonight? (Rewritten

Throughout the history of mankind, friendship has always been there. Its one of the most basic yet complex behavior mankind inhibits and one of the most important things found throughout our everyday lives. We use it to socially interact and function with others, we use to not feel alone, we use it to connect with others, we use it to find people with similar interests and we can use it to justify our actions. Mainly we use it to find value in our own lives. But friendship is tricky, convulted subject, one that doesn’t pose a simple question or answer. Friendships can be as complex as the human beings that are brought closer through it. Friendship also happens to be the main theme found LCD Soundsystems “All My Friends”.

"And if it's crowded, all the better
Because we know we're gonna be up late
But if you're worried about the weather
Then you picked the wrong place to stay
That's how it starts

And so it starts
You switch the engine on
We set controls for the heart of the sun
one of the ways we show our age"

The first two stanzas from the song which begin on a positive look on friendship, A celebration of comrodery and unity. Lyrics like “If if its crowded all the better, because we know we are going to be up late” show the narrator enjoying the company of anyone just happy to be with his friends. Words like “We” are use to show the unity the narrator feels. But from there the lyrics show a more complex side of friendship and move away from the positive side of friendship.

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

Now we have the narrator discussing how you may lose your friends, begin to grow a disconnect from them. You may have separated yourself from them but you still want to be with them.

"Though when we're running out of the drugs
And the conversation's winding away"

These lyrics describe the party scene earlier but become more condemning of the party. The narrator begins to think maybe those weren’t my true friends there. He begins to see maybe those relationships were based off the drugs and when there is none of those left, the conversation and connection is gone.

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

In the above lyrics the narrator meets some people who appear to be polite, they would like to be friends with him. But he seems to ignore, is this due to the fact that he feels this people are shallow and just want to be by him because he is a famous musician or is it at this point the narrator wants to be left alone by these “fake friends” and be with his real friends.

The song ends with the repititious chant of "Where are my friends tonight?”. Here the narrator has lost it on the road and just wants to know what happened to all of his friends. He is on the road surrounded by people but still feels alone, none of those people are his real friends. He then responds "If I could see all my friends tonight" which brings the song full circle. Here is the narrator surrounded by people but considers none of them to be his friends and wants to know what it would be like if he could see his “real friends”. What they even want to see him, do they even still like him? That’s is the question the narrator ponders to himself as he. A man left alone feeling old just wanting to know what happened to all of his friends. Its very tragic.

It Comes Apart

The music and song structure themselves support some of the themes found in the song. The main driving force behind the song is a repetitious melody consisting of a guitar, keyboard and bass. The song structure itself doesnt change much but slowly builds. This could represent the repetitious nature of life. The song builds but never reaches a full climax and more withers out than goes out with a bang. This acts as a metaphor for death and old age.

Where are your friends tonight?

What may be the most prominent theme to be found in "All My friends" is the concept of friendship. The word friend is even found in the title. The title though implies an almost sort of positive look at friends. It seems very simple and flat. But the lyrics on there own show a complex, dimensional look at friendship including the shallowness and disconnect we feel.

"And if it's crowded, all the better
Because we know we're gonna be up late
But if you're worried about the weather
Then you picked the wrong place to stay
That's how it starts

And so it starts
You switch the engine on
We set controls for the heart of the sun
one of the ways we show our age"

As stated in an earlier post the first few stanzas of the song detail a party in an optimistic light. With lyrics like "If its crowded, all the better" and "We set controls for the heart of the sun" show a joy in unity and positive bond between humans. The "We" found in the "Heart of the Sun" is very important seeing as how in the original Pink floyd song the "we" is not found, so the author purposely put the "we" in to show unity. But after that the lyrics become more condemning of friendship.

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

These lyrics are important because they show a longing to be with your friends which comes up at other times in the song. An earlier post discusses the above lyrics in more detail.

"Though when we're running out of the drugs
And the conversation's winding away"

Certain relationships we have in life can be considered shallow and can be based not off of friendship but other outside factors. These lyrics tell of relationship that are based off drugs and as soon they run the conversion and interaction ends. These lyrics seem to be condemning these relationships.

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

In the above lyrics, the narrator meeting people who seem to be "polite" who could just be acting this way to due to him being a rockstar. He "drops" them because he either finds them unfulfilling or that there is no real social connect.

The song ends with the repititious chant of "Where are my friends tonight?" that seem to represent the narrator asking what happened to all of his "real" friends while he is on tour surronded by "fake" friends. He then responds "If I could see all my friends tonight" which brings the song full circle. In the beginning the narrator was surronded by his friends but now he is surronded by people but still feels alone. He just wants to be with his friends one more time and almost acts as a metaphor for how in the end we all die alone.

You're talking 45 turns just as fast as you can

The above post title comes from the song that is the main point of the blog and is a representation of one of the main themes of the song growing old. As stated in a earlier post, the narrator may be an aging rockstar and that lyric may refer to the narrators age. The turns represent the revolutions of the earth, so forty five turns means the narrator is forty five years old.

"And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand
You can sleep on the plane or review what you said
When you're drunk and the kids leave impossible tasks
You think over and over, "hey, I'm finally dead.""

The first line talks about the narrator feeling old, thinking that he looks like a father. Where is the first part of the song is told from a first person perspective, here the song switches to a third person perspective. Being a rockstar is young mans game and an aging rockstar is an almost ironic thing. He feels as Danny Glover so finely put it "too old for this shit". He feels so old, he thinks to himself that he is "finally dead".

"Oh, if the trip and the plan come apart in your hand
Tou look contorted on yourself your ridiculous prop
You forgot what you meant when you read what you said
And you always knew you were tired, but then
Where are your friends tonight?"

These lines tell about the narrator pretty much losing his confidence and falling to his rerets. He feels ridoculous on stage and is reading his lyrics off a telepromter forgetting what they even represented when he first wrote them. He is feeling tired and old and just wants to know where all of his friends are. What happened to all of his meaningful relationships.

And if it's Crowded, All the Better

Throughout the songs six minute run time, LCD's lead singer James Murphy goes over many existential themes from growing old, life with and without regret and the bonds of friendship.

"That's how it starts
We go back to your house
We check the charts
And start to figure it out"

And if it's crowded, all the better
Because we know we're gonna be up late"

The opening lines from the song that set up the theme of life without regret. These lines describe a party that the narrator is at. Lines like

"But if you're worried about the weather
Then you picked the wrong place to stay"

and

"And if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up
And I still don't wanna stagger home"

describe a life without regret, a life of the rock and roll lifestyle. The narrator may be past the age of partying but still wants to live the life of a someone in their twenties. The lines

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

may be a metaphor for college in that you spend your college years trying to act more mature than you our as in "getting with plan" while after college you just want to reconnect with your friends and relive your college.

About halfway through the song, James Murphy sings these lyrics

"It comes apart
The way it does in bad films
Except in parts
When the moral kicks in"

This is where the song goes from glamorizing a life without regret to a condemnation of this lifestyle.

"Though when we're running out of the drugs
And the conversation's winding away"

These lyrics may describe the party discussed earlier but shines a much more negative light on it. The fact that the conversation is fueled by the drugs show the shallowness and the emptieness of the narrators lifestyle.

"You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can
And the next ten people who are trying to be polite
When you're blowing eighty-five days in the middle of France
Yeah, I know it gets tired only where are your friends tonight?"

These lyrics follow on the idea of the shallowness of the narrators life. Here he is, possibly on tour, and discusses the shallowness and the loneliness he feels. "You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can" tells of how meaningless and brief life can be while "And the next ten people who are trying to be polite" tells of fake friends you meet. The concluding lines describes the narrator exhausted from the constant touring and wondering
what happened to all of his real friends and possibly feeling regret about his lifestyle.

"I wouldn't trade one stupid decision
For another five years of lies"

These lyrics bring the theme full circle and tell of how no matter how many mistakes and poor decisions you make, there's no reason to wish for change. Its better to live a life with all your mistakes then live a life without any.

That's How It Starts

LCD Soundsystem, the brainchild of James Murphy, is an American music who have created their own brand of rock and roll that mixes house beats and Synthezizers with distorted and live percussion. Their music can be described as "Dance Punk" and contains lyrics that describe wild parties ("Dance Punk is Playing At My House") to ironic, deadpan description of the club scene ("Losing My Edge"). LCD Soundsytem can be considered one of the first bands in the Dance Punk Genre.

But after the release of their second album, "The Sound of Silver", LCD hit a new creative peak with a move to darker. Gone where the stories of wild house parties and in its place more mature subject matter. This change can be seen in the song "All my Friends", a six minute existantial meditation on life, growing old and regrets told over a throbbing repetition of a distorted guitar, dynamic bassline and jangly keyboard.

The song "All My Friends" serves as the main point of my blog. Throughout my posts I while give an analysis of the song lyrics through reasearch on the musicians history, choice of lyrics and the blog authors on personal opinion.

We Set Controls To The Heart Of The Sun

The main theme of the lyrics I chose is the pressures of growing old. The song is told from the perspective of an aging rockstar who is feeling to old to still be touring. He is constantly seeing his music scene gain a younger and younger crowd while he continues to grow older. He is suffering an existential crisis wondering how he got so old, where did all of his time go and what happened to all his friends. The is represented by the line in the song "We set control for the heart of the sun, one of the ways that we show are age". This line at first almost seems like a drug reference but to someone who knows their rock and roll history know that line is a reference to a Pink Floyd song. The subtext behind the line is that the narrator feels old for growing up in the time of Pink Floyd while today's generation is growing up listening to him.