second round

(10) LCD Soundsystem, “All My Friends”
hung up on
(2) Madonna, “Hung Up”
552-513
and will play in the sweet 16

Read the essays, listen to the songs, and vote. Winner is the song/essay with the most votes at the end of the game. If there is a tie at the end of regulation, we will play a one-hour overtime (and repeat until we have a winner). Polls close @ 9am Arizona time on 3/15/24. (Note that Arizona does not do Daylight Saving time, so AZ time now = Pacific.)

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GIMME (...GIMME, GIMME) MAKESHIFT CONFIDENCE & MADONNA : ARIANA EFTIMIU ON “HUNG UP”

During her 47th birthday celebration in August 2005, Madonna fell off a horse, breaking her collarbone, hand, and cracking three of her ribs. Two months later, she filmed the music video for “Hung Up,” the opening track to 2005’s Confessions On a Dance Floor.
She took to the stage glamorous in purple—from sequined track jackets, solid color leotards, and shiny corsets to elaborate, glittered necklines. At the 2005 MTV EMAs, at the 2006 Grammy Awards, and at Coachella in the same year, Madonna maintained a consistent color palette, exuded energy to the crowd (or, in my experience, through the boxy gray CRT TV), and ensured her permanence. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know too much about said concept of permanence; all I did know was that I was practically bound by velcro-strap to the faded green carpet in our old living room, entranced by a feverish disco tune. 
It’s around 2007, and I am not a teenager in low-rise True Religions and a popcorn top, but a toddler glamorous in cheetah print Mary Janes and pink suede. I spend a lot of my time with my grandparents, who luckily do not complain about my littering their hair with butterfly clips or continuous pleas that there be some sort of performance happening on the TV. When there wasn’t one, I made sure to choreograph my own, so either way, they’d be entertained.
There was a serious formula to channeling the energy of Madonna—naturally, aforementioned butterfly hair clips, and requesting my grandma back-brush my hair enough times to make it voluminous. At times, my mother’s sleek black purse, to capture the essence of the hardworking woman, and costume white gloves that hit just past the elbow. I’d had about a year of ballet under my belt at this point, and the gloves were just perfect for twirling my wrists over and over to the Dm—F—Am—Dm chorus, mimicking movements from the Nutcracker’s “Waltz of the Flowers.” I’d secured a pink acoustic guitar, gemstones around the soundhole, and would twist and turn, instrument in hand. When my grandmother took naps, I’d have the song playing low in my room, trying not to stomp around as I practiced for The Big Show.
The shows, I mean, as The Big Show (I know, quite the nomenclature) was a recurring event. My performances had an audience generally borne out of a mixture of the same few recurring characters: one or both of my grandparents, a handful of stuffed versions of the kittens from the 1970s Disney movie The Aristocats; a blanket with faded pastel squares or two. Occasionally, my parents would come home from work greeted by a tug at the waist and a hand pulled to come see The Big Show. In these moments, under the bright light of the living room, wagging my finger at the couches packed with adoring fans (even when my audience was solely composed of toys and trinkets), I was, like Madonna, full of moxie. 
Madonna, in every sense of the word, was (is) a star…and that I wanted to be. Of course, toddlers are too young to think of the flesh-eating monsters that hide in the shadows of entertainment industries, or to understand practicality, even as an abstraction. Madonna felt beyond a pop star, too—her gravity of fame and confidence was indecipherable to me. It seemed like she could be anything, and held the world in her hands. She was intangible, immaterial, yet familiar. I wanted to understand. 
In so dedicatedly following Madonna, I came to recognize that music is not just listened to, but can be actively participated in; if I was moved, it was up to me to act on the impetus to also create; to respond somehow. Music can swallow you whole, I’d realized, if you allowed it to; music could be both memory and antidote. Over time, I became devoutly dedicated to the strings and synth in “Let It Will Be,” imagined a world of no cares to “La Isla Bonita,” and realized adults would give you strange looks for humming “Like a Virgin.” At the end of the day, though, it was all about “Hung Up.” 
Perhaps I’ve hung up my wannabe-pop queen cheetah print skirt, and outgrown the patent ballet flats. I’m at the age where I’ve been thinking about “real jobs” for a while, and several people who meet me don’t get told the stories of spending years hoping to somehow make it in entertainment; rather, soft smiles and offhand mentions of my passions. In spite of that, if I hear the tune in any public place, it’s difficult to not break out into the music video’s choreography, or my own (which I still maintain was a stroke of brilliance). “Hung Up” is a song you give yourself fully to. Now spin! 

*

I’ve had difficulties trying to describe Madonna—both in this essay, and to others. Given Madonna’s boundless personal history, concoction of controversy, and ineffable affect on the music industry, I was unsure what was within bounds or scope to cover. When you’re revolutionary, perhaps you escape comparison. It would be limiting to confine her to dance-pop or disco diva; to punk rebel. 
The now-65 year old got her musical start in the rock bands Breakfast Club and Emmy, respectively, after moving to New York City seeking a career as a professional dancer. Although in a memoir for Harper’s Bazaar, Madonna wrote, “New York wasn't everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms,” eventually DJ Mark Kamins stumbled upon a demo of hers, “Everybody,” and her career began to unfold. After a bit of tweaking, the duo took the tape to Sire Records, where Seymour Stein provided her with her first contract. Her namesake 1983 studio album produced chart-topping singles, particularly “Holiday.” Over time, her success laid parallel to the growth of MTV and the music video, which she has been credited for boundless contribution to—in a Rolling Stone piece, the authors wrote, “Madonna’s music videos have spent more than 20 years sparking conversations about fashion, feminism, sex, religion and what you could and could not show on television.” Her music videos were compared to artistic short films. In New York City’s Museum of Sex, her video for “Like a Virgin” plays, with a headline explaining it “showed the sexual freedom she supported,” nevertheless controversial; nevertheless placing more eyes on Madonna’s next move. 
No stranger to valuing shock value, “Hung Up” is a resurgence, a dare. Her 2003 album, “American Life,” hadn’t garnered much acclaim, with many then calling “Hung Up” her comeback. The idea to produce a dance record at a time when radio stations were practically allergic was a risky game—hence Billboard’s piece titled, “U.S. Radio Hangs Up On Madonna.” Regardless, the song soared to number one in over 41 countries. 
“Hung Up” is meticulously chosen patchwork. A song’s genome is significantly contributed to by its samples—and ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” was no small feat to acquire. Ms. Madonna Louise Ciccone herself had supposedly written a letter expressing her passion for the song. She is one of two artists to receive permission to sample ABBA, with tabloids proclaiming she had begged songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. 
The sample’s lyrics are fitting for the sentiment of yearning fostered by the tune. The emotion conveyed is universal—between the two songs, and across the miscellanea of music history to follow. Alas, without being creative about feeling insufficient and insignificant and helplessly enamored and a little stupid for it, where would we be? How much art, at the end of the day, is made about feeling either not enough, or too much? “Hung Up” cuts up pieces of both emotions, drops them into a gray 2006 Philips Walita blender, and presses start.

Half-past twelve
And I'm watching the late show in my flat all alone
How I hate to spend the evening on my own” 

And god, have I experienced all of the above—in my apartment alone, spending the evening on my own, hung up. Dorm room basements over discount sushi. Jeeps rattling between lanes on the highway. Hometown gazebos sharing strawberry sour straws and drinking decent-enough coffee. The skyline lookout in Jersey; the park on 124th St., the garden on E 4th. There are many locations, some obscure and some not-so obscure, where I have had discussions with friends—or strangers, because those most removed from the situation just might give the best advice—unpacking what a potential love interest might mean, or complaining about something or someone we were just absolutely hung up on. Between the slightest change of tone, a canceled plan, or potential others involved (was that another girl’s hand in the corner of the table in that restaurant photo? Does the way their arm is wrapped around these people scream “platonic embrace” or “I’m secretly into you”?), we were hung up. 
And of course, in these moments, the hours passed by—as Madonna had said—quite slowly. However, for nearly every moment my friends and I spent waiting for a call night and day, dare I say, was one where we were fed up, screaming lyrics and repeating that we were better off like broken records until we believed it at least a little bit. 

*

“Hung Up” had been, and, considering my bias, will forever be—the enduring pop star song. For all it is dancey, it is elusive; for all it commands attention, it exists behind a veil of exclusivity and coruscate synonymous with the album cover of Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor—you’re invited in, but don’t overstay your welcome. On the cover, Madonna does not lock eyes with anyone. Her arm and leg are outstretched, urging viewers to keep their distance. She looks towards the heavens, bathing in the lights of the supposed disco (the “O” in “Madonna,” of course, serves as a disco ball). 2005’s Confessions, which also birthed an entire live album in 2007, was glossier, bolder, and playful following records like Ray of Light and American Life—Like a Prayer Madonna had come back, accompanied by synth, bass, and the exuberance of the disco. 
The song begins a stressed soul’s nightmare, with a ticking timepiece. It picks up smoother than one would expect—a build aided by the ABBA sample, interspersed with Madonna’s commanding vocals. The introduction is a hypnotic swirl, flowing steadily like water; compelling, but consistent. It demands attention. The song brings us to Danceteria—the New York City discotheque Madonna herself frequented. 
Contrasting the difficulty that came with acquiring the sample, however, are fairly simplistic lyrics:

Every little thing that you say or do
I'm hung up
I'm hung up on you
Waiting for your call, baby 
Night and day
I’m fed up
I’m tired of waiting on you.

And so, she dances. The club, of course, is supposed to be an escapist paradise; an avenue for proclaiming to friends the following morning, “I don’t even know what happened last night!” Alas, although typically the first few hours are an ignorance-is-bliss dance trance, at times there comes an inevitable creeping thought about maybe, possibly texting someone you shouldn’t; maybe you miss someone, maybe you really messed up the other day, maybe you should just get home. It is these types of lulls that “Hung Up” is perfectly attuned to, and subsequently aims to find remedy to. “Hung Up” is the friend that grabs your hand when you appear a little too in your head, or the stranger in the bar that tells you you’re quite pretty when you’ve got a glossy look on your face. 
Madonna quickly finds this determination and self-respect on her own in the song, proclaiming that radio silence isn’t something she’ll be tolerating, and her (presumably ex?)-lover (or “no-strings-attached” situationship, what have you, whatever we’re calling it these days) will regret not reaching out:

I can't keep on waiting for you
I know that you're still hesitating
Don't cry for me, 'cause I'll find my way
You'll wake up one day
But it'll be too late

The 2005 music video, a tribute to John Travolta with Grease and Saturday Night Fever-esque dancing, is also fitting for Confessions’ lead single. Following the beat, Madonna spins and pops her knee in a purple-y pink leotard, clearly unscathed from her accident months before. After some time by her lonesome, she joins a larger party of dancers, jukebox in tow. Interspersed are clips of dancers in a variety of locations, including Los Angeles and London. The video boasts almost 460 million views, and stars Sofia Boutella, Mihran Kirakosian, Daniel 'Cloud' Campos, Sebastien Foucan (well-versed in parkour), and Miss Prissy, dancers that also accompanied her on tour.
Evidenced by Madonna’s re-record and new music video a year ago, “Hung Up on Tokischa,” listeners are still kept on their toes, saying that the “evolution of Madonna” is incredible; that she has remained shocking, talented, brave. The new video is raunchy, bold; a mesh of neon color and all that glitters. Madonna locks lips with Dominican rapper and Dembow artist Tokischa in the Washington Heights-filmed video, trading Jean-Paul Gaultier torpedo bras for rosy red shorts. Her royal blue zip-up is similar to the one in the original video. Tokischa appeared to be an excellent collaborator for Madonna, proudly sex-positive in her artistry and aiming to “push the envelope” as much as possible, as written in LATINA. Although uploaded 17 years after the original, the video still has millions of views. 
Madonna was cool; Madonna is cool, however you define it. Defying the faulty idea that to be “cool” is to be careless, Madonna makes it evident that she does care—about doing what she wants, regardless of the buzz; about being political, about making noise. Music video after music video, regardless of contentious iconography or gossiped-about ensemble choices, Madonna has appeared to abide by the fact that all press is good press. An esteemed pop provocateur, she has always been unapologetically herself. Of course she’s fed up and tired of waiting on whoever’s got her mind occupied while she’s out—she’s too good for it. A listen (or two, or two hundred) aims to convince listeners they should feel the same way. 
She’s carried this fighting spirit with her even while not bathing in the limelight. In 2017, Madonna began performing at the Women’s March on Washington, stressing power in unity and love as she sang “Like A Prayer.” The same performance landed her under investigation for “threatening” comments towards the Trump administration. On January 17, 2023, while in her 60s, Madonna announced she would tour again, with a setlist spanning a career of four decades. With every live performance of “Hung Up,” Madonna still integrates the audience and aims to replicate her early ‘00s performances —the song is a coming together, a collective dance party, an emblem. 
A vote for “Hung Up,” then, is a vote for the fact that some things never change—ailments can be cured by a little bump and hustle in your slouch socks with a friend or two; it is a vote for the notion that as long as there are revolutions to be had, there is dance to supplement the ambition; the endeavor; the lover. 

*

The same way I reflect on my concert binge-watching sessions, sandwiched between zig-zag pillow cushions on a turquoise couch, the tune makes me think of my parents’ first Madonna listen as well, which I’d hear more and more about as the years went by. “Material Girl,” the first video my mom saw of Madonna on a videocassette, and “Holiday,” were some of the first songs they had listened to growing up in Communist Romania around 1986.
Young people, she’d say, were attracted to Madonna’s original style; the supposed controversy she welcomed, through the music and her outfits on stage. Older generations frowned upon their listening, citing the songs as “immoral” and crazy. Regardless, they continued to listen, making cuts in their new jeans to copy Madonna’s ripped ones and bracelets out of skinny old belts. Having a leather or denim skirt, she recalled, just as stylish as Madonna—made you the coolest person on the block. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, so-called “Madonna wannabes” transcended mimicry in fashion into attitude and audacity. 
My parents had sufficiently built their Madonna arsenal by the time I was born, but Confessions was one of the first albums of hers that I was around for, too. This capability of music—to provide you the context for personal history, to help you learn about others, was a new kind of understanding I have been chasing constantly since. Nowadays, we drive around and play “Lucky Star,” both reminiscing on the moment we heard it ourselves for the first time, and the first time the other had (of course, I have dreams and ideas and romanticism, and my mother was actually there to show me the tunes—but there is a bit of magic in this dissonance). We often aren’t there for people’s entire personal histories—my parents are two of few people that were around for mine, and I am lucky to be one of the few around for my younger sister’s. Music, however, can help fill in these blanks a bit. “Hung Up” is played sometimes in public spaces or bars I’m in and I like to imagine my parents, clad in jean jackets with their hair teased, smuggling cassettes in tow just to play the tracks. I wear my mother’s blue silk shirt (similar to that from Madonna’s “MUSIC” promotional shoot), tall black boots, and play her favorite songs, wondering what it might have felt like to be her in the ‘90s; if I am channeling her, it must be by proxy that I’m channeling a little bit of Madonna too. I tell my sister about my bobbing back and forth in the living room years ago, and sometimes find her composing dance routines of her own to “Hung Up” the times I return home. I wonder if she feels a bit more connected to me. 
Some mornings I turn “Hung Up” on to get myself out of bed. I play it walking down the street, I play it while preparing to go out dancing myself, and pray that the DJ finds it in him to put it on, too. I find myself now both a participant in and a victim to New York City, perhaps not an uncommon sentiment upon first moving. The young adult experience in what is regarded as one of the most bustling places that can supposedly change your life appears more like gaining the realization that it can “make or break” you instead; that a little forced independence, maybe a little prematurely, is required to see it through. It is a hardening place, but also one that comes with opportunities for unparalleled warmth and love, if you allow that. 
Nowadays, I find myself in the library with a friend hours past closing, talking about reasons why people may self-sabotage relationships; as Madonna says, the reasons behind “still hesitating.” I find myself in the car late at night digging my knees into my chest as I try to explain away why I’m “still hesitating.” Sometimes, this has been accompanied by a deep-seated fear that someone would one day, as Madonna portrays in the song, decidedly be tired of waiting to be on the same page. Other times, as a mechanism of self-sabotage, perhaps someone doesn’t want you to wait—they intentionally want to push you away. Clearly I’ve exhausted all the options, and both been absolutely hung up and nervous of what it would mean that someone else may be hung up on me. 
With that, a song I wished I could bathe in as a child grew into an early-twenties anthem. All the independent spunk of childhood, battered by the inbetween of adolescence, was soundtracked by “Hung Up” as my friends and I aimed to collectively return to it. 
The seasons turn (although with such weather, their transitions notably less apparent). I get out of the car to hug my childhood best friend goodbye after some time finally in the same state. We all tear up at the movies, where they’re falling in love in a beautiful town in an all-too-unrealistic way, or earnestly unpacking intergenerational challenges. We turn around and head to where we’re going, thinking about where we came from.
“Hung Up,” to me, is emblematic of the larger idea that music can be seen as a puzzle piece; as formative, as a mechanism for understanding ourselves. We begin to listen to the same songs with new attitudes over time. We grow to further explore their significance, both as free-standing works and to ourselves contextually. The music itself does not change—rather, the listener does; approaching it a new person every time. When I consider the songs that have helped develop my everlasting passion and love for music, “Hung Up” makes the top of the list (of course, among other Madonna classics), accompanied by Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” every Depeche Mode record ever, La Bouche’s “Sweet Dreams,” a lot of Metallica, a bit of Eurythmics, and miscellaneous other pieces. This was my being a kid in the early 2000s—my sister, born almost a decade later, had Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster play on loop in the car instead, although she has received sufficient “Hung Up” exposure to consider it a part of her forever musical arsenal too. 
Some songs are meant to follow you for your entire life. There are worlds of webs to be woven out of these birth and death songs. Like passport stamps, the melodies are a way to recall and reference original lessons and points within your life; hands to hold as they are applied in new ways and brought along for new escapades. Nostalgia is a sweet, sticky liquor that subtly stings; a cough medicine that coats your throat just right. I see all versions of myself, versions of others I’ve heard about, and versions of myself I’ve been too scared to become just yet all in the belly of “Hung Up.” 
I recall an essay by Joshua Rothman in the New Yorker, “Becoming You—Are you the same person you were when you were a child?” as I write this. Rothman writes about how some individuals feel very connected to their younger selves—they feel as if they haven’t changed at their core—whereas others think of their life in chapters, complete with entirely different attitudes, emotional experiences, characters, and so on. He differentiates these types of people; one lot “continuers” and the other “dividers.” Music, as it feels to me, transcends this concept of multipart lives—perhaps you’re entirely different; perhaps you don’t recognize who you were as a child, or that person is someone you can’t even remember. The music was there regardless, as powerful as the written word. Its life cycle can feel infinite. 
Perhaps I am quite different than I was in 2005—although many threads have remained, including favorite flowers and tastes in chocolate and an affliction for sweet-smelling things. A love for music has never had a true moment in the shadows, even when I might have thought it was being put on the backburner. 

*

While Madonna’s song is one that can be played at the club and a houseparty (makeshift club, if you will) alike, it is also one that can urge people out of a funk, get people to change the way they view a relationship; get people to feel better in unison. I believe in that power. 
And I don’t mean to imply that this has stopped with Madonna; that I’ve grown disillusioned with the music industry, or don’t have faith in our ability to generate new, forever Pop Stars (although there is no arguing that monoculture has been beaten to the ground). The commentary is mixed—that there isn’t enough coverage on indie music scenes, and labels, larger publications and streaming services alike favor already-established artists, but also that there are fewer household names: more projections about who will be the next cross-generation star, and less concrete evidence for a solid guess. This is all without considering the fact that trend is valued over talent, streams rely on social media, and we live at a time where late-stage capitalism and the hyper-digital age are dismantling many “traditional” norms of the music industry. It is a lot harder to believe in the daydream of being a music starlet when even being recognized as an artist happens a lot less often, and “success” in music comes with several middlemen involved (not to mention what feels like some incredible background in self-advocacy and advertising, a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology if you can, and many voices on the inside—not to be hung up on any of that). In 2005, releasing “Hung Up,” Madonna did not feel the desire to follow mainstream trends. She gave the world some disco. The song, albeit innovative, was a success—Madonna's creative process remained uninfluenced by the imperative to create commercially successful music. Would this be the case two decades later? Would we know who Madonna was if she was just starting out today?
In her Harper’s Bazaar short memoir, Madonna wrote, 

I was defiant. Hell-bent on surviving. On making it. But it was hard and it was lonely, and I had to dare myself every day to keep going.

I don’t audition for shows, and am hung up on not getting any parts. I don’t produce music or seek out opportunities to take the stage, and am hung up on no one hearing my voice. I convince myself that I will write about music and creativity and how it makes the world go ‘round into the void—that no one will care, and yet am hung up on how badly I want to write. Madonna, I think, would say that art is meant to be made. “Hung Up” would say, and with attitude, “Well, someone has to do something about this,” raising an eyebrow not-so-subtly. 
As time goes by (no pun intended), I see more and more how ludicrous it is to be your own biggest setback (although is that not a bit inherently part of being a woman in your early twenties?). Regardless. We have to write as much as we are given every reason not to write. We have to sing and dance in spite of it all. We have to not spend the present thinking overwhelmingly about the future, or the past. We cannot waste time waiting…

Tick, tick tock it's a quarter to two
And I'm done, I'm hanging up on you

When I read the description for March Danceness…which sought songs that migrated to the dancefloor, or were club hits…there was no doubt in my mind that “Hung Up,” the song I’d produced living room carpet choreography to, fit the bill. My decision to write about “Hung Up,” as it appears to me, is also in some ways a saving grace, and some form of personal call-to-action. As I lay prisoner to creative burnout, I can’t help but think of the unabashed joy that came coupled with creating years ago, and how Madonna inspired those feelings. 
And, admittedly, I was hung up on this essay, too—I never found myself in the right “place” for writing; I had convinced myself it was insurmountable, and I wouldn’t do it justice, and I wouldn’t be telling the right stories or asking the right questions or properly moving anybody. Perhaps this is part of an innate crisis of storytelling, with any medium. The essay was borne about after I spent a long night in Boerum Hill, driving back to the Upper West Side and looking out at the bridge and skyline, sharing bittersweet musings with my friends about the looming end of undergrad, about how we’re lucky to be in our twenties and in this sinkhole city, about how everything, at the end of the day, will be just fine. I think that music helps make this real and true. I’d gotten back home and thought to write this down, and it almost—just almost—was bound to remain a passing “almost.” Alas, it was a 2:42 A.M. rampant scribble, Madonna’s voice coyly saying, “I’m tired of waiting on you!” in my head. 

Ariana Eftimiu is a student at Barnard College, Columbia University, in New York City. She tries not to get hung up on things, but sometimes that first requires making a several-hour-long playlist on Spotify about it, writing poetry, or a long walk accompanied by a coffee and her loved ones. She has published work in the National Poetry Quarterly, Not Very Quiet, and the Columbia Daily Spectator, among other places. Follow her co-run online music and arts magazine at pottedpurple.com or catch up with her @arianadrinkingcoffee. 

DANCE MUSIC FOR GROWNUPS: KATE CARMODY ON “ALL MY FRIENDS” BY LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

We put Sound of Silver on the record player in the living room. We dance with Corky St. Clair, our shih poo, between us. We are in a band together and play weird, dancey synthy songs inspired by bands like LCD Soundsystem. When the needle wanders into the grooveless black space, I raise it, replace the first Sound of Silver record with the second, and carefully drop the needle on “All My Friends.” Before I moved in with my husband I thought about getting a record player—I have fond memories of dancing to Donna Summer and Michael Jackson with my family in our sunroom—but I didn’t have room in past apartments and instead opted for the best portable Bluetooth speaker I could afford.
Now in our house in North Denver, we regularly listen to records and give them to each other on holidays. This past Christmas we gave each other Rupa, EGS, Can, Funkadelic, and Fever Ray. After I moved in back in 2017, he gave me every LCD record for my birthday and we listened to them all from start to finish. I like listening to an album all the way through. I like watching the needle go round and round, thinking about all the instruments and voices pressed into a sleek sheet of vinyl. I like watching the needle wobble from the old, uneven floors beneath the console but not enough to make it skip a beat. Dancing too close to the console is another story. That’ll make the needle jump with us, so it’s best to keep some distance.
When I hear the piano start on “All My Friends,” I ask my husband if it would be hard to play those same keys over and over for over seven minutes. After years of listening, I’m well aware of the song’s length. “It would take practice,” he says motioning the keys with his fingers. My husband’s a musician. In addition to our band together, he plays in the psychedelic cumbia band Don Chicharrón and the rock band Eric vs the Demons in Denim. He taught me to pay attention to things I never noticed in songs. I’m not sure I ever really heard the bass until the tenth time he said, “How awesome is this bassline?!” It’s through those lessons that I hear this song about aging and friendship, build with accompaniment.

*

It’s 2009. We go back to my friend’s house after dominating the jukebox at Barry’s or Don’s or Candlelight. We crack open beers, though we probably don’t need another, and my friend shuffles through songs while everyone shouts requests. We dance to Hot Chip, !!!, Katy Perry, Beyoncé, always Nelly—we may live in Denver, but there are too many of us from St. Louis to pass him over —and always, always LCD. He plays “All My Friends,” and inevitably, someone starts playing air piano. Another friend bounces their knees up and down like they’re doing a plyometric exercise before a big game. We inch in closer to each other. Some of us swivel our hips, some shake our heads back and forth, a couple have jumped on the couch, we all move together to the rhythm.
My first memories of “All My Friends” and LCD Soundsystem are of dancing. In my forty-three years on this planet, few times have brought me as much joy as those spent dancing with friends. I’ve always been lucky to find friends whose dancing is one part grooving to the beat, one part singing the lyrics we know, and one part making each other laugh. In high school we stuffed pillows under our shirts as we danced to Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants;” in college, we spent way too much money on one of those claw arcade games until I won the Mr. Magoo doll that we desperately needed to prance with around the dancefloor; and after, we use whatever’s in each other’s houses that we think can accompany our routine. Here’s a hot tip, friends: a broom or Swiffer Sweeper can serve as a microphone, dance partner, or guitar. If you extend it into the crowd, watch how quickly someone grabs the other end and a limbo line forms. I’ve got lots of moves but limber limbo moves are not in my bag. I was, in fact, kicked out of gymnastics right before I conquered the back bend, so I relish in my duties as the limbo bar holder. At one friend’s wedding when there was no broom in sight, I picked up a slice of pie and learned that anything could be a calling card for limbo as long as your arm’s extended.
I love dancing. Dancing is an act of communion and personal expression. I like to think that at every moment of the day, there are people all over the planet dancing. You could throw on music right now, and someone across the globe would be dancing with you. If you are in the middle of your workday, surrounded by coworkers or students, this may sound preposterous. But go ahead and try it. I’m willing to bet you can get at least one person to join you.
Dancing is in our DNA. When we hear music, we want to move. When we dance, we are connecting. We are kinetic energy.

*

For most of his life, James Murphy, the founding member of LCD Soundsystem, admits in interviews, he was never a dancer. He says he was in bands throughout his teens and often mentions how uncool he was. As a kid, he struggled with making friends because he was uptight and controlling. When he moved to New York City, he studied writing at NYU and played in a band with another writer. He dropped out of school to focus on the band full-time, but his band never found their footing in the nineties indie rock scene, and he quit playing music. Murphy was turned off by the sameness of indie rock. “Almost everybody in a band wanted to be cool and feel cool,” he tells Sound Opinions. “They wanted to think certain things about themselves, and if you took that away, what was the point?” There’s still a whiff of bitterness when he says this. While he quit music because he was uninspired by the scene, he’s aware that his personality also got in the way of successfully collaborating with others. 
After unplugging the amp on his indie rock, Murphy shifted his focus to sound engineering and built a studio with the help of some friends in the business. It was musician and producer Tim Goldsworthy and DJ David Holmes who introduced Murphy to dance music when they came to New York from the UK to work in his studio. Murphy started going out with them and having fun, which was, as he tells Red Bull Music Academy, “anathematic to my indie rock nineties, which was going out and being judgmental.” But he remained loyal to the indie rock self-serious, too-cool-for-school sentiment, which meant no dancing.
There is social risk in dancing, which is perhaps why so many dance-songwriters remind us how they feel while dancing, instruct us about how to move, or command us to “Get up!” or “Get down!”. Others tell us stories, reminding us why we love dancing. Too often we let our fear of embarrassment get in the way of what comes naturally. Some people need a little help getting out of their heads. For Murphy, ecstasy was the tool to pry open his indie rocker shell and expose a side of him that he didn’t know existed. Once he was dancing and having fun, Murphy realized, as he says in Meet Me in the Bathroom, “This is me dancing. This isn’t the drug dancing. This is the drugs stopping myself from stopping myself from dancing.”
This experience of letting loose led to him starting DFA Records and LCD Soundsystem. “I realized that making people dance had a point that had nothing to do with art,” Murphy tells Red Bull Academy. “It’s like food; if they’re not eating it, then you’ve screwed it up. If they’re not dancing, you’re just not doing a good job.” Murphy didn’t abandon everything he loved about rock-and-roll. He didn’t suddenly become a super laid-back person. Instead, he recognized that with the basic goal of making people move, he could “calm down and stop wondering if what [he] was doing was good or worthwhile;” he could borrow from any genre that moved him emotionally and physically; he could bend and blend genre; he could collage and kaleidoscope; he could be his whole self. Through their DFA label, Tim Goldsworthy and Murphy disrupted the indie rock and dance music worlds, producing bands such as Juan McClean, Shit Robot, and The Rapture.
When The Rapture jumped ship for a major label, Murphy fueled his frustration into making music as LCD Soundsystem. LCD’s first single, “Losing My Edge,” was inspired by Murphy hearing a twenty-something DJ play the same records that he was known for playing at DFA parties—records that audiophiles like him would be well-versed in but ones that were completely new to those in the dance music scene. Murphy realized that what made him cool could be replicated and that he was afraid of losing his cool status. Instead of getting frustrated and quitting as he did in his teens and twenties, he had the sensibility of his thirties to help him lean into his conflicted feelings.
Because Murphy was old enough to have more self-awareness, he recognized that he needed to make music on his own terms, and he needed his friends by his side. He solicited friends and drinking buddies like Nancy Whang to join his band. Soon, LCD would define the sound of the first decade of this century when rock bands were incorporating dance music and other influences as they did in the seventies and eighties.
With the success of LCD’s self-titled debut album, Murphy returned to the studio in rural Massachusetts where he recorded the first album determined to make an even better one. With the recent passing of his therapist, he was ready to dig into more difficult themes. He covered the walls of the studio with silver fabric and tin foil, coating warm wooden tones with reverberations to record Sound of Silver.
“All My Friends” is the Sound of Silver sequel to “Losing My Edge.” “Losing My Edge” interrogates his fear through a cheeky exploitation that equally skewers music snobs like himself and the next generation of DJs, whereas “All My Friends” is an intimate conversation with himself. Murphy’s vocal melodies are the most complex part of the song while the rest of the instrumentation slowly builds with repetition. The four-on-the-floor beat provides the box for him to oscillate between living in the moment and returning to his friends. The guitar and synthesizer comfort his crooning or perhaps accentuate it. His vocals command the most attention and depth. His lyrics are essayistic.
In “Losing My Edge” his feelings are masked with humor, but in “All My Friends” he examines his tendency to use self-deprecating humor as a defense mechanism. He has achieved the level of fame and notoriety that he’s wanted his whole life and he has fun playing music with his friends all over the world, but he also has friends at home who have settled down. He wonders whether this lifestyle is sustainable as he gets older. After he sings, “i wouldn’t trade one stupid decision— / for another 5 years of life,”[*] he questions the sincerity of that statement. The essayist Philip Lopate says, “The spectacle of baring the naked soul is meant to awaken the sympathy of the reader, who is apt to forgive this essayist’s self-absorption in return for the warmth of his or her candor. Some vulnerability is essential.” In the hands of a twenty-year-old, contemplating if he is getting too old for the rockstar lifestyle may come off as disingenuous, but Murphy approaches it with the experience and realism of a man in his thirties, which allows any aging listener to empathize.

*

I put on my Bose over-ear headphones. The ones I impulse purchased at the airport kiosk when I realized I’d forgotten my much cheaper ones at home. The ones I couldn’t afford but convinced myself I needed because how else would I signal to the guy in 16B that I was unavailable for mid-air chatter?
I tap on “All My Friends” and slide in my socks across the hardwood floor to Corky. And so it starts, a simple piano melody with two imperfect notes repeating. It’s humanity apparent. As it chugs along, I hear one key trying to catch up until it’s in sync with the other. Over and over it chases that union. When the drums and bass come in, they support the fragile composition. I shimmy my shoulders with the piano. A minute later, I’m tired, so I stop to sing, “that’s how it starts / we go back to your house.” I point to Corky, who tilts his head and wags his tail. I continue singing, slide over to the kitchen, and open the dishwasher. I’m dance-cleaning the dishes and thinking about all our late-night dance parties. How we gather closer and closer, dancing in a circle, shouting with James Murphy “and if the sun comes up—if the sun comes up— / if the sun comes up and i still don’t want to stagger home / then it’s the memory of our betters / that are keeping us on our feet.”
It was 2015 and I was listening to “All My Friends.” I was 34, single. It was a Friday night, and I’d opted to stay in. I paid too much in rent. But I was the happiest I’d been since my years-long tumultuous relationship ended. My ex didn’t know where I lived, and I had truly wiped off most of the muck of our relationship on the blue carpet outside my apartment door (the one he sat on while begging me to let him in), leaving only a tiny bit to remind me I was better off alone.
I liked living alone. I liked singing to Corky loudly in my apartment, hoping my neighbors didn’t hear me. I liked snuggling with him on the couch and reading or watching TV. I liked putting on socks just so I could slide across my hardwood floors to do cool dance moves, sometimes with music, sometimes without. I liked pacing in my apartment, twirling my hair while thinking without anyone interrupting me. Weekend nights, yes, going out with friends, but also staying in, helped me find myself again.
But this time, what I thought would be a song to remind me of fun with friends while I cleaned the kitchen took a different turn. This time in the kitchen, when I heard: “you spend the first five years trying to get with the plan / and the next five years / trying to be with your friends again,” I felt like I had accidentally bit the side of my mouth while I chewed on nostalgia. The urgency in Murphy’s voice and his honest, vulnerable lyrics invited me to let my fears reveal themselves.
I pressed the repeat icon in Spotify, wandered over to the couch, and laid down. Corky hopped up and climbed on top of me, resting his head on my chest. I scratched the top of his little head and petted his soft black fur. I stretched my other arm across my eyes so there’d be nothing but the song. I listened to “All My Friends” repeatedly until I wasn’t thinking about dancing with my friends:

you spend the first five years trying to get with the plan
and the next five years
trying to be with your friends again

After one of our numerous breakups, I remember saying to my ex, “You wasted my good years.” He was almost six years younger than me. He had plenty of time. But when I said, “You wasted my good years,” I really meant, “I wasted my good years.” I knew the third go wouldn’t work, and I knew I was only staying with him because I was afraid of starting over.
The song was playing over and over but those were the only lines I heard. I came apart. I started crying, but I didn’t remove my arm from my eyes. I let my tears soak into my sweatshirt and stayed in the darkness, tapping my toes with the downbeat of the kick.
To tell the truth, I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I was never one of those people whose ultimate goal was to be married with kids, but I didn’t like the worry that everyone else had their shit together. Maybe it was the approaching holidays, but I was already dreading hearing friends and family comment about how they wish they had time to go to concerts and have fun like they did before having kids.

oh if the trip and the plan come apart in your hands
you can turn it on yourself you ridiculous clown

Murphy’s words bounced off the silver of the studio and rang in my ears. When my years-long abusive relationship ended, my friends were very supportive, and I took it as an opportunity to purge myself of the trauma. For weeks, I’d tell anyone willing to listen. I thought telling people would make me feel better. In some ways, releasing it from my body did. Soon, I grew tired of being treated like a wound, and instead of crying about it, I morphed it into a punchline. In a culture obsessed with trauma porn, joking about how I was Maury Povich’s dream guest was a lot easier than confronting shame. Eventually, when I started writing again, I vowed never to let another person consume my thoughts and creative energy again.
I swear, after the sixth or so time hearing Murphy belt, “where are your friends tonite?” I heard his voice crack and the silver walls crumble into a ball of aluminum. I was the leaves and twigs left in the street after the street sweeping machine came through. My friends tossed the dead and broken bits in the air and somehow I was alive again. If I could see all my friends tonight, I would thank them. If I could see all my friends tonight, I could get out of my head. If I could see all my friends tonight, I would remember that this song is meant for moving.

*

I still like listening to “All My Friends” with friends and on my own. I still listen on my old Bose headphones. I still slide around in socks. When I play it now, I think about that time in my apartment and realize I’m in the in-between once again, looping like the galloping piano, fighting to get in sync.
I started trying to have a baby when I was too old. Someone told me they were surprised I didn’t get pregnant like all the other millennials who did during the pandemic. But I wasn’t ready. We hadn’t even gone on our honeymoon and I’d just graduated from my MFA program. I was supposed to be jumping into being a writer, not a mother. By the time I decided that I’d rather have tried than not tried and always wonder, the miscarriage rate was over twenty percent. After over a year of trying and two miscarriages, my OB/GYN recommended IVF, which I learned would have been easier at 40 instead of 41. One year later, the time I had blocked off to work on my book was filled with appointments and shots and trying to keep my head straight with the hormones. Then the waiting and disappointment and confusion about what steps to follow, what any of the jargon and numbers mean, and how we’re going to pay for everything.
I’m afraid that this will be yet another thing started late that never comes to fruition. I’m afraid I’ll never finish the books I’m working on. James Murphy may have been a late bloomer, but what do you call a late bloomer who has never bloomed? I’m still emerging. I’m constantly in a state of becoming. I realize that instead of growing up, I’m growing old. It’s not that I want to go back. I just don’t want to be behind. I just want to move in time. If I could see all my friends tonight, I could get out of my head.
This is what I think about when I’m lonely and anxiety plays puppet master. This is what I think about when I feel the frantic hits of Pat Mahoney’s hi-hats and what I feel like when Nancy Whang’s fingers are going to fall off from playing the same keys for what seems like an eternity. I’m not looking for sympathy here. I’m saying this because “All My Friends” makes me nostalgic for dance parties in my younger years and gets me to reflect on my current fears. It’s a song that ages with you.
I think each of us is like the one-chord progression. Advancing at a steady, slightly wavering rhythm. What makes our lives more interesting is who we choose to accompany us. I text my friends and ask them to share thoughts and memories of “All My Friends” and dance parties. One friend says, “LCD is dance music for grownups.” Another sends a video of us dancing on New Year's Eve last year. Right at the crescendo a friend slides on her knees through our dancing circle and across the floor in her silver sequined pants. I laugh watching it and even harder as I read the comments that follow.

* 

to tell you the truth—this could be the last time

“I really wanted to end it while I was making Sound of Silver,” Murphy tells Chuck Klosterman in Shut Up and Play the Hits, the documentary of LCD’s farewell show at Madison Square Garden in 2011. He says he hinted at it in the lyrics to “All My Friends.” Touring and appeasing the record label had taken a toll on his physical and mental health. After kids, after making movies and coffee and the world’s greatest sound system, after David Bowie told Murphy to do what made him uncomfortable when Murphy told him he was making music again, after almost five years, LCD reunited.
I’ve been to three LCD Soundsystem shows since they came “Back from the Dead” as they said on their concert poster, and each time they ended the night with “All My Friends.” The focus on the rotating giant disco ball replaced with red moody lights shining on the band, my friends and I, several of the thousands of fans, arms in the air belting the lyrics with LCD like it’s the last time, the memory of our betters keeping us on our feet. 
When my dad’s friend was dying, he took every opportunity he could get to tell his friends he loved them. “I love you,” he’d say while golfing. “I love you,” he’d say after dinner. So if I don’t say this enough, I love you, friends. All of you. Friends from home, friends from college, friends here, writer friends, I feel lucky to be your friend.

[*] Lyrics appear as they do on the record sleeve.

Kate Carmody, pie limbo innovator, lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and dog. The three of them are in the band Dadafacer. Find her work in Fence, Electric Literature, Porter House Review, and The Rumpus, among others. She encourages you to support local music. Here’s a start: Don Chicharrón, Eric Vs The Demons in Denim, Body, Language Barrier, Bellhoss, Self Help, Tyler Breuer, Jackie Zubrzycki, Alright Alright, Faceman, Los Mocochetes, The Xisme, Austen Carroll & the Better Neighbors, Townie, Bolonium, Bud Bronson & The Goodtimers, High Plains Honky, Many Places, Zealot, Conductora, Bluebook, Funk Hunk, Ritmo Cascabel, Nikbo, and Uniflora.