All My Friends

General CommentThis song changed my life as well. I feel like it's everything I've said growing up in a musical version.

I think the song emphasizes responsibility vs friendships. When it comes down to it, in life, we don't look back and reminsce on the A's we got on projects and that great work meeting. It's the crazy times with our friends that make up our life experience.

"Though when we're running out of the drugs
And the conversation's winding away
I wouldn't trade one stupid decision
For another five years of lies

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?"


That's my favorite part. Right now, I don't even know what day it is, I spent my weekend working at a bar, partying with my friends, then driving them to the airport at 6am. And I'm fucking tired, but I have so many great memories from this weekend and that's all that matters.

Fucking beautiful song.

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General CommentYeah, a lot of the last half of the song I had to listen to over and over to get it that close. I'll go through those corrections and make edits in a bit. A fun project would be to swap out homophones all over the lyrics to see how absurd you could make them (like that weirdo that demolished the stupid Fallout Boy song in the youtube video with MS Paint).

So it's fairly straightforward that the song is a retrospective on the rock 'n roll lifestyle and whether it was worth it and what was actually gained from it. What I liked most about it was the monotony of the keyboard and bass line mimicking a life that just goes on and on, regardless of how tired one gets of it, or how oblivious one is to time's passage. It's as if the melody represents the same repetitive tasks of life: sleep, breathe, do the damn thing, etc.

But what the hell do I know? I drunkenly cried myself to sleep over this song the other night.

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General CommentI wonder if all the people in there mid thirties and up who are still in a scene that mingles with the twenty somethings see this song anything like I do? I feel like it's about growing up, feeling old, wanting change, and having to deal with the fact that you make a living off of people much younger and energetic... The people you started the journey with have moved on and you have nothing in common with them anyways, but you are fading from common ground with the people you are with now too. Maybe the old Peter Pan story.?.

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General CommentI agree with some of the points already made so far, but I think there's a little more to it than has been mentioned so far.

This song, at the surface level, is about a group for friends who are a little older than they used to be, getting together for a big party at one of their houses. They're determined to make it an all-nighter, just like they always used to do. And that's how it starts.

However, as the party goes on it's just not the same as it used to be. The drugs run out, the party starts to lose momentum. The party-goers are trying their best to pretend that it's not happening, because it would be like admitting defeat, but the party just never really gets off the ground like it used to. Sometimes it happens at parties. It's a weird phenomenon.

Interspersed with this story of a bad party is the idea of getting older and reaching the end of a stage in your life. The song talks about the idea that when you're young you spend years trying to reach adulthood, then you spend years trying to fit into it, and in that process you lose some of your wild youth and spend years trying to recapture it. It's like the start of a mid-life crisis.

The party is a point where the narrator (Murphy) is realising that no matter how hard he tries, life has moved on and carried him with it. You grow up, have kids, holiday in France and all of a sudden you're like "hey, where did my youth go? Where are my friends tonight?" He's realising with a hint of sadness that this could be the last time they're all together like they used to be. However, he's looking back and thinking that it was all worth it for the memories and the great times they all had.

It's a beautiful and sad song. It sucks to grow up and it's easy to feel like something has been lost as you do, but everyone has to do it, no matter how hard you try to deny or ignore it. The failed party is an allegory of this. And like the narrator in the party, you just no when it's time to move on to the next stage of your life. In the words of Ron Burgundy "We've been coming to the same party for 12 years now, and in no way is that depressing."

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General CommentI think that this song is a postmodernist cry for significance and meaning, because most of us now live in a world of hyperrealism. I would invite the reader to look at what they are doing right now, for instance: I wrote a comment on a website that I had just became a member of, and it could be that, subjectively, this song meant a lot to me at that moment in time. But, really, the fact that I was in my room at that moment in time (I, or anyone who will be reading this is, at this or that moment in time, having hyperreal perceptions) does not take away from the fact that the majority of my (now, your) perception was (is) made up of what I believed to be real (words appearing as I press buttons; you, either reading because you're interested, or clicking on something else because you have lost interest). In fact, what is occuring before me objectively is just a series of lights, which are reacting to an interconnected series of electronic curcuits.

The second and third stanzas are, I think, a critique of the internet, and how social networks produce both inactivity and a gradual subjective degration of objective experience. We have replaced objective interaction with hyperreal objective/subjective interaction, thus creating an artificial environment, where uncomfortable (thus beneficial) experience is nonexistent. At the end of stanza 3, "Yeah, I know it gets tired, but it's better when we pretend," implies that this hyperreality seems better than reality itself. Thus, we spend so much time immersed in hyperreality that we don't realize our own fatigue (that which is a result of a lack of actual objective experience) and gradually degrade.

Moral principles have no place in this subjective/objective hyperrealism, because there are no consequences for mannerisms/thoughts/words that would be considered unacceptable in actual objective conversations or observation or analyzation or whatever. We may proceed to be as pompous and asshole-ish as we please, with no reprecussions.

All of our "friends" are mostly seen on a digital format. When actual interaction occurs, we come to the painful and unwitting realization that we haven't had any "real" interaction with them... only hyperreal interaction. So, it necessarily follows that a feeling of abandonment ensues in modern existence, because most of us are now at the whim of the screen.

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My InterpretationThis song is nostalgic, plain and simple.

It's about reminiscing about the memories and times that mattered in your life all while embracing the fact that you've built a home that you can, well, come home to. It's about the balance between responsibilities and doing what you actually want to do in life. The progression of the song hints that James is telling us to live life to the fullest while we can, before the age and responsibilities begin to catch up to us.

>>
We set controls for the heart of the sun
One of the ways we show our age
<<

A reference to Pink Floyd. Instant nostalgia if you know your classics - you need to make the most out of your time and potential memories to come. Setting controls for the heart of the sun is simply that... focusing everything on the highest energy source possible and keeping it as bright as you can.

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

The constant struggle between finding stability while trying to spend time with those you know and love. Time is your only enemy in this life.

>>
I wouldn't trade one stupid decision
For another five years of life
<<

This is commonplace and everyone should feel this way. Without mistakes, life can't flourish. A stupid decision doesn't always end in a stupid result, and by not trading a stupid decision for five years, you can bet your ass it was a worthy stupid decision. Make some stupid decisions, dammit!

>>
When you're drunk and the kids leave impossible tasks
You think over and over, "hey, I'm finally dead."
<<

I'm dead now, I get to revisit my memories and allow my offspring to conjure up their own memories. Finally! I'm glad I took this path and I'm glad I can finally "rest" in peace.

Now go out and make some memories. Challenge yourself and take a risk while you still can. There's a difference between jumping off a bridge without a parachute and jumping off a bridge with one. Both can be considered stupid, but only one guarantees a premature death.

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General CommentI think it's about life from age 20 to 30. However i did enjoy Garden State so take what i say with a grain of salt.

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General CommentI was going to add this in early February, got half of the lyrics written, then had to stop and never got back to it.

Also, this line:
"Then it's the memory of our betters
that are keeping us on our feet."
is grammatically incorrect, but that's how he sings it.

I think there are some errors though:
"Oh when we're running out of the drugs
and the conversation's winding away.
I wouldn't trade one stupid decision
for another five years of lies."
I'm pretty sure it's Though, not Oh and that it's life, not lies.

"
You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can,
and the next ten people who are trying to be belied.
When you're blowing eighty-five days in the middle of this,
Yeah, I know it gets tired only wearing on friends tonight."
Should be:

"Oh, 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"

The last part of that verse is wrong too I think, but I can't quite make it out.

So tell the truth. should be And to tell the truth.
So when we go, should be So here we go,

"And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand,
you leave conceit 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 finally did."
should be
"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 look impossibly tan
you think over and over, 'hey, I'm finally dead.'"

you look concerted on yourself your ridiculous prop.
should be
you look contorted on yourself your ridiculous prop.

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General Commentits about the uncertainty of life, and the certainty of friends.

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General Commenteveryone looks way too much into this song. The concept is simple. James Murphy has obviously written this song whilst on tour and it follows a night he spends with all his friends and he talks about how much he misses it. Throughout the entire song it is described that James and his friends have a bender (an all-nighter on drugs). read the lyrics, its very simple.

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