"Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up" - LCD Soundsystem
I'm exhausted.
So, few things - sorry for the lack of updates the last few weeks. With the election I was definitely not in the headspace to write about music and I recently started a new job! Which, for all intents and purposes is great considering how the rest of the year has been - however going from having absolutely no cohesive schedule to getting up every day at 7 took a gigantic toll on my physical and mental energy reserves.
It's all sort of shaken out now so I'm back with even more Songs For 3AM and everything is great aside from, you know, always being aggressively tired for one reason or another.
”Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up” is, embarrassingly enough, my anthem on Tinder. I set it one hopeful night and haven't had the heart to change it because it is one of my favorite songs from LCD Soundsystem and maybe one of their most overlooked compared to the mega-hits on the same album (2005’s self titled) like “Disco Infiltrator,” or “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House.”
As it is for many young art students, LCD Soundsystem was one of the principal sounds of my freshman year in college. I watched Shut Up and Play The Hits to death - hoping to find some sense of purpose and direction in my own art from the casual pretentiousness of James Murphy. “Someone Great” makes me cry. That emotional outburst fuels new art. The usual. As it turns out liking an art band and wearing zany shirts does not an artist make and here we are today reflecting on what might as well be the B-side to an entire band's discography.
Fun anecdote, I edited a clean version of this song myself to play on air once. It went… fine. I definitely didn’t miss anything.
”Never as Tired…” is almost seductively produced and relies on a powerful effect-laden guitar to carry its (sort of uncomfortable) message home. It builds consistently to an explosive, grungy conclusion in which our narrator, who has been trying to hook up with someone for the entirety of the song comes to the pointed realization that theirs is strictly a relationship of pleasure. This realization is the main heel turn of the song and leads to one of my favorite lines from Murphy (sung in a tense falsetto) - "and it feels like I'm in love again/ with what you do / just not with you (but I'll keep on telling myself it's you)."
Much like "I Can Change," this narrator presents themselves as someone who is willing to do anything for convenience and maintaining a sense of normalcy. “I'll change if you need me to.” “I don't necessarily love you, but I'll tell myself I do,” and more super shitty behavior in general that definitely isn't to be admired but makes for a great story, etc.
At the end of the day though I love this track for the energy it presents to the catalog of LCD songs. It's definitely an outlier, especially for the era it came from for the band, but maybe that's what drew me to it in the first place. The guitar truly does make this sleazy, hazy 3-am-perfect experience worth a slot on this blog.
Writing this has made me realize that maybe this song shouldn't be my anthem on Tinder.
Maybe I just don’t need Tinder.
Thank YOU for reading about tonight's song. Check out the full playlist here, and stay tuned each night as I add more and explain my thought process. Feel free to discuss your own thoughts on the song either here or on social media where you can yell at me, free of cost, as much as you'd like.
Today, listen to something new. I dare you.
Britton
P.S. - I have friends that do some really cool things. Check out the band Estoy Listo and get ready for some bomb tracks soon, and if you’re into supporting independently-owned, inclusively-minded labels Moon Physics recently brought OOF Records into their orbit of cool people (and they have finger boards).