LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends

Today’s Thanksgiving, but last night the holiday weekend began in earnest.  For the last dozen or so years, it’s been the night that reunites hometown friends whose paths have diverged in calling of education or career or whatever whims may draw people to some other place.  I’ve never strayed too far from my hometown. Boston is only an hour away from Providence and hardly qualifies as “some other place,” so I’ve always been in town for Thanksgiving.  As friends have moved on to further cities in other parts of the country (or other countries, for that matter), the consistency of Thanksgiving weekend reunions has thinned.  For any number of reasons (logistical, financial, familial, etc.) it’s been more difficult with each passing year to reassemble the group that was.  Yet I’ve been here almost every time, part of the control group against which broader experimentation is evaluated.

“All My Friends” is one of my favorite LCD Soundsystem songs, and I reckon I’m not the only one who feels that way.  It’s a 7.5 minute anthem about partying with friends like old times, even if the opportunities to do so get rarer with age.  There’s a wistfulness to the song; Singer James Murphy is possibly a bit past his prime to still be doing this consistently, his “face like a dad” being a dead giveaway.  But he’s back from the road (“If I made a fool on the road, there’s always this”), surrounded by his friends for a fleeting, brilliant night.

So on Thanksgiving Eve, I’m not gonna be at a drug-fueled all night party, but I’ll be surrounded by friends.  They may not all be back home: some have been picked off by holiday trades with significant others, exorbitant airfare, etc. But, I’ll still get to see a lot of them.  This is one of the best parts of the Thanksgiving weekend (along with the gluttony and napping of the actual holiday’s family dinner).  While technology has made even our most remote friends readily available to see and talk to, there’s an inevitable personal distance that is borne from being unable to participate in the daily lives and new experiences of our best friends.  Without new experiences to build upon, friendships from a distance have to rely more on shared sense of humor, taste, etc. in order to maintain their strength.  This is why I look forward to Thanksgiving weekend more than any other holiday.  For those friends separated by distance, it’s another rare opportunity to be part of each others’ daily lives, even if just for a night.

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