Yes, for those who think it still exists

LCD Soundsystem - 'New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down' (Sound of Silver - 2007)

I’m not a New Yorker and likely never will be. I have lived in London, but only as far in as Zone 3 in the South East and West. Even with that caveat, I believe I get the sense of where James Murphy, lead singer of LCD Soundsystem, is coming from, as he both praises and laments the Big Apple on 'New York, I Love You, but You’re Bringing Me Down' a song that showcases its internal conflict in the title as well as the actual music.

Murphy, born in New Jersey at the start of the 1970s, no doubt saw the evolution of New York from the crime-addled and trash-riddled dumpster fire of the 1980s into one of the world’s premier cities by the turn of the century. In Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me In the Bathroom, an oral history of Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by the people who were there,¹ Murphy’s first entry is to announce that;

New York was fucking horrible, and I thought that was the most exciting thing in the world.

This is much like in the song, where every time he offers a con, he makes sure there is a pro nearby. Murphy knows that, like any addiction, loving something can be destructive. He balances love, affection and triumph with sadness, frustration and disappointment as the song builds from a slow, sombre piano melody sounding like it was borrowed from The Velvet Underground’s third album into a melancholic and anthemic show tune.

I think this is the way that many of us feel about the big cities that we either live in or can’t help but get drawn to; We might have a list of criticisms as long as your arm about the place to share with other residents, but woe betide any outsider who thinks they can add to that list.

Another topic that LCD Soundsystem cover is the sense of the changes over time and the compromises that a city and those living there have to deal with. For New York, a cleaner, more friendly city is also a city that is more gentrified and different to the one that Murphy grew up with - it may be like any form of nostalgia for the 80s, remembered or otherwise² - that idealised version of the city not only doesn’t exist now but likely never did.

Like London, Paris, Zurich, Hong Kong and San Francisco, New York is a costly city; the cost of renting, especially for the “rats in the cage, pulling minimum wage”, is eye-wateringly high. People have to work hard and long hours to stay in situ in their apartments with paper-thin walls, which allow them to hear any murder in the building. They can’t even drink at the bars they originally came to the city for or shop where they used to, as the fast-paced city has moved on quicker than they can keep up.

Later in the song, Murphy is keen to point out that the clean-up efforts of successive mayors have meant that New York is safer but all the duller for it to the extent that the cops are now bored since they'd run out of crime. He also chastises former three-term mayor Michael Bloomberg³ for ideas of grandeur beyond his place, reminding him that he isn’t King of New York and as much as the rich that dominate the city now are powerful, they aren’t all-powerful.

We are pretty clear that New York isn’t perfect; the line that says otherwise is dripping with sarcasm, and anyway, if you tried to fix it, it wouldn’t be New York. The song sounds like Murphy is trying to come to terms with the idea that either he is done with the city or the city is done with him. Either way, it is an ending of sorts and why the song appears on setlist.fm as last on their average setlist for their tours in 2007 and 2017⁴ and as part of the encore last year and, most famously of all, as their last song before their multi-year hiatus after they played their Long Goodbye mic-drop show at Madison Square Gardens in 2011.

So why and how does this song about a complicated relationship with a place end an album which looks at complex relationships with people, 2007’s copper-bottomed classic Sound of Silver? For me, it works because it is showy, camp, and over the top like a show tune. There is a bit where Murphy wails, “And, oh! Maybe mother…” and he has never sounded more like a Manhattan Morrissey.

At the very end of Meet Me In The Bathroom, Thomas Onorato⁵ remembers;

I have this really clear memory of getting a root canal, sitting there and the dentist is doing the root canal, and I’m listening to the music he’s playing on his iPod and ‘New York I Love You, but You’re Bringing Me Down’ comes on. He has Hair, the musical and then LCD Soundsystem.

That juxtaposition isn’t ridiculous because it works; it is a bit like a broadway song that would herald the curtain call. It isn’t the song I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t heard any of the group’s songs because it doesn’t really capture the ethos of what they were about in 2007 in the way that ‘Losing My Edge’, ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’, ‘All My Friends’ or ‘Someone Great’ do.

Even though it is an ending, potentially, for Murphy, he is happy to concede that NY will still offer opportunities and possibilities to new people, much in the same way that PJ Harvey found the city laid out before her at the end of the nineties.

We just kind of lost our way

We are then left with a final flourish, the guitar line weaving up and down like the Coney Island Cyclone as the band takes a bow and exits the stage.

1. But I was there.

2. See 1.

3. The description of Bloomberg as a mild billionaire has always brought to my mind the description of Hong Kong Phooey as a "mild-mannered" janitor.

4. Both times I saw them on these tours, it was the final song.

5. The legendary gatekeeper to New York's hottest parties. Or so it says here.