“I kind of vowed not to make personal music,” Murphy told the AV Club of the group’s earliest years. “You’re in a rock band singing about your life, your feelings. It seems pretty yawny in a lot of ways.” By Sound of Silver this edict was out of the window, contributing to All My Friends taking its place as possibly their masterpiece. Sonically it’s irresistible, a single, eager, excitable piano riff that careers through the song, joined in quick succession by a growling bassline and a serrated guitar riff that might have been played by Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner, then a Neu!-like synth wail. But it’s the lyrics that really make the thing: excited for the night ahead, nostalgic for heady times past in the face of encroaching middle age, and resonating with the power of great pop music to frame a time and grant the illusion of staving off mortality. “And if the sun comes up / And I still don’t wanna stagger home,” croons Murphy urgently, inspiring a hot sweat, “then it’s the memory of our betters / That are keeping us on our feet.” In 2013, Stereogum made it the subject of a feature entitled “Deconstructing LCD Soundsystem’s All My Friends and Trying to Define the Best Song of the Millennium” – which was over-eager, but it wasn’t hard to see where they were coming from.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/may/11/lcd-soundsystem-10-of-the-best-james-murphy

http://www.stereogum.com/1469481/deconstructing-lcd-soundsystems-all-my-friends-and-trying-to-define-the-best-song-of-the-millennium/franchises/deconstructing/

That’s how it starts
We go back to your house
You check the charts
And start to figure it out
And if it’s crowded, all the better
Because we know we’re gonna be up late
But if you’re worried about the weather
Then you picked the wrong place to stay
That’s how it starts
And so it starts
You switch the engine on
We set controls for the heart of the sun
One of the ways we show our age
And if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up
And I still don’t wanna stagger home
Then it’s the memory of our betters
That are keeping us on our feet
You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan
And the next five years trying to be with your friends again
Oh, you’re talking forty-five turns just as fast as you can
Yeah, I know it gets tired, but it’s better when we pretend
It comes apart
The way it does in bad films
Except in parts
When the moral kicks in
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 life
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
Yeah, I know it gets tired only where are your friends tonight?
And to tell the truth
Oh, this could be the last time
So here we go
Like a sales force into the night
And if I made a fool, if I made a fool
If I made a fool on the road, there’s always this
And if I’m sewn into submission
I can still come home to this
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 leave impossible tasks
You think over and over, “hey, I’m finally dead”
Oh, if the trip and the plan come apart in your hand
You look contorted on yourself your ridiculous prop
You forgot what you meant when you read what you said
And you always knew you were tired, but then
Where are your friends tonight?
Where are your friends tonight?
Where are your friends tonight?
If I could see all my friends tonight
If I could see all my friends tonight
If I could see all my friends tonight
If I could see all my friends tonight