THE WALKMEN ‘The Rat’ (2004)
Not all Mourning Glories offer tearful condolences. Some goodbyes are really bloody hecking furious. Anger is an energy, right ’til the very bitter end. Enter ‘The Rat’ by Philadelphia’s freedom fighters The WALKMEN: propelled forward by Matt Barrick’s unfeasibly hectic drummings, this is a song for the rages, except in one moment of seething contemplation when Hamilton Leithauser mourns: “When I used to go out I would know everyone I saw / Now I go out alone, if I go out at all.” One of us started living out the soundtrack of our lives with that lyric. Really not a good idea.