I know people have cooled on their steely grooves, but I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through 2002–2007 without steady doses of Spoon. Two songs in particular that galvanized my will when it was bent near the breaking point: “That’s the Way We Get By” and “The Underdog.”
Can’t listen to either of these tunes without being transported back in time. The former reminds me of a sweaty summer spent in Brooklyn, punching F5 on craigslist or interviewing for jobs for which I was but one of hundreds of applicants. I’d turn this all the way up as I sat on my futon, scraping by on adjunct lecturer’s wages and whatever was left on my student loans. The latter takes me to a better place: finally back on the job after nearly a year out of work. It was their brand new album at the time and I had a hard time believing that “The Underdog” wasn’t my personal anthem that summer.
A few years on and I keep finding myself coming back to these records. I can’t think of a band whose body of work has more closely fit my moods over more than a decade of fandom.