The Way We Get By

Spoon have always had a gift for making restraint feel like an act of aggression, and "The Way We Get By" is their thesis statement on the subject. The piano stabs at you in short, decisive bursts; there's no fat on this arrangement, no reverb clouds to hide in. Britt Daniel's voice is all dry swagger and coiled energy, delivering each line like he's daring you to catch the joke buried inside it. The song is about coping — the small, slightly shameful rituals that get you through: watching late movies, taking pills, doing whatever you need to do to feel like yourself for a few hours. But Spoon refuses to frame this as tragedy. The mood is almost defiant, as if the mundanity of survival is itself a form of victory. A tambourine enters at just the right moment and somehow it feels like the most satisfying event in indie rock. It's a morning song and a night song simultaneously, best understood by anyone who's ever organized their life around tiny pleasures when the larger ones weren't available.