The Way It Is

There's a looseness to this track that feels almost accidental, the guitars slightly lazier in their attack, the whole thing riding on a groove that could almost unravel before it catches itself. The production has that compressed, slightly airless quality that defines the Strokes' aesthetic — everything close and intimate, like it was recorded in a space smaller than it needed to be. Casablancas is sardonic here, his vocal delivery carrying a shrug that functions as its own kind of philosophy. The song lives in the space between resignation and acceptance, the emotional territory of recognizing that certain things simply are what they are and no amount of wanting will change them. There's a blues sensibility underneath the garage-rock surface — not in any literal way, but in the tradition of finding something almost peaceful in acknowledging hard truths. The guitar work is fluid and conversational, the two guitarists finishing each other's thoughts. This is music for the moment after an argument when both people have stopped talking and are just sitting with the reality of things. You reach for it when you've arrived somewhere you didn't plan to be and you're learning to stop fighting that fact.