Published in the Quad-City Times on Mar. 6, 2024

This weekend, I stood in a venue I’ve never been to, in a city I’ve never been to, listening to a song I’ve heard a million times, and I sobbed. 

Publicly, vulnerably, viscerally. 

It came during the last song of the night, “DON’T TELL THE BOYS,” at Petey’s show in Madison, Wisconsin. My eyes were still wet as I slipped out onto the busy downtown streets. 

It’s very easy for me to cry alone, but it’s very hard for me to cry in public, let alone at a concert with nearly a thousand people in attendance. I’ve seen Petey shows in each of the last three years, and every single time he played this song. 

I never came close to crying then, so why was I crying now?

The reality of it is that I miss my friends. 

As “DON’T TELL THE BOYS” wittily puts it, it’s a socially-taught masculine urge to conceal your appreciation for those you love. I’m as open of a book as it gets, but even I have fallen for this trick. 

I’ve lived in four states in the last four years and I’ve picked up people along the way, and then I’ve lost many of them without telling them how much they mean. Hearing their distance revealed to me in a song was an emotional ice bath. 

“I’ll always be a lending ear, I’ll be your elephant best friend,” Petey sang, as I wiped the waterfalls from my cheekbones this weekend. “Don’t tell the boys we’ve got each other, and I’ll love you ‘til the end, don’t tell the boys.”

I snuck into the bathroom after the show, my eyes still squinted and bloodshot, and I opened my phone and texted everyone I could think of.

I love you, I love you, I love you. I miss you. How are you? Where are you? Why has it been so long? Remember that time? I love you, I love you, I love you.

To love a song or a person enough to be brought to your knees is a gift we should share. 

In the spirit of this epiphany, here are some of my favorite songs about friendship. 

Stay Inside – “A Backyard”

The idea of lost connection was already in the back of my mind this week thanks to the new record “Ferried Away” by Brooklyn hardcore band Stay Inside. It’s a whole album about drifting away from the friends of your youth as you get older, and the idea is best painted on a single repeated line from single “A Backyard.” 

“I miss these days,” they sing. “Your daughter, your neighbors, I wish they knew my name.”

Where is David, the first pal I made after moving to my small hometown in first grade? How is Dylan, whose backyard was my home away from home? Am I somewhere anonymously in a story they’re telling their kids? Do they remember me at all? 

Chance The Rapper – “Summer Friends (feat. Jeremih & Francis and The Lights)”

When I got to high school, I started to quietly resent my rural roots. I was certain that town was holding me back from some big-city nirvana. I looked ahead with such force and around me with such bitterness that I fear that I lost everyone in the process. I’m hoping to make amends with that in my adulthood. 

Thankfully, I have stayed in contact with my childhood best friend. And once, we played hide and seek at another friend’s house and he found me because he shouted the first line of Chance The Rapper’s groovy slow-burner “Summer Friends” — “socks on concrete” — and I couldn’t resist calling back with the rest of the bar — “jolly rancher kids.” 

He’s pursuing his dreams now and I’m proud of him. I’m also glad to know that if I ever lose him, I know what to shout out to bring him back.

LCD Soundsystem – “All My Friends”

There’s a lot of jokes about peaking in college, but honestly, I get it. That kind of proximity to like-minded friendship is pretty hard to replicate.

I spent most of my college experience living with the same three friends. Someday, they’ll probably be my groomsmen. But this weekend, I grappled with the possibility that I won’t see them at all this year, despite seeing them almost every single day for the previous three. This all-time classic by electro-indie goliath LCD Soundsystem feels like an omen for my young adulthood. 

“You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan,” James Murphy sings. “And the next five years trying to be with your friends again.”

This is me, telling the boys: I appreciate you and hope to see you again soon.

The Wonder Years – “Cardinals”

Of course, not all friendships have years to blossom. Perhaps what stings most lately is the realization that I never said goodbye to my many short-term pals.

I spent two months last year living with five strangers and I don’t think I truly verbalized how much I appreciated them taking me in. I spent many summer nights with one roommate in particular, who shared my love for punk and emo music. We’d sit in his basement and watch music videos until almost 4 a.m., and every time, he put on “Cardinals,” by Philly pop-punk group The Wonder Years.

To this day, the song still tastes like cheap beer, humidity and freedom.  

“I want those years back,” singer Dan Campbell chants at the song’s conclusion. “We’re no saviors if we can’t save our brothers.”

Lorde – “Ribs”

“Ribs” is one of Lorde’s biggest hits for a reason. It’s because she somehow puts laughter into words. To truly bust up laughing with someone you love is a gift, and it’s one that’s hard to appreciate until the jokes are over and something resembling mundanity returns. Once, I listened to this song with two of my best friends on a freeway drive at sunset after a really bad day. And it healed me.

In the backseat, one friend sang so loudly I thought she might break a jawbone. In the driver’s seat, my other friend smiled toothlessly with a degree of contentment I’ve never seen before. I stuck my hand out the window under a tangerine sky and the wind forced it into a wave. A goodbye, a hello, a thank you for driving me home. 

Concert Of The Week: Jenny Lewis at Capitol Theatre

This weekend, I’ll be at the Jenny Lewis show at Capitol Theatre with my best friend in the world: my girlfriend. (A loud crowd boos me as I curl into a ball of corniness).

I’ve talked about both my girlfriend and Jenny Lewis in this column before, so I won’t go too deeply, but I appreciate them both. 

However, the show is sold out, so if you don’t have tickets and are still looking for a pick, I’ll be a good friend and recommend playful rockers Post Sex Nachos at Raccoon Motel on Tuesday night. Tickets are going for just under $20. 

On This Daytrotter: Slow Pulp on March 9, 2018

Let’s end where we started: in Madison, Wisconsin, the hometown of dreamy alt-rock act Slow Pulp. Their last two albums are two of my favorites from the last four years, and the group played a Daytrotter session here this week in 2018, as the band was just getting off the ground. 

“Oh Jane, where’d you go? You’ve got me wandering in circles,” asks singer-guitarist Emily Massey on “Die Alone,” the session’s lead-off song. “I guess it was only a matter of time, and now you’re gone.”

Don’t let your friends go quietly. I hope this column serves as a reminder to text a pal you haven’t heard from in a while. Tell them you love them, tell them you miss them, tell them why. 

If you buckle at the knees while saying it, wave goodbye on the way down.