Parquet Courts / Sympathy for Life / 2021
Walking at a Downtown Pace
wistful, cautiously hopeful, tinged with anxiety
A pandemic-era walking song that imagines the small pleasures of ordinary city life as almost unbearably precious once they've been withheld. Parquet Courts trade their usual angular skepticism for something closer to gratitude, cataloguing mundane future plans with the intensity of a prayer.
reemergence after isolation gratitude for the mundane urban alienation and reconciliation mortality and time longing for connection
Who's speaking
A first-person narrator addressing an unnamed 'you' — possibly a lover, a friend, or the city itself — while also seeming to talk himself into optimism; the voice is sincere but uncertain, hedging between relief and dread.
What happens
The song opens with the narrator fantasizing about the simple future he'll have once some unnamed ordeal ends — tasting food, hearing music, seeing an unmasked face. It moves into reflections on his past avoidance of crowds and his own isolation, then widens into questions about how much of his life has been spent hiding or feeling low. A turn arrives with a declaration of having found a reason to exist, followed by a hazier domestic/urban memory that may be ending in goodbye. The song closes by addressing someone directly, asking if they'll be waiting on 'the other side,' landing on an image of final acceptance or release.
How it's built
Built from loosely rhymed verses that accumulate images rather than tell a linear story, with a repeated refrain-like bridge ('found a reason to exist') functioning as an emotional pivot. The closing section repeats itself nearly verbatim, functioning as a fade-out mantra rather than a conventional final chorus — reinforcing the sense of surrender or acceptance rather than resolution.
Section by section
Opening verse
“making plans for the day”
The song begins in the future conditional, imagining ordinary acts — eating, drinking, hearing music — as goals to be earned, which immediately frames the present as a kind of suspension or waiting period.
Second verse
The narrator admits to past avoidance of crowded streets, now reframing that avoidance as something to regret; the crowd he once resented becomes an object of affection, and he wonders about his own anonymity within it.
Third verse
A shift to addressing someone directly about loss and unfulfilled desire. The imagery of planning small future outings works as a stand against despair — survival reduced to rituals like choosing a film or a sandwich.
Fourth verse
The questions about time spent 'underground' and feeling low introduce a self-audit, suggesting depression or literal isolation (possibly quarantine), with the counting motif suggesting obsessive tracking of lost time.
Bridge
The declaration of finding a reason to exist, paired with imagery of being at the top of the world yet 'begging not to go extinct,' captures a fragile triumph — purpose found but still precarious.
Fifth verse
A hazier, nostalgic passage mixing domestic and urban detail suggests a remembered relationship or era that may be ending, with the closing question implying this section functions as a farewell.
Closing verses
“nothing left to want”
The final address to a 'you' waiting on 'the other side' can read as romantic reunion, death, or simple metaphor for emerging from isolation. The repeated lines about having nothing left to want suggest a kind of spiritual or emotional settling, closing the song on acceptance rather than resolution.
Craft
- cumulative imagery
- The verses stack small sensory details — food, drinks, sunlight, carpet, socks — building emotional weight through accumulation rather than a single dominant metaphor.
- rhetorical questioning
- Recurring questions about time spent underground or feeling low give the song a self-interrogating quality, as if the narrator is auditing his own life in real time.
- ambiguous addressee
- The 'you' shifts between a lover, a friend, and possibly the city or life itself, letting the ending read as romantic, platonic, or existential simultaneously.
- repetition as closure
- The final verse repeats almost word-for-word, mimicking a walking cadence and suggesting resignation or peace rather than narrative progression.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading ties the song to pandemic isolation and reemergence — the narrator anticipating the return of ordinary pleasures after a period of restriction, while reckoning with how he'd previously taken those pleasures for granted. A secondary reading treats the song as more broadly existential, about any period of withdrawal (depression, breakup, grief) and the tentative hope of reentry into life and connection, with the 'other side' functioning ambiguously as reunion or death.
Context
Sympathy for Life was released in 2021, written and recorded during a period shaped by COVID-19 lockdowns, and the album as a whole leans into dance and groove-oriented arrangements compared to the band's more abrasive earlier work. This specific lyric's references to masks, isolation, and longing for crowds align plausibly with pandemic-era songwriting, though I can't confirm explicit biographical details behind this specific track.
Listen for
- the shift in tone between the anxious counting verses and the more serene, settled bridge
- how the repeated closing section slows the song's pace, mimicking an actual walk
- the tension between claustrophobic domestic imagery and open, crowd-filled city imagery
- whether the music underscores the lyric's uncertainty or pushes toward resolution
About Parquet Courts
Parquet Courts is an American rock band from New York City that formed in 2010. The band has consisted of Andrew Savage, Austin Brown, Sean Yeaton, and Max Savage (drums) for its entire duration.
2010 - present / United States
Full biography and catalogue