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Why LCD Soundsystem's 'New York, I Love You' is still the city's most honest anthem
By
Sonia Rao
Published Oct 30, 2026 at 9:30 a.m. ET
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Bryan Bedder/Getty Images
By
Sonia Rao
Published Oct 30, 2026 at 9:30 a.m. ET
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Nearly 20 years ago, LCD Soundsystem vocalist James Murphy bemoaned the state of New York City over a slow-moving piano: “Like a rat in a cage/ Pulling minimum wage / New York, I love you / But you’re bringing me down,” he sings in a spoken-word cadence. He laments the city’s power-hungry leaders and its general unaffordability crescendo. Then the climax hits right after he admits, “But you’re still the one pool where I’d happily drown.”
“New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down” might have been released in 2007 as the subdued final track on LCD Soundsystem’s otherwise punchy second album, “Sound of Silver,” but Murphy’s biting honesty still feels pertinent. His lyrics are defined by their contradictions, making the song an alluring choice even for film and television music supervisors looking to concisely convey that torn feeling. It has played in New York City dramas such as “Gossip Girl” and “Succession,” and even the Los Angeles-set series “Nobody Wants This,” which recently used it as the soundtrack for an explosive kiss between a will-they-won’t-they couple.
But the most apt on-screen use of “New York, I Love You” might be during a montage of the city’s sparkling skyline and busy streets early in the new film “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” which stars John Turturro as an aging criminal struggling to find his place in a society that left him behind. The montage establishes the story’s setting, but the song sets its tone: Like Murphy, Turturro’s character is attached to a lifestyle that is no longer viable.
“That’s a very human feeling,” the film’s music supervisor, Dan Wilcox, told Gothamist. “It’s nostalgia wrapped up in fear of change, wrapped up in all these different things. No matter what generation of New Yorker you are, you’ve probably felt that way.”
You might have even felt that way from far across the ocean, as suggested by the “New York, I Love You” covers by Scottish singer KT Tunstall and the British-Australian rock band The Last Dinner Party. But the song resonates even more with those who have lived in New York, who have fallen in love with its towering spires and underground bustle while becoming increasingly aware of its skyrocketing prices and flattening culture.
“New York, I love you, but you’re freaking me out / There’s a ton of the twist, but we’re fresh out of shout,” Murphy sings. “Like a death in the hall, that you hear through your wall / New York, I love you, but you’re freaking me out.”
Indie rock and folk singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten performed the song live in 2018 as part of a New York-themed edition of BBC Proms, a classical music concert series staged in London each summer. At the time, Van Etten, who grew up in New Jersey, had lived in Brooklyn for nearly 15 years but was about to move to Los Angeles. She told Gothamist that although she wasn’t very familiar with the song before conductor Jules Buckley suggested she cover it, its weight hit her as she processed her impending move.
“It is intense to revisit this [BBC Proms] video,” Van Etten said on a recent afternoon. “Because I can see that I was trying not to cry, and [I can sense] the wheel spinning inside, knowing that I was about to say goodbye to New York for that chapter.”
Van Etten, who was backed by a full orchestra as she sang at Royal Albert Hall, put her own spin on the song: “ I feel like you can hear the smile in the way he's performing it,” she said of Murphy singing the explosive climax, whereas “when I finally got to that point where it was supposed to be exploding, I was more saddened and angsty about it because I had all these unspoken decisions I was making in my mind.”
But still, Van Etten connected with Murphy’s overall sentiment: She both loved New York and found it incredibly difficult to live in. She felt at home in its creative community while recognizing that most of her friends were struggling to make rent; the only way she could afford her own apartment was by leaving it to go on tour. She found it difficult to watch small businesses come and go so rapidly. “New York, I Love You” reminded her of what her good friend Kyp Malone (of TV on the Radio) once told her about how he processed the city’s change.
“I remember he told me, famously, ‘Civilizations throughout time rise and fall. New York is no different,’” she said. The mantra shaped her own approach to the city: “I think communities change. Scenes change. For someone coming in and finding their circle, it’s different for them than it was for me. It’s [about] being at peace with that.” (Malone’s wise words also helped inspire one of Van Etten’s biggest hits, “Seventeen.”)
Murphy, who declined an interview, appears to reach a sense of acceptance toward the end of “New York, I Love You.” He might never know how he feels about the city but recognizes that its constantly evolving ways of life still suit other people: “For those who think it still exists / Maybe I’m wrong and maybe you’re right / Maybe I’m wrong and maybe you’re right,” he sings, repeating variations of the line.
LCD Soundsystem performed “New York, I Love You” at the end of their 2011 farewell show at Madison Square Garden. But that wasn’t the end of the band — LCD Soundsystem reunited in 2015 and will embark on their sixth consecutive New York City residency beginning Nov. 19 — nor was it the end of Murphy’s evolution in the city. The man shaped by his scrappy Williamsburg roots went on to open a Michelin-starred wine bar in the same neighborhood. He might have risen in rank, but the song — which derides Michael Bloomberg as a “mild billionaire mayor … convinced he’s a king” — stayed true to its humble origins. Stereogum's Managing Editor Chris DeVille credited its longevity to the continued resonance of that social commentary.
“The Brooklyn world that [Murphy] was coming from kind of feels like a microcosm of the changes that have happened everywhere,” DeVille said. “It makes sense on a broader level when you’re mourning an America that seems to be going away.”
Toward the end of “The Only Living Pickpocket,” Turturro’s character comes to realize that his best years — and, in an intertwined fate, those of the New York he loves — are over. But he doesn’t mourn this truth. He simply accepts it.
Wilcox, the music supervisor, wanted to bookend the pickpocket’s story with another song channeling the notion that New York is still great, even when it isn’t. He landed on cabaret singer Bobby Short’s live rendition of “I Happen to Like New York,” which was recorded at the Café Carlyle roughly 40 years after Cole Porter wrote it for the 1930 musical “The New Yorkers.”
Short sings, “When I have to give the world my last farewell/ And the undertaker starts to ring my funeral bell / I don’t want to go to heaven, don’t want to go to hell / I happen to like New York / I happen to like New York.”
You can imagine Murphy, however tongue in cheek, one day singing the very same.
Tagged
Existing in New York City
brooklyn
manhattan
Sonia Rao
Sonia Rao is a culture reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. She previously covered entertainment and breaking news at The Washington Post. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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