Sympathy For The Strawberry

The last song on the album Murray Street is called "Sympathy For The Strawberry."

Classic Sonic Youth drone. This song was built from the constant "no wave" riff that drives the song. Thurston and Lee add little blips here and there. It's a pretty slow song that carries on for 9 minutes. This is also a classic Sonic way of closing an album.

The song started off instrumental and was played on a short trip to Europe in 2001. I remember hearing about the "five new instrumentals" that debuted on this tour. This got me excited that a new album would be in the works. I also saw a video of the band playing a 9/11 benefit from September of 2001. They opened with the new instrumentals and this song was the first in the set an was announced as "Magik Chord." It even appears that way on the setlist. The final verson is much different as the early live version just sounds like droning with some guitar on top. Lee originally wanted to apply some of his lyrics that would become "Karen Revisited" and Kim wanted to sing "Karen." The two switched.

There is no clearly defined melody in this song and the words sound improvised. When I saw the band in 2002 and 2003, the words of this song seemed different both times and the song was extended well past the 9 minute album cut.

This song has not been played since 2003.