Photo by Jason McDonald

MMO Fan Shot by Brandon Gross

Because it has nothing to do with the Mets.

In 2010, Julian Casablancas, lead singer and songwriter of New York’s own Strokes and noted Mets fan, said in a Rolling Stone article that he wants to “…write the new TV theme song for the Mets.”

A decade later, it looks like the “Last Nite” hitmaker sort of made good on his promise, as a song entitled “Ode to the Mets” closes out the band’s sixth album The New Abnormal.

However, it’s unlikely we’ll hear “Ode to the Mets” as an SNY game day intro song or bed under Gary Cohen talking about W.B. Mason.

On first listen, you quickly realize this isn’t the cheery iconic “Meet the Mets” theme song produced by a Mad Men-esque agency or the very ’80s 1986 championship team’s “Let’s Go Mets Go” theme song. This song is the Strokes in 2020; this is for the world in 2020.

The words “Mets,” “New York,” and “baseball” aren’t mentioned once in this almost-six-minute song. You’d also expect a song about the Mets written by the Strokes to be a quick two-minute guitar jangly banger they’ve become synonymous with, but this song seems to venture into the sound the Strokes and Casablancas’ other band, The Voidz, have been producing the last five or so years.

It’s the version of the Strokes that’s crooning Lou Reed with Kraftwerk synth, not the straightforward garage rock that you still occasionally hear from them, like their second single from The New Abnormal: “Bad Decisions.”

The only thing connecting this “Mets” song to “Meet the Mets” is the beautiful sound of the ’60s Zombies-like underlying groove. While the first two stanzas of lyrics recount a past experience that may indicate some drama and regret:

Up on his horse, up on his horse
Not gonna wake up here anymore
Listen one time
It’s not the truth
It’s just a story
I tell to you

Easy to say
Easy to do
But it’s not easy, well maybe for you?
Hope that you find it
Hope that it’s good
Hope that you read it
Think that you should
Cuts you some slack, as he sits back
Sizes you up
Plans his attack

Ok? I can try to come up with how this relates to the Mets. “Up on his horse…” has to be Jeff Wilpon, right?  “It’s not the truth/It’s just a story…” is clearly the press? I mean the Mets have had so many PR problems the last decade. “Sizes you up/Plans his attack” is clearly Jacob deGrom forming his game plan when facing Freddie Freeman. God, I don’t know, I’m exhausted.

“Ode to the Mets” isn’t exactly as straightforward as “Bring your kiddies/Bring your wife/guaranteed to have the time of your life.” However, what “Ode to the Mets” lacks in clarity, it makes up for in emotion. It’s a nostalgic melodramatic piece of music that captures this time.

We’re confused; we’re scared and yearning for old times. We want baseball, we want safety, but still want to recognize the beautiful underlying groove of life, despite the chaos on top of it.

I don’t expect “Ode to the Mets” to replace “Taking Care of Business” as the Mets song after they win, I don’t expect “Ode to the Mets” to be Pete Alonso’s walk-up song, and I don’t expect Darren from the 7 Line Army to print Strokes “Ode to the Mets” t-shirts.  

However, I do hope we acknowledge one of our own, a Mets fan, created a piece of art that can comfort us in confusing, stressful, and dangerous times. Twenty years ago, the Strokes released their debut album Is This It?

A month before 9/11, this album became a comfort to many Americans when so many of us needed it. Similarly, The New Abnormal and “Ode to the Mets” can do the same thing. The last lyrics in “Ode to the Mets” sums up this current moment, this feeling, well:

Gone now are the old times
Forgotten, time to hold on the railing
The Rubik’s Cube isn’t solving for us
Old friends, long forgotten
The old ways at the bottom
Of the ocean now has swallowed
The only thing that’s left
Is us, so pardon
The silence that you’re hearing
Is turning into
A deafening, painful, shameful roar

Almost 20 years after Is This It? and 9/11, the Strokes are back again in a time of need to comfort those in need of an escape, and they just so happen to have a song with “Mets” in the title.