In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing. This week, we’re picking songs about the day of the week the story runs.
Wednesday is a hump that’s never a peak, a midpoint that marks the progress of the week before registering a sigh and diving into three more days of this shit. With a namesake that’s equidistant from both days of the weekend, Fischerspooner’s 2005 track “Wednesday” expresses a certain degree of resignation—though it’s also a song that’s plausibly under the thrall of a Saturday night that refuses to end.
That thought certainly fits the poses struck by the band/performance troupe (mostly co-leader Casey Spooner) during the music press’ brief infatuation (mostly Spin’s brief infatuation) with electroclash, during which Fischerspooner were made out to be the most decadent of the Brooklynites ushering ’80s electronics and post-punk detachment into the 2000s. One of the song’s two mantra-like lyrics—“Double it”—is a perfect mission statement for Fischerspooner, an act for which excess was never enough. The other line—“I feel like I’m still there”—is a longing reminiscence that could connect the sounds of “Wednesday” to a heady weekend in 2005 or foggy, circuit-bent memories of 20 years prior. The driving bassline and nightcrawler synths superficially recall another bit of new-wave displacement—Wall Of Voodoo’s “Back In Flesh”—further helping “Wednesday” to fold the space-time continuum. You might want the seconds to move quicker on a Wednesday, but I never make similar wishes during “Wednesday.”