This is the first track on my Quintessential Songs playlist that doesn’t have its own wiki page or a songfacts page. Sigh.

Luckily, I interviewed Britt Daniel a while back and he had this to say about the track:

That one came really fast and it was another one of those that was sort of like, “I’ll just throw down and idea. It probably isn’t going to work.” But once I sang that chorus the first time and got it on tape, I kind of knew it was going to be a good one.

According to Last.fm, this is easily the most played song in the Spoon catalog and it’s certainly one of the catchiest. In that interview, Daniel said it was one of the most “immediate” of the band’s songs. This Kill the Moonlight track put the band on my radar, and was prelude to the brilliance on display on their next album, Gimme Fiction.

More Quintessential Songs of the ’00s.