MJ Lenderman, This Is Lorelei, ‘Dancing in the Club’

MJ Lenderman performs during the MJ Lenderman and the Wind concert held at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on October 25, 2024 in New York, New York. (Photo by Griffin Lotz/Rolling Stone via Getty Images)

Rock-a-bye, Sweet Baby Jake. MJ Lenderman keeps singing “I’m my own worst enemy,” but nobody understands him except his guitar, and in this song, even his guitar has doubts. He takes a great This Is Lorelei song and transmutes it into a stoner-country ramble, with the honey-slides ache in his voice and the mellow-gold dirtbag soul of his guitar. One of the millions of things I love about “Dancing in the Club” is how it goes on so long — it starts out as a stranger on a barstool telling you his story until you’re looking around for the exit, then you realize there is no exit because it’s your story too. Thanks Nate Amos for this immortal couplet: “I was singing Steely Dan, crying ‘shake it’ in the wind/A loser never wins and I’m a loser, always been.”