24. Thinking of a Place – The War on Drugs

The Memory You’ve Never Lived, Yet Somehow Deeply Understand

Artwork by me: Enrique Seemann

Some songs don’t just play, they carry you somewhere.

From the moment Thinking of a Place begins, it doesn’t feel like something you simply listen to. It feels like something you drift into, like stepping into a dream, a memory, or a road you’ve driven before but can’t quite place.

It stretches across nearly eleven hypnotic minutes, yet time feels irrelevant when you’re inside it. It moves like the sun casting golden light across an open highway, slow, patient, endless. It’s not trying to take you to a specific destination, but somewhere deeper somewhere inside yourself.

But what is it about this song that makes it so immersive? Why does it feel like a place you remember, even if you’ve never been there?

To understand, we have to go back to Adam Granduciel’s headspace at the time, the singer, songwriter, and mastermind behind The War on Drugs. Because this song wasn’t just written. It was discovered, unraveled, lived.

A Song Born from Transition & Searching

By the time Thinking of a Place was written, Adam had already spent years in motion, physically and emotionally.

The War on Drugs had exploded in popularity after Lost in the Dream (2014), an album drenched in isolation, anxiety, and the ache of someone trying to outrun themselves. The success was overwhelming. Granduciel had gone from making music in solitude to fronting a critically adored band, touring nonstop, and suddenly being “known.”

But when the whirlwind settled, he found himself at a crossroads.

Lost in the Dream had been created from a place of pain and introspection, but what happens when you move past that? When the album that defined you was built on isolation, how do you step into something new? For Granduciel, the answer wasn’t in retreating to a Philadelphia apartment, endlessly layering songs in solitude again. That chapter was over. He needed movement, something different.

So, he left for Los Angeles, a place that felt like the opposite of where he had been. Instead of solitude, he sought collaboration. There, he met Shawn Everett, a producer known for his experimental, almost painterly approach to sound. Everett wasn’t interested in perfection he was interested in texture, atmosphere, the feeling of sound itself.

For Granduciel, this was a shift. Instead of obsessing over every sonic detail alone, he let things breathe. He played with new tones, let songs unfold naturally, and stopped trying to control every element. And that’s where Thinking of a Place began, not as a song, but as a feeling, a place Adam was searching for within.

A Song That Moves Like a Memory

When Thinking of a Place finally took shape, it became the longest, most expansive song The War on Drugs had ever recorded. But it doesn’t feel long it feels like something you dissolve into.

The song moves slowly, effortlessly, like it has all the time in the world. It’s drenched in warm nostalgia, yet there’s something unreachable about it like watching an old film reel where the images are familiar, but the details are blurred.

The music sways between gentle waves of sound, never rushing, always stretching forward, like a road disappearing into the horizon.

And then there’s that moment the midway shift, where the drums vanish, the chords stretch, and suddenly, it’s like you’ve stepped through a portal into another dream entirely. It’s the same song, but now it feels wider, more distant, more infinite.

It doesn’t demand your attention. It drifts, unspooling like a memory you’re trying to hold onto but can’t quite grasp.

And before you know it, the song fades, leaving you somewhere in between somewhere familiar, somewhere far away.

Lyrical Themes: Longing, Distance, and Fleeting Time

Unlike many War on Drugs songs, Thinking of a Place doesn’t narrate a clear story. It paints moments and impressions leaving space for you to fill in the blanks.

“And I’m thinking of a place and it feels so very real…”

It’s nostalgia without specifics, longing without certainty. The lyrics float between love, memory, and distance, yet they never settle on one meaning. They shift, like time itself.

And then there’s the line that lingers long after the song ends:

“Love is like a ghost in the distance, out of reach.”

It’s haunting a reminder that some things whether love, time, or memories are always just out of reach.

You can feel them, see them, almost touch them… but they slip away, leaving you chasing their shadow.

The Recording Process: A Song That Was Built Like a Landscape

The band recorded Thinking of a Place during the sessions for A Deeper Understanding, but its origins were different from the rest of the album. Initially released as a standalone single for Record Store Day in April 2017, the track had a more spontaneous, organic feel compared to the rest of the album, which was meticulously layered over months.

Granduciel’s approach was almost painterly. He layered textures, let sections expand freely, allowing the song to find itself rather than forcing it into shape. Shawn Everett, known for his obsession with depth and atmosphere, helped sculpt that vision. He wasn’t just mixing sound, he was shaping space, making sure every note felt like it was drifting through an open horizon rather than locked into a rigid structure.

And then there’s the harmonica.

A distant, ghostly voice weaving through the song’s vast, cinematic sprawl. Whether it was a spontaneous addition or carefully placed, it feels like something that was meant to be there, as if the song had been waiting for it all along.

Like Thinking of a Place itself, it feels eternal not created, but discovered.

The War on Drugs at Their Most Expansive

More than any other War on Drugs track, Thinking of a Place feels like the ultimate distillation of their sound a mix of Dylan-esque storytelling, Springsteen like romanticism, and My Bloody Valentine inspired dreaminess.

It’s a song about distance, yet it draws you in completely.

It’s about time, yet it feels endless.

And maybe that’s why it resonates so deeply.

Because we all have that one place, that one moment, that one feeling we return to something distant, something that feels real even if we can’t explain why.

Somewhere we’re still searching for.

Somewhere we know we’ll never fully reach.

And somehow, that’s enough.

My Personal Thoughts and other The War on Drugs Songs I’d Recommend