The music video for this song isn’t that great. I thought that in 2007/8, and I still hold that opinion today. A lot of awkward staring and just a very low-budget tone to it. Song’s good though, always enjoy hearing it whenever it comes up on shuffle or something. ‘Moving to New York’ was a single from The Wombats’ first album, and its various appearances on MTV2 was how I came to know of its existence. It was also another reason for me to request that album as a present, birthday or Christmas, either/or, I can’t remember that well.

The track carries on a theme of self-deprecation and doubt that goes on throughout Love, Loss and Desperation. On here, the narrator generally seems to be down on their luck. They’ve had a bad week, they don’t know whether they’re coming or going, so they decide to move to New York in order to get some good sleep. Ah, but you see the joke here is that New York is known as the city that never sleeps, so it’s safe to assume that this person won’t have the greatest success with the decision they’ve made. It’s all a very sarcastic, ironic affair going on lyrically.

Despite the dismissive tone in its lyrics, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable track. Matthew Murphy sings it really well, and the thing to look out for the most is the bass guitar which really carries the melodic backbone. My favourite part is probably the outro, not because it means that the song is ending, but the chord progression during that part seems to come out of nowhere. Overall, the track’s pretty harmless. I think it’s one that reminds a lot people of the mid-00s where there were so many bands in the UK making music like this. Some of them were terrible, but I’ll always have a bit of a soft spot for the Wombats. Especially that first record.