Back in April, Thursday hit the road for their Full City Devolución tour, where they’ve been celebrating three milestone anniversaries — 25 years of Full Collapse, 20 years of A City By the Light Divided, and 15 years of No Devolución — by playing a selection of those songs night after night. Beyond pulling out fan favorites and cuts that don’t normally make their setlists, it’s been a huge time of reflection, which frontman Geoff Rickly recently went into when the band appeared on our cover last week — their first since the early 2000s. With this in mind, we wanted to know what our readers think are the best Thursday songs. Find the top fan picks ranked below.
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5. “Cross Out the Eyes”
Thursday fans all have their favorite eras, but for many of them, 2002’s Full Collapse is considered a perfect album. Rightfully, they singled out “Cross Out the Eyes” as one of Thursday’s greatest songs. “I always thought of myself more as a writer with a microphone,” Rickly tells AP. “When I say I wrote a bunch of Thursday’s songs, I came up with an overall idea, and the band made it something beautiful… [For] the chorus of ‘Cross Out the Eyes,’ basically I said, ‘We’ll just follow the vocal!’ Which is a strange thing to do and makes it kind of iconic — but it’s only because I couldn’t do two things at once. Sometimes the limitations actually make the thing better.”
4. “For the Workforce, Drowning”
Thursday’s War All the Time is a post-hardcore classic, with the band celebrating its 20th anniversary with an album playthrough tour in 2023 and 2024. “For the Workforce, Drowning” sets the tone, opening their 2003 major-label debut with Rickly’s signature cries about 9-to-5s and the debilitating, soul-crushing pressure they can cause. More than two decades later, it’s been a constant fan favorite for a reason.
3. “Turnpike Divides”
2011’s No Devolución saw a change in sound, tone, and style as Thursday reached further into post-punk. It’s a culmination (and celebration) of all the experimentation they’ve done in their career, sounding tight as ever. As part of their anniversary tour, they’ve been pulling out tons of rarities from the album — including “Turnpike Divides.” Rickly calls it one of the best songs they’ve ever written. “When we’d play it live, I’d almost always tear up at the end because I love it so much,” he said in a 2014 interview, breaking down the band’s catalog.
2. “Paris in Flames”
Full Collapse was a turning point for Thursday, continuing to dig deeper and build on the intense emotionality of 1999’s Waiting. They spoke about topics that got little attention at the time, especially on “Paris In Flames.” “[That] was a really cool song at the time, because there weren’t any bands in the scene talking about transgender or LGBT activism or rights,” Rickly recalled in that same interview. “Full Collapse was really ambitious in the subjects we tackled, and that’s why I think I resented a lot of the bands that rode our coattails. They didn’t have any social consciousness.”
1. “Jet Black New Year”
2002’s Five Stories Falling EP mostly comprises live versions of Full Collapse songs, recorded at Warped Tour that same year. However, it’s got a studio song, “Jet Black New Year,” at the very end that makes the release extremely special. The track features My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way— one of Thursday’s longtime New Jersey peers — screaming along with Rickly during its mid-section. The MCR vocalist has occasionally come out to join the band onstage for the song, including at Hellfest in 2003.
