Two days ago, Mac, knowing that the National is one of my favorite bands, sent me a link to a well-known music blog that had published an article (purportedly) discussing "The 10 Best National Songs." I jokingly responded: "This article just ruined my day." But this may have only been half a joke. In actuality, I don't like the article, at all, but for two separate reasons, the first of which is not the author's fault.
I have an aversion toward "lists" and "rankings" and "grades" when it comes to discussing music because the very idea seems somewhat antithetical to the nature of music. Subjecting any medium to criticism or scrutiny is important, because it sets standards and, hopefully, leads to improvement and advancement as artists are likely more willing to try to impress a critical audience over an indifferent one. "Criticism" doesn't have to strictly translate into "competition," however, especially in mediums so beholden to subjectivity. A person may start out in the realm of criticism (this is good, this is bad, this is effective, this is not: here is why I think this) and without realizing it soon find themselves in the realm of "competition," forcing music to "compete" with itself and allowing the critic to "compete" with their peers (this album is worth 7.4 "units" of goodness and this album is worth 8.1 "units" of goodness, this album is the 23rd "best" album of the year and this album is the 24th "best" album of the year).
Those distinctions might usually be harmless, but they become less so when made by publications with an extremely wide readership. At that point, they have real-world consequences for bands, whose fates are tied to numbers drawn from imaginary rubrics, and for music-listeners whose opinions are affected, to varying degrees, by numbers and rankings rather than through constructive discourse. It's a bigger discussion for another day but suffice it to say, I don't always see the value in "best of" lists, especially when they concern a band I feel some emotional investment in, and especially when said list is disseminated, seemingly authoritatively and objectively, by a widely-read publication.
Regardless, let's accept for the moment that music critics merely take on assignments such as these and agree to rank music because it's what people expect, and it's easy to understand and digest, and it promotes discussion and it can be fun.
While accepting that everyone may have their own opinions informed by personal connotations, and with no disrespect at all to Ms. Brown who is clearly a fan of the National and a fine writer, the article seems like a bit of a missed opportunity in many ways. I don't see a good reason that the band's pre-2007 catalogue should be so readily dismissed and that the band's most recent material should be so heavily favored. Limiting her scope in this way does a rather poor job of fully exhibiting what the National have done so well over their career. As Brown, probably accurately, points out, many people listening to the National likely only started doing so over their last two albums. All the more reason why compiling a "best of" list predominantly focusing on those same two albums, and publishing it for mainstream consumption, seems like a missed opportunity. I also think, entirely subjectively, and as a student of this 75-song + library, she hasn't (for the most part) chosen their "best" material.
As such, in anticipation of their upcoming album, Trouble Will Find Me, due out May 21, 2013, I've complied the following list of National songs that will hopefully give unfamiliar readers a greater appreciation for some of what the band has to offer. This list is chronological (because I'm me) but I did limit it to 10 songs in keeping with the restriction set in Brown's article.
As such, in anticipation of their upcoming album, Trouble Will Find Me, due out May 21, 2013, I've complied the following list of National songs that will hopefully give unfamiliar readers a greater appreciation for some of what the band has to offer. This list is chronological (because I'm me) but I did limit it to 10 songs in keeping with the restriction set in Brown's article.
"29 Years" (The National, 2001)
The National's first, self-titled album came out in 2001, and if not for Matt Berninger's recognizable baritone, listeners not familiar with the album might think they were listening to a different band. The album skewed much more strongly toward turn-of-the-century Wilco-inspired country rock with relatively few traces of what the band would become. Among these songs, "29 Years" sticks out like a drop of ink in a glass of milk. Berninger half talks/half sings while a hungover church organist barely keeps pace and something resembling a guitar with no microphone squeaks in the background. This song might be the earliest indication of the darker direction the National would be heading in and Berninger lays down a foundational lyric that will re-appear later in their discography as the mantra of his disenchanted heartsick narrator: "you know I dreamed about you, for 29 years before I saw you/ you know I dreamed about you, I missed you for 29 years."
"Available" (Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, 2003)
The National released their second album, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, in 2003. Things are significantly darker here as the band began experimenting with various sounds, including a set of songs that sounded a bit like Joy Division fronted by a self-conscious, early-aughts, house-husband. My father never yelled much when I was kid, which made it all the more terrifying on the select few occasions when he did. That's exactly how it feels the first time Berninger screams out "dear, we better get a drink in you before you start to bore us" on "Slipping Husband" and he follows it up with more momentarily unhinged vocal deliveries on "Murder Me Rachael" and "Available." It's an approach that he would retire after Alligator, but while still in use, the unsettling bursts of energy into his usual passive delivery were extremely effective. Also of note here is Berninger's tendency to find clever phrases to repeat for more than one meaning depending on the context. (See: "you just made yourself available," referring both to someone making themselves physically available, and a cruel turn-of-phrase to inform someone they're now single.)
"About Today" (Cherry Tree EP, 2004)
The transition to what might now be known as the National "sound" was more or less complete by the time the band released the Cherry Tree EP in 2004. "About Today" is a perfect introduction to everything the National would become on their next three albums. There's the high, clean guitar line propelling in circles. There's Bryan Devendorf's incessant, heart-thumping percussion. There's some sort of orchestral string instrument fluttering around in the background. There's also the passive but observant narrator, constantly witnessing misfortune unfold in front of his eyes and never having any idea what to do about it. Noticing his lover slipping away, stumbling through trying to ask her about it, and doing nothing but internally asking himself: "how close am I to losing you?"
"Secret Meeting" (Alligator, 2005)
There are only a few albums I might consider my "favorite" albums and the National's 2005 record, Alligator, falls into that category. That said, I could easily make a case for almost any song on the album to be on a list of their best material, but I've narrowed it down to three. On "Secret Meeting" the band perfectly creates the mood of a swirling late-night party with shimmering guitars like alligators circling around the guests. Berninger, socially checked-out as usual, delivers the sort of poetic, steam-of-conscious mouthfuls of sadness that have become his hallmark: "and so and now I'm sorry I missed you/ I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain/ it went the dull and wicked ordinary way." Socially conscious of his surroundings yet always somehow still unable to participate, the Dessners bail him out toward the end of the song with exuberant, incomprehensible chanting that could be "I'm holding aces, I'm folding," but could also just be the din of a society that can't be properly heard from the basement of one's brain.
"Baby, We'll Be Fine" (Alligator, 2005)
"Baby, We'll Be Fine" is a brilliant example of Berninger thematically making you look one way while throwing another. It starts with the narrator dreaming of impressing his boss, taking a 45-minute shower, kissing the mirror and saying: "look at me, baby, we'll be fine." He pulls on an argyle sweater, gives himself a desperate smile and then immediately admits, "I don't know how to do this," before repeating the refrain: "I'm so sorry for everything." In the second half of the song, the narrator encourages his love interest to give him the same pep talk he already tried on himself ("say: 'look at me, baby, we'll be fine'") seemingly hoping that somebody else saying it might be more convincing. He pulls off her jeans (notice the reverse symmetry with pulling on the sweater earlier), she spills Jack and Coke in his collar, and he melts like a witch and screams: "I'm so sorry for everything," blurring the lines as "for what" and "to whom" he's actually sorry and repeating the line again and again to the point that it begins to lose its meaning. "Baby, we'll be fine" starts as a comforting reassurance and ends as a desperate plea for belief in one's own well-being.
"City Middle" (Alligator, 2005)
I saw the National play at the Tralf in 2007. Berninger was drinking red wine out of a bottle for most of the night and I was amazed at his seemingly auto-pilot ability to remain upright. Toward the end of their set someone yelled out for them to play "City Middle." I might be paraphrasing slightly but Berninger said something along the lines of: "that's a really beautiful song and these guys play it really, really well but... it just makes me too fucking sad." The thematic backbone of Alligator IS a beautiful song, and its stream-of-conscious narrative invoking random "weird memories," an overwhelming feeling of longing, and "waiting for the click" that "doesn't kick in" IS really fucking sad.
"Slow Show" (Boxer, 2007)
The National's 2007 album, Boxer, saw them dialing back some of their more urgent tendencies in favor of the subdued. Brown's article mentions that the band sometimes records 50, or even 80 versions of certain songs, before finally deciding on one to "officially" release on an album, and it is true that this has become something of "folklore" surrounding the band. "Slow Show" is one of the few songs where this experimentation and evolution can actually be heard and, interestingly, the result is a bit mixed.
The "Slow Show" demo starts out with virtually the same verses, slightly more upbeat, but with an entirely different bridge and chorus. The demo version contains the brilliant lyrics: "somebody bring me the head of a love song/ somebody bring me a head on a plate/ I wanna be a blank slate/ wanna wear a white cape/ wanna tackle young girls off their beautiful boyfriends." The band improved the song in many ways for the official release on Boxer, though I've always felt the new chorus, while providing more of a counter-point, wasn't as artfully written. (This is more than made up for though with the bone-chilling, out-of-nowhere call-back to "29 Years" at the end of the song.)
What's interesting about this is what it might say about the National's proclivity toward recording many, many versions of the same songs and how effective, or ineffective, this may be at times. (See: the alternate version of "Terrible Love" for a demo version that is widely believed to be superior than its official release.) One of the potential side effects of spending so much time on something is starting to believe that certain aspects of it are overly obvious. The tendency then becomes to cut back, to slow down, to make it more subtle. The National certainly began hedging more and more toward subtlety on their last two albums, usually to excellent effect, though I do sometimes wonder if this leaves more "obvious" great ideas (like the original chorus to "Slow Show") in the vaults.
"Racing Like a Pro" (Boxer, 2007)
"Racing Like a Pro," another track from Boxer, is one of many tracks on the album that serves as something of a sequel to the songs on Alligator. The narrator, formerly begging for his boss's attention, is now "shooting up the ladder" but he's still overwhelmed by day-to-day life and seems to only find more and more items to add to his grand list of anxieties. The spiraling guitar line perfectly replicates the feeling of one's mind "racing" while the narrator grasps at the straws of lost youth before becoming "dumbstruck" with the realization that it's already gone.
"So Far Around the Bend" (Dark was the Night, 2009)
In 2009, the Dessner brothers curated the excellent Dark was the Night compilation, including the National track, "So Far Around the Bend." The song is a bit of a departure musically with its chorus of voices, interjecting woodwinds, and buoyant pace (with a Scott Devendorf bass line cleverly waiting to drop until the second verse). It's a direction that I would have loved to see the band explore more fully but as it stands, it's something of a one-off in their catalogue. The song certainly indicates, however, that the National are capable of successfully channeling middle-aged ennui into something that doesn't necessarily sound surly or despondent.
"England" (High Violet, 2010)
In strongly disagreeing with Harley Brown's "10 Best National Songs," I in no way meant to suggest that High Violet isn't a great album. It is. And the songs on it are great. But those songs are well-covered in her article and if you have listened to the National at all, you have probably heard the best songs on the album. However, I do find Brown's comments on "Conversation 16" somewhat odd when she states "for all intents and purpose" it closes High Violet and that "England" and "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" are somehow deficient. "England" is a tremendous song and a perfect example of latter-day National piano-driven balladry, complete with Berninger howling cryptic lyrics about "famous angels never coming through England," rainy London streets, cathedrals, choirs of children, and sinners... that are "desperate to entertain" you.
(ALSO. The National's brilliant cover of the Rains of Castamere from Game of Thrones. Because.)
Tennessee Williams - Great rebuttal piece. I can't say I necessarily and entirely agree with you or Harley though; The National's songs just can't be quantified from first to last (I know you dismissed 'ranking' but you still ["As such..."] had an anti-top 10 top 10 list [be it chronologically and whatnot]). I believe that in order to fully appreciate The National's songs each person needs to go through some really shitty things in their personal mundane lives before they can understand the feelings that Matt is trying to convey through his lyrics. Once the songs become applicable, once we can relate to Matt's inner-battles with our own experiences, that's when we discover just how great each actually song is. I'm sure I don't need to explain this to you Scott, but for the same reason that a 16 year-old kid can't understand what it feels like to fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults, a "Top 10" list for The National just doesn't make sense. I wasn't able to relate to "Squalor Victoria" until I got a jail cell cube job. It was a song that I had listened to many many times over, but before I became a professional in my beloved with shirt it was just that - a song. Now that I'm a middlebrow fuck-up it's become an anthem; well, my anthem. Five years ago I would have never considered it to be one of my "Top 10" favorite National songs. I'm sure you can say the same about many of the National's songs for yourself. So lets not even bring up the time that you walked in on your girlfriend's dad standing on a coffee table with his cock in his hand....
Great list, here is another great list on the Top 100 Best Songs of all Time sorted periodically.