Earlier this week, the lead singer of the National, Matt Berninger,
was on "Colbert" and did a short interview prior to the band playing a couple songs off of their new album,
Trouble Will Find Me. The interview was hilariously Berninger-esque, where even the king of getting otherwise serious personas to crack was completely unable to get Berninger to sound like anything more than a humble, mid-western high school teacher. When asked what "the National" means: "it was meant to mean nothing I think." When told he was in the "hippest, indie-est thing out there right now": "we're not that hip though... I'm 42." When asked if he has seen a lot of "trouble": "average human trouble, I guess." He then joked that that's what they should have named the album:
Average Human Trouble.
Really though, Matt Berninger and the National have made entire careers out of taking "average human trouble" and making it seem like the most important thing on the planet. Hopefully you're already well-versed in their back-catalog and, if not, hopefully you were able to check out
my quasi-retrospective on the National that we posted a few weeks ago. Berninger's first-person "narrator" (who seems to be something of a combination of himself and certain fantastical versions of himself) has been battling the everyday minutiae of becoming an adult with various social anxieties for over ten years now.
Prior National albums,
Alligator and
Boxer, can easily be thought of as "companion" albums in the way that
Alligator seems to feature a young, urban professional struggling to find their place in the world while
Boxer features that same young, urban professional coming to the realization that their place in the world might not be all that they imagined. This was also reflected on the albums musically, where
Alligator sounded like a night (or weekend) out on the town,
Boxer sounded like the morning (or work week) after. The same could be said of
High Violet and
Trouble Will Find Me.
High Violet saw the narrator as a family-man, struggling to get comfortable with a whole new set of problems as he moved on into middle-age while
Trouble Will Find Me is, in many ways, a reckoning of how those problems have affected the narrator and those he loves. Similarly, where
High Violet sounded like a band of angry ghosts drunk on red wine,
Trouble Will Find Me sounds like those same ghosts, hungover and floating despondently over cities and countryside, desperately looking for answers.
The songs on
Trouble Will Find Me are the next logical step for the band, musically and thematically. Though the overall mood of the album is more subdued, Aaron and Bryce Dessner continue to advance the "National sound" by experimenting further with acoustic guitars, pianos, harmonicas, and various strings and wind instruments. They've also written several of the songs in relatively unusual time signatures ("I Should Live In Salt" in 9/8, "Demons" in 7/4, "Hard to Find" in 5/4), giving the songs an unnatural, stumbling rhythm that will make it nearly impossible for casual listeners to nod theirs heads in synch. Meanwhile, Scott and Bryan Devendorf continue to provide a nearly peerless rhythm section that makes each song sound like it's supported by the heartbeat of some musical monster, alternately dormant and tearing through the forest.
Thematically, the album is, of course, concerned with "trouble" finding the narrator, but also what the nature of this trouble might be, how it affects him and his loved ones, and what the narrator does, or doesn't do, to in order to keep it from "finding" him. There's also a focus on "distance" here (both physical and emotional distance) and how varying degrees of distance seem to impact the ability of trouble to finds its mark. (Also note the focus on "self", where every song is written in first-person perspective and "Graceless" is the only song on the album that doesn't contain the words "me," "my," or "I" in the first line of the song.)
1. "I Should Live In Salt"
The verses of "I Should Live In Salt" describe an argument between two people, where the narrator recognizes that "he should leave it alone" but... "you're not right," a wry admission of how difficult it can be to stay quiet, even when you know speaking up is a bad idea. The last verse then describes a distance that's developing between the combatants ("start to slide out of touch," "learn to appreciate the void"), which gives some explanation to the song's chorus. "I should live in salt for leaving you behind" possibly refers to Lot's wife,
who was turned into a pillar of salt when fleeing from Sodom because the angels instructed her not to look back (and *spoiler* she looked back). Being turned into salt was supposedly her punishment for not fully abandoning her "sinful" hometown. Berninger seems to suggest that the real reason one should be living in salt is for abandoning those you love (whether physically or emotionally) in the first place.
(If my theory* below, about most of the album taking place in Los Angeles, is true, it's also possible that Berninger is analogizing leaving New York to leaving Sodom here.)
2. "Demons"
Back on
Alligator's "Secret Meeting," Berninger needed to apologize for being socially checked out because he was "having secret meetings in the basement of his brain." Now when he sings that he "stays down with his demons," we might finally know who he's been surreptitiously visiting in his mental cellar. This is most certainly the tale of a man doing his best to bury his feelings ("do my crying underwater") but who is also worried that those emotions might be starting to find their way to the surface ("all my drowning friends can see"). This is also a man, however, that's starting to come to terms with how his "demons" are affecting more people than just himself. Berninger sings: "when I walk into a room, I do not light it up" before taking an almost comic beat to realize the implications of what he's just said and uttering "fuck..." like a person who is suddenly, completely out of answers.
(That Berninger's character is in LA here is further supported by his thinking of someone "in the city" and wanting to "see the sun come up above New York.")
3. "Don't Swallow The Cap"
Earlier this week, Matt Berninger stated on a Sirius XMU session that he had heard some people wondering whether "don't swallow the cap" referred to
Tennessee Williams dying by swallowing the cap of a bottle of eye drops. He stated that he hadn't even thought of that and joked that it was actually a much smarter idea than his own, which was a vague reference to swallowing the cap of a tube of tooth paste or a mushroom and sort of "going down the rabbit hole." Ultimately, the title is a mantra for a person trying to calm themselves down and manage their "only two emotions: careful fear and dead devotion." (Notice also the clever back-up lyric "pat yourself on the back," referring both to re-assuring oneself and preventing oneself from not choking on the aforementioned cap.) The narrator seems to be on the verge of losing control throughout the song and when he says he "sees a bright white beautiful heaven hanging over me" there is probably double meaning between him saying something seemingly positive but with a deadly serious portent under the surface.
(As an interesting side note, as part of
their AMA on Reddit, Aaron and Matt at least pretended to disagree about whether the "Let It Be" reference on this song was to
the Beatles or
the Replacements.)
4. "Fireproof"
"Fireproof" is a relatively straight-forward song where the album's emotionally-tumultuous narrator speaks to the emotionally-stoic Jennifer and "wishes he was that way." "Nothing breaks her heart," she "keeps a lot of secrets" and perhaps, most importantly, she's "a needle in the hay." While I've seen a lot of references to
the Elliott Smith song here, the phrase is of course much older and traditionally referred to something, or someone, who is "hard to find" (see: the last song on this album). Being "hard to find" would probably be a highly regarded quality for someone who seems so worried that "trouble will find them." Trouble doesn't find the Jennifers of the world apparently. It finds the flaming, heart-broken, cap-swallowers who can't seem to get their shit together.
5. "Sea Of Love"
Speaking of "trouble," it's on "Sea of Love" where Berninger's narrator seems to have a reckoning with what the practical effects might be of all of this day-to-day distress. "If I stay here, trouble will find me," gives the album its name and also gives the narrator a reason to accompany his emotional distance with physical distance as well. Here, a loved one, "Joe," seems to be drowning in the "sea of love" along with numerous others (a callback to the "all my drowning friends can see" line on "Demons"). It's this sea where the narrator is worried about his troubles catching up with him but he's conflicted in that he clearly wants to connect with those who are drowning. In the last section of the song (which is startlingly more emotional
in some live versions, with Berninger yelling like he hasn't since
Alligator) the narrator sees Joe "rushing down" into the ocean and begs him/her to tell him how to "reach" them, while cynically asking "what did Harvard teach you" if not how to connect with someone who doesn't want to be "dragged" into the troublesome rip tide with you. The idea seems to be that love might not be enough for someone, who is already in such a perilous situation, to put themselves at risk of further emotional harm.
6. "Heavenfaced"
After what seems like an imminent departure on "Sea of Love," the first line of "Heavenfaced" is "I could walk out, but I won't, in my mind I am in your arms." Again, we're playing with both physical and emotional distance here: how someone can be in the same room as you but thousands of miles away, or thousands of miles away and right behind your eyes. The imagery here is surreal and contradictory ("we'll all arrive in heaven alive") indicating that the narrator might be looking for a best of all worlds situation (to be there for his loved ones while simultaneously battling his inner demons) that likely doesn't exist.
7. "This Is The Last Time"
"This Is the Last Time" seems to re-visit the "fireproof" character, Jennifer, who appears to be something of Berninger's idealized pinnacle of strength and stability. Falling in love with that type of person would probably be easy for someone like the album's narrator, but the "swamp" metaphor makes clear that it's easier to jump in than to leave (listen also to the way the guitar line in the song has a sort of southern bayou twang to it). This swamp also seems to be a callback to the "sea" of love where here, Berninger sings "we were so under the brine," meaning that he's become submerged in salt water, which previously represented "trouble." By the song's sudden, chilling outro, the narrator has apparently stood still long enough for "trouble" to finally catch up to him ("Jenny I am in trouble, can't get these thoughts out of me"), though by this point, it's become somewhat unclear as to whether trouble has actually been "looking for him" or whether he's been inexorably drawn to it through alluring characters like Jennifer. Trouble might have "found" the narrator by this point, but probably only because he wasn't honestly trying that hard to avoid it.
8. "Graceless"
The second half of the album finds the album's narrator seemingly trying to cure himself of his "troubles" or at least make himself harder to find. He also seems to have become physically separated from someone he loves. Whereas the first half of the album primarily deals with emotional distance with loved ones nearby, the back half of the album sees the narrator struggling with a sudden loneliness that he had, at one time, seemed to have been pining for.
On "Graceless" (both "clumsy" and "without the favor of God"), the narrator is "trying" but because of that aforementioned sans-Grace condition, can't help but fall "through the glass again" and then be annoyed to hear that "God loves everybody" when that's obviously not helping him to be any more elegant. It's clear the narrator is alone at this point as he's "walking through windows without you" and seems to be likening picking flowers to taking some sort of medication that will help him become more graceful. ("Take the white ones, they're my favorite, it's the side effects that save us.") If you're "dead in the mind, it'll brighten the place" seems to be a callback to his not "lighting up rooms" when he enters them, and putting "white roses" in your vase might just give you that "rosy," graceful complexion that God has seen fit to deny you.
9. "Slipped"
On "Slipped," the narrator continues to be physically distant from a loved one. She's "back in the South" while he's "in the city she hated." (As mentioned above, I'm guessing this is Los Angeles.
This Grantland article, states that Berninger lived in LA for some time while writing
Trouble Will Find Me.) The narrator seems focused on dealing with that "trouble inside of his skin" while simultaneously realizing that even if he's able to "keep his skeletons in," he isn't very likely "to be anything she ever wants him to be." There seems to be some attempt at a reconciliation or compromise here ("I don't want you to grieve, but I want you to sympathize") but it'll be "summer in Dallas" (where the loved one presumably is) before they're able to sort it all out. The narrator's insistence on going back to "where everything slipped" seems to suggest that he's tracing his steps back to where his troubles "found" him so he might walk a better path in the future.
10. "I Need My Girl"
Also from the Sirius XMU sessions this week, Berninger stated that "I Need My Girl" is probably one of the most "honest, heart-on-your-sleeve" type songs that the National have put on a record. He said it's a song he might have been embarrassed to sing in the past, but at 42, he's seemingly past caring. He further admitted that it was about missing his wife and daughter, which would certainly be in keeping with the theme of "physical distance" that precedes this song on the album. There seems to be some advancement in the narrator's emotional status here, he's "good," he's "grounded," he "looks taller," but he's feeling "smaller and smaller" because at the end of the day, it's not very complicated: he needs his girl.
11. "Humiliation"
Berninger still seems to be in Los Angeles on "Humiliation" where he describes "retiring to the briars by the pool" after "surviving a dinner" and then contemplates how the tabloids might report his death if he were to die that instant. He then pays homage to "
black Venice" and makes a joke about how he used to get paid to fish LA women out of pools after they fell asleep before he "lost the job." He makes reference again to "teething on roses" (further supporting a drug/medication symbolism) and to "the withering white skies of humiliation," which seems to contrast with the "bright white beautiful heaven" from "Dont Swallow the Cap." He's reassured that "he's better off" while he thinks back on the "little life" he'll be leaving, seemingly indicating that he'll be returning to New York and that maybe that "trouble" that found him (Jennifer, the "sea of love," etc.) were native to California.
(The outro to this song, with Annie Clark from St. Vincent on back-up vocals is a reference to
"Blue Velvet" and Berninger stated on his XMU session that he meant for this part to sound like "something that would be played on the radio in the afterlife.")
12. "Pink Rabbits"
"Pink Rabbits" starts out with Berninger's narrator standing in the rain (which was "more like a sea") where, again, salt water seems to serve as a metaphor for some impending trouble where the "waters coming up so fast it's frightening." The rhetorical "am I the one you think about when you're sitting in your fainting chair drinking pink rabbits" is probably somewhat sardonic as it paints a picture of
a potentially hysterical woman drinking
a fairly ridiculous-sounding alcoholic beverage. In the midst of all of this contemplation and trying not to "crack up" (probably, both laughing/going insane), "he turns around and there you are." Berninger then spins a series of absolutely heart-breaking lyrics capturing the moment of reuniting with his lost love, which are so pitch-perfect, I don't even want to parse them:
"I'm so surprised you want to dance with me now, I was just getting used to living life without you around. I'm so surprised you want to dance with me now, you always said I held you way too high off the ground. You didn't see me I was falling apart. I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park. You didn't see me I was falling apart. I was a television version of a person with a broken heart."
The song ends with a reference to
Morrisey's Bona Drag playing (music that a lonely, drug-addled, contemplative man would be very likely to have been listening to) and the line: "now I only think about Los Angeles when the sound kicks out." This seems to indicate that this relationship has improved in some way, but it wasn't easy. The "needle in a doll" line is probably a reference to
feeling pain over a distance. She "said it would be painless" but "it wasn't that at all."
13. "Hard To Find"
On the album's final song the narrator seems to be back in New York thinking about Los Angeles when he says the "glowing lights" are "really not that far away, I could be there in a day." He's also wondering whether someone "lives there still" and comes to the conclusion that, if he tried, she'd "probably be hard to find." The narrator seems to have come to some peace with abandoning these "hard to find" pieces of another life and commemorates them with a tribute to
a Violent Femmes song: "they can all just kiss off into the air." The interesting part of this song, however, is that we first hear a reference to someone being "hard to find" back on "Fireproof" when Berninger described "Jennifer" as a "needle in the hay," adept at avoiding trouble. In that sense, the fact that it would be hard for the narrator to find her might indicate that the "trouble" he's been so concerned with avoiding throughout the album, might be much closer to him than he's been leading us to believe.
* Special thanks to my brother-in-law Eric who, as a recent transplant from California to New York, helped point out some of the album's imagery in this respect.
