MFR - Lyrically Speaking: The National

Of any element of modern popular music, lyrics often merit the least discussion. In formal record reviews, their treatment is often cursory and impressionistic, somehow even truncated in the most tome-like of Pitchfork reviews. The exception might be hip-hop, though space constraints still defy a deeper reading of, say, MF Doom. This is partly because the number of people who listen to music for the emotional payoff of a sequence of chords far outweighs those who listen solely for the lyrical content. Most artists don’t even bother wording their music beyond vague gestures and broad strokes of “girl/boy, you done me wrong.” Some lyrics are labored over, painstakingly fussed about, but viewed as clumsy and embarrassing. Still others are brief, tossed off, cliched, yet considered provocative and controversial. Yeah, well, so what? If you want words, listen to Dylan, right?

But Bob Dylan read Dylan Thomas along with countless others who have read that poet’s work, dissected it, and gleaned meaning. Why not read music lyrics in a similar fashion? Surely there is another mind or collection of minds out there, Dylan-like or not, that strive for literary as well as musical interest.

The National, and specifically lead singer and lyricist Matt Berninger, work for the literate song; to create whole scenes of human life in words as well as music. Their breakout success of two years ago, Boxer, might be seen as a culmination of these efforts, but its subject matter of crisis and human frailty was really only a follow-up to its predecessor, Alligator. Both albums are full of emotional, well-executed music, sometimes wrenching, sometimes uplifting, but always enfolding the story which continues through each album. And that story, at least so far, is the story of an epiphany and a new man.

Tip-toe through our shiny city

with our diamond slippers on.

Do our gay ballet on ice,

blue birds on our shoulders.

We’re half awake

in a fake empire.

So goes the second verse of Boxer’s first track, “Fake Empire.” Everything seems rosy after a first verse of making apple pies and hard lemonade for a sunny picnic outing. Then these words hit, dripping with humorous irony, and an uneasy light is cast on the proceedings. The clincher is that short “fake empire” chorus line chiming ominously after each verse. The music itself builds in a decidedly upbeat arc for the entire song, but it’s always the words and the way Berninger delivers them that shape the long, slow fight of Boxer.

Berninger speak sings in a solidly baritone crackle, swooping lightly around vowels and clipping his words to gain punchy effect with each one. In live settings, Berninger often leans into the mic, as if holding himself steady after a night of stiff drinks. In effect, he acts out the character whose life darts in and out of much of The National’s work. The story goes that members of the band formed The National working in the New York dot-com blitz of the late ’90s. When it busted, the band no doubt felt some amount of disillusionment in the collapsing world around them. Enter the prizefighter, the corporate boxer, the middle-weight middle manager who wakes up to realize he is growing old in a world he hates. “I won’t fuck us over,” he says on Alligator’s “Mr. November”, Berninger screaming the line “I’m Mr. November” over and over again. This is the figure, in various guises, that he returns to again and again.

The story itself comes in fits and starts. Berninger has said in interviews that he writes in fragmented images that he pieces together into songs. Perhaps that’s how you get Boxer’s “Mistaken for Strangers,” where a corporate climber encounters “a feathery woman/carrying a blindfolded man through the trees.” The image is strange and dislocating amidst the flurry of “silvery, silvery Citibank lights,” but the fantasy makes sense given the illusory nature of the album. On Boxer’s second half, Berninger and the band swoop woozily through various domestic scenes, where Mr. November does battle with friends, significant other, and the increasingly dismal aftertaste of his life. “Do you really think you can just put it in a safe behind a painting, lock it up, and leave?” Berninger asks his love, or perhaps his entire existence, in “Start a War”. It’s salient imagery in an album that chronicles the gradual breakdown of artful pretenses of lives that simply aren’t working anymore.

The sad part is that it’s all about young people. According to The National, we’ve all been duped. There is no prize for the young prizefighter, only “another uninnocent fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults.” In this, the album’s best and most succinct lyrical statement, Berninger lays bare the whole damn mess. In truth, we have no choice but to fall, but it is perhaps our choice whether we lose our souls in the process.

The National make a good soundtrack for our times, but they refuse to do so in ways that are easy to understand. “I’m a birthday candle in a circle of black girls, and God is on my side” Berninger sings obliquely on Alligator’s “All the Wine”. How comfortably out of place can one feel in their life? For Mr. November, it’s all part of the slow burn of youthful expectation. “I won’t let the psychos around,” he reassures us. “And all the wine is all for me,” sings Berninger, leaning into his mic again.

(Erik Martz)

Posted 4 months ago

Comments (View)