Didn't anybody, didn't anybody tell you? Didn't anybody tell you how to gracefully disappear in a room?īORDAL: Like lead singer Matt Berninger's lazy baritone, the band has an appealingly languid, unruffled style. THE NATIONAL: (Singing) I think this place is full of spies. In fact, the five members of The National grew up in Cincinnati and found each other again in Brooklyn, which is where they now make their loose, rumbling, understated music together. Or I thought maybe Canadian because there are elements of the current smart, artsy, indie Canadian sound of groups like the Weakerthans and The Dears and Arcade Fire. I guess it was something about the melancholy pop melodies.

(unintelligible) change his ways.īORDAL: I assumed the band was English when I first heard The National. Maybe it's just the thing because he'll know the trick to get away with. Whatever you do then, then you better wait for me. You know I wouldn't go out alone into America. THE NATIONAL: (Singing) Well, whatever you do then, you better wait for me. They also have a great off-kilter rhythm that pulses with and sometimes pushes against the grain of the music. When I did start listening a little more closely, I found the words pretty effective obscure, but suggestive. But I hadn't even thought to question what Matt Berninger, the band's lead singer and lyricist, was saying. I thought that was kind of funny because I'd had the record on a couple of times and liked it. I recently ran across a review of 'Alligator,' the new record by Brooklyn band The National, that excoriated the album for terrible lyrics. DAY TO DAY music critic Christian Bordal reviews the band's third CD, 'Alligator.' We try to edit out the bullshit, but even if it’s fun bullshit, it’s hard for us to stand behind it if it doesn’t hold up after 20 listens.The National is a rock band from Brooklyn whose members are boyhood friends from Cincinnati, but their roots may be more international. It’s not something we think about when we’re writing, but it is when we’re choosing what’s the best of things we’ve done. That’s what the record turned into for us, and we collected the songs that had the most staying power for us. Songs that you can interpret differently after three or four or five listens are the songs that we’ve always been in love with. They’re a little murky, and that’s on purpose. When we put the final record together, those were the ones we finally chose, so it makes sense that that would be the listening experience.īut yeah, there’s a lot of little stuff in the songs that I think aren’t about one thing. The ones that grew on us were the ones we fell in love with the most. Some songs would stick with us in the writing process and when we were in the studio, and we would keep listening to them for weeks and weeks and weeks. When we were recording and writing the record, we had a lot of songs.

Frontman Matt Berninger in an interview with Pitchfork:

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