| The National – Gospel Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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With The National you get out whatever you want. In my opinion Gospel ties the strings of Boxer. It certainly isn't the most noticeable of tracks, some of the others will probably get repeated over and over on your itunes, but Gospel is a treasure. Obviously there are a selection of themes within Boxer: relationships, responsibility, western culture, modernity/post-modernity, appearance/reality. Berninger's monologue wrestles through the internal questions, anxieties and emotions the band’s character feels attempting to make sense of our Western normatives and behaviours. As we saunter along the album's route we realise that, assuming you are of a similar inclination to Berninger, we are fated to pretend (to steal from MGMT). To be truly free spirited is impossible. Perhaps to some the recent war on terror is a good metaphor for these struggles. Whilst my psyche prefers to look at The National's songs from an individual perspective, one cannot help but dock one's cap to the world policing, empire building themes. After all without every individual performing actions in a certain way, we would have no geopolitics. Anyway I divulge. Gospel, like Slow Show and Apartment Story is clearly about love. Unabashed love. Whether we like it or not, the comfort of a partner we carry with us through life's charade appears to be, for Berninger, the most pure and wonderful tonic. It is such a beautiful song it makes by senses soar, almost bringing tears. The 'magazines' line lets us in to how well meaning the character wants to be. A simple action without the pomp and circumstance of so many of the image laden performances the youth are supposed to pull off with merry gusto these days. In my experience tonnes of magazines are usually brought to someone who is ill, cause they aren’t up for doing much else. So perhaps we have love as the healer in Gospel, rather like the actions of the main protagonist in the book from which the song title is taken. The angel wings malting, the killers calling, for me again, are the demons and destructive influences of adulthood and ego, coming from within ourselves and from others. With someone to rely on these mental wounds can he healed, we can feel better and more free. Berninger clearly longs for a return to childlike playful humanity, and Gospel aims to take us there, holiday rainbow lights and all. |
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| The National – City Middle Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I would assume that 'go gater around the warm beds of begginers' referes to having sex with inexperienced women. Go gater alliterates, it also sounds very close to go getter (or get her). Gater is short for aligator, the Title of the album and I would assume is a good example of an aggressive animal, whos behaviour mimiks the amoral antics of a frustrated male who wants a collection of brief hits (drink, drungs, girls) whilst intentionally or unintentionally destroying all that is innocent | |
| The National – All the Wine Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| This song is defiantly about being drunk, either literally or metaphorically. I would say that you can either take the self confident lyrics literally, or (drawing on my own personal experiences, especially while drunk) I would say that the majority of them are sarcastic. The Birthday candle lyric momentarily uncovers the mask and shows how being put together beautifully, having perfect white teeth, being a perfect piece of ass are all superficial meaningless charms that he doesn't even want to approach, while at the same time despising others for their own face-value arrogance. | |
| The National – Mistaken for Strangers Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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A wonderful conclusion of the two part Fake Empire/Mistaken For Strangers combo. For me these are the height of The National so far and are some of the most powerful writing of the past 25 years. A perfect exploration in to the postmodern guilt complexes of middle class youth. I agree with most of what has already been written, however I think that whilst Fake Empire deals with work life, Mistaken For Stragers echos drunken posturing of the night as antidote for the soul destroying day at work. |
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