| The National – Brainy Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I think Gitaroo Man has it spot on - this song is about loving someone you don't feel smart around. And like a lot of Matt Berninger's lyrics, I think it's safe to assume it's about his wife Carin. She was an editor at the New Yorker. Brainy brainy brainy. Seriously, all the people insisting that the lyric is "Come on let me call you love" need to check out a live version of the song. It's quite unequivocally "Come home in the car you love". And I speak as someone who thought it was the former for AGES. |
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| The National – Conversation 16 Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I think the "head in the oven" line is a great deal darker than that. Sylvia Plath gassed herself by sealing the windows and doors of her kitchen and putting her head in the oven. | |
| The National – Baby, We'll Be Fine Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Matt Berninger writes a lot of lyrics about the awkward transition into adulthood; characters stumbling and faking their way through their fledgling careers and lives, pretending to be capable and confident but feeling desperately insecure inside. This song is probably the best example, although Mistaken For Strangers touches on it as well. The character in this song (maybe Berninger himself, in his younger days?) yearns to be given reassurance that he's doing a good job at work ("Son, I've been hearing good things") but when that isn't forthcoming, tries to give himself a pep talk instead: "Take a forty-five minute shower and kiss the mirror And say, look at me Baby, we'll be fine All we gotta do is be brave and be kind" God, that's beautiful/melancholy/pitiful. He's saying, look I know you "don't know how to do this" but suck it up, and be a nice person, and you'll get by okay. Fake it if you have to ("put on a smile") but don't let anybody know how insecure you feel inside. He lets his lover know how he's really feeling though. He says "I've had a stilted, pretending day". He wants her to tell him he'll be fine, because he's been trying to convince himself of the same thing and it isn't working. I think he even feels like he isn't a fully functioning human, the spilled drink making him "melt like a witch and scream", just like holy water would burn a vampire. What is he sorry for? For being an anxious, insecure fuck up, I think. So many of Berninger's lyrics make me want to give him a bear hug, but this one is just devastating. |
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| The National – Secret Meeting Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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It's definitely, definitely, definitely "I'm talking ace this morning". It's much clearer when they play it live. |
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| The National – Ada Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Adore this song. "Ada I can hear the sound of your laugh through the wall" - so beautiful. I totally understand the social anxiety disorder reference. I get that from this song and also Slow Show (the entire first verse, for a start). Can't figure out this at all though: "Ada don't stay in the lake too long it lives alone and it barely knows you it'll have a nervous breakdown and fall into a thousand pieces around you" That personification of the lake confuses the heck out of me. |
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| The National – Green Gloves Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Found an explanation from Matt Berninger: "It was hard to take that song and guide it away from being a stalker song or about somebody breaking and entering or somebody violating someone’s personal space. It’s more about trying to remember someone and sort of be them–someone that you’ve lost your connection with (maybe because of a death)–so you reconnect with them by getting inside their clothes, watching their videos, getting in their bed. You’re actually recreating them somehow in order to know them better. You miss them so much you have to become them. If there’s someone you absolutely miss, you might find yourself talking to them a lot in your mind, creating those fake conversations with them and you answer yourself in their voice in your head." http://ericamay.tumblr.com/post/50031215 |
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