| The National – I Should Live in Salt Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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When a band called made its debut more than a decade ago, it was considered an underdog in a busy independent music scene. The lead singer’s melancholy baritone and the lush instrumentation didn’t always fit the irony-laden swagger of the aughts. The National has endured, and these days it has a hard-won following. It headlines big concert halls and late-night talk shows. Singer and lyricist Matt Berninger recently spoke with NPR’s Audie Cornish about the band’s new album, Trouble Will Find Me, as well as being in a band of brothers, how his own brother inspired “I Should Live in Salt” (and made about their tour together), and his own sheepish attitude toward the band’s recent success. You can listen to the radio version at the audio link and read more of their conversation below. Tell us a little bit about the lyrics to “I Should Live in Salt.” “I write all the lyrics, and this one was sort of inspired – very much inspired – by my younger brother, Tom, who’s nine years younger than I am. And he was on my mind a lot while we were making this record because he was living with my wife and I at the time. Still – actually still does. So he was on my mind and in my house. But he came on tour with us when we were touring for High Violet and made a film [Mistaken for Strangers] about his experience there, which is, which was – it’s a complicated movie. We’re very different brothers. Whereas I might be kind of buttoned-up and ambitious, he’s more lax in his approach to the universe, I guess. We love each other a great deal, but there’s often a lot of conflict between the two of us.” And there’s some fun imagery in one of the verses: “Can you turn the TV down? You should know me better than that.” “The lyrics to that are like a bunch of little fragments of thoughts about him. And, truthfully, it’s about us actually getting to know each other as adults, because I went off to college when he was a little kid. He was 9 when I was 18 and went off to college, and then I moved to New York after that. And he kind of went his own – a different path. “I felt a lot of guilt, because I think [he] needed an older brother the most when you start hitting your teens, and that’s when I sort of took off and disappeared on him a little bit. I mean, we’ve been close our whole lives. But then, when he came and joined us on the tour as a roadie, it was the first time we were spending a lot of time together as adults. And it was a big shift in our relationship and trying to figure out how to love each other and respect each other as adults – not just this much older-younger brother sibling dynamic. So the song kind of is a reflection on all of that.” It’s interesting, because the band The National is made up of siblings. There are Aaron and Bryce Dessner, and also Scott and Bryan Devendorf. So you’re the guy who doesn’t have a brother there. “And that’s always been a really healthy part of our band dynamic and stuff; it’s very much sort of the glue that’s kept our band together for 14 years. And I actually missed my brother, and I also was envious of the relationship they had – that they were traveling the world with their brother and had that person to lean on and vent to. When my brother came on tour with us – to have someone to lean on and complain about the other guys to or whatever, because there’s so much tension living in a bus together.” And you said you felt a little guilt, but the chorus is, “I should live in salt for leaving you behind.” “Honestly, that was just kind of an abstract image or something in my head and I don’t know. I think Lot’s wife turned to salt when she looked back at the city. I think they used to pack bodies in salt. So there’s not specifically any meaning into it directly, but it seemed like a bad thing to have to live in salt. A lot of my lyrics are approximate meaning without me knowing why they sound right.” How did your brother react to this? Now that the movie is over that he was making and you’re coming out with this album, what’s that relationship like? “Our relationship is much better. It’s good; it went through a healthy sort of rebirth of understanding each other, like I said, as adults. And he’s 33 now. He was 30 when he came on tour with us. But as far as the song goes, when he heard the song, he thought the song was about salt. He didn’t – he had no idea that it was about him at first. “ In a strange way, we made a very unguarded record because we weren’t so worried about disappearing overnight as a band. “But he is a heavy-metal guy. He does not listen to a lot of indie-rock, which I guess that’s the demographic or something that our band fits into. So he – it’s funny, we’re extremely different in many, many ways, but then, underneath the surface, I think we are very much brothers. There was a breaking point where we realized that he’s very different than I am and we’re both adults now. That’s when I think a whole different level of respect happened. I mean, we still fight like crazy like brothers or anybody does, but we just had to understand each other as people and not as older brother, younger brother.” |
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| The National – Mr. November Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| lol not the smartest cookie | |
| The National – Don't Swallow the Cap Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Can only assume that the "Don't Swallow the Cap" is reference to Tennessee Williams who choked to death on the cap of a bottle of eyedrops he was applying. Tennesse Williams has been referenced in a couple songs before such as "City Middle" | |
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