| The National – It Never Happened Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| I think 9/11 is a metaphor for a grand distraction (even well-timed tragedy) that "covers" the scars this person resents having to deal with head on. I could see the protagonist hoping something terrible could happen to give them an easy exit out of a relationship. This doesn't happen, however, which leads the protagonist to stay in the relationship and never address the scars at all (they rearrange themselves to be outwardly affectionate, even). The last part of the song is kind of a dream sequence where the true shallow parts come out. The line of "bad things never happen to the beautiful" compares, incredibly delusionally, the protagonist's plight as worse than that of the fashion models who were gifted a convenient tragedy. Not sure if this is 100% accurate, but if it is it surely lives up to the album title. | |
| The National – It Never Happened Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| I think the song is written from the perspective of a small town "dirty lover" who is so self-centered that they feel envy for those in NY, presumably the "beautiful," on 9/11. This envy might be derived from a wish to have a grand distraction that "covers" the scars this person resents having to deal with head on. I could see the protago | |
| The National – Hard to Find Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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Perhaps adding to other interpretations, I see the core of this song being wrapped up in the process of remembering. If the song is referring to any story, it is not the story of the actual past but the story of the remembering of the significant relationship he had. The lyrics "There's a lot I've not forgotten/I let go of other things/If I tried they'd probably be Hard to Find" are critical; the narrator's memory is imperfect, perhaps willfully so, to the point where he would prefer to not reassess his memories anymore. Claiming that the details he's lost are "hard to find" is a way to cover up ultimate pain that would be evoked if he were to find them. It's as though he has finally accepted his painful memories as ultimately tolerable, perhaps somehow beneficial, but knows the wound would be easily opened if he applied any pressure to it. This acceptance of his memories is tenuous. "don't know why we had to lose/The ones who took so little space/We're still waiting for the ease/To cover what we can't erase" Note the subtle differences between this lyric (taken from the album lyrics vinyl) and the one's posted. This is definitely not making any explicit historical/societal reference (someone mentioned New Town). The narrator hates that he loses the tiny memories, the ones that take up such little space in our memory banks, as they reveal more-worthy details. This is upsetting to the narrator, presumably, because these are the memories that we would wish to preserve the best but are the ones we lose the quickest. The line following then complements that with the yearning to drop the painful memories which he would much prefer to be able to forget, instead. In this way, the narrator's desire to positively distort his memories to accommodate fond instead of complex nostalgia are revealed. Perhaps he believes that if he can let go of his bad memories and preserve the good memories that he can fool himself into being able to re-live what was so rewarding to him before he lost it. This denotes incredible joy tainted with subsequent incredible pain. As per the intro stanzas, these intense memories exist despite the fact that the object of the narrator's memories is still reachable. "I'm not holding out for you/I'm still watching for the signs/If I tried you'd probably be/Hard to find" He has decided that he must move on, but still gives special meaning and awareness to the triggers (whatever they are, be it road signs or a Violent Femmes song) that exist to remind him of the person. Knowingly, the narrator tells himself that it would be much harder than it actually is to find this person. The narrator has resigned himself, if he cannot return to his past, to at least move on from it. He has to tell himself the excuse that it would be difficult to find the person he lost so that he won't feel like it's possible to get back. This reveals that a part of him knows that he could definitely find the person but regardless of what would come of it, he would never match what it was or what he would have liked it to have been and that would be too painful to tolerate. Thus, he resigns himself to the static alternative of nostalgia to avoid a hopeless reality. |
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| The National – Heavenfaced Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Essentially, Heavenfaced is about the pain of wanting to escape a religious-oriented marriage. The song describes marrying a woman who is devoutly religious and the ambivalence they feel towards their partner and religion, itself, as a result of realizing the place religion has in her life. Their relationship lacks passion and the narrator feels that while he's alive their relationship just keeps them in storage until they go to heaven ("It's not a fever, it's a freezer"). When they were a young couple, the narrator did not foresee her religion being an issue ("How completely high was I, I was off by a thousand miles"). Eventually, though, he "hit the ceiling" when they married and he realized he was locked in to this for life. Perhaps secretly, the narrator does not share his wife's conviction towards a joyless life that waits for heaven ("Can't face heaven all heavenfaced"). Her religion tells her that life is meant to be lived by focusing on the reward after death (She's a griever, my believer). The narrator is reluctant to leave and hurt this woman because he does love her ("In my mind I am in your arms"), but all of her love seems to be towards god/the afterlife. He won't divorce her because she doesn't deserve to be hurt just for her conviction to religion ("I could walk out, but I won't"). Ideally, he would just want "someone [to] take my place" so that he could get out without having to hurt her. The narrator is contemplating a resolution to this problem by a suicide in a way that looks like an accident ("No one's careful all the time... if you lose me, I'm gonna die"). His premature death would be a legitimate way for him to escape his passionless marriage and, if she is right, "we'll all arrive in heaven alive." After getting to heaven, she would no longer need to be so-consumed by the idea of getting to heaven and she might be able to actually love him ("Let's go wait out in the fields with the ones we love"). Though he and his wife want to die for different reasons, they are oddly now both death-focused ("I believe her, I'm a griever now"). Though he still doesn't share her devotion to god, the thought of dying to break through the "ceiling" that her religion imposes on his current life appeals to him. His heaven is a life lived without the impending prospect of heaven. |
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