It Never Happened

Nothing made a sound in Williamstown that night and all the air was empty then what to my wondering eyes should appear nothing, cause nothing ever happens here

Perfectly encapsulates the desperate search for significance and roaming boredom of living in a small town. Matt Berninger is such a fucking amazing lyricist.

"We look younger than we feel, and older than we are,"

That line has perplexed me...

"Crack my skull, re-arrange me" <---- best line ever.

p.s. who is the amazing female vocalist i always hear in The National's songs?

I'm trying to determine if there is any intended continuity between the themes of verse one and two, here's my take. Verse one is clearly based in NYC at the time of the 9/11 attacks (fashion week was cancelled that year as it was due to begin the day of the attack). I figure the following lines are indicating that the city badly needs a distraction in the immediate aftermath.

The chorus expresses the subject inability to wrap their head around the chaos and how their entire world was changed when our very own homes were attacked. The ending lines of the chorus are the subject seeking comfort.

The second verse could indicate a fleeing from NYC in the aftermath where they were unable to find comfort to a smaller town where "nothing ever happens". A lot of people take that line as being derogatory of small town life, but I think in this case it's exactly what the subject was searching for. Somewhere without the chaos. The air being empty, devoid of planes and ash and speculation and mourning and media is a good thing.
But a change of scenery rarely resolves internal struggles and the subject still seeks to be fixed (rearrange me) or comforted (cover me). The final line that extends through the aftermath of the song kinda throws a wrench in the cogs of my interpretation. could be taken as sarcastic... a jab at the people that were complaining about fashion week being cancelled in light of the seriousness of what actually happened. Or maybe that the beautiful are too self centered to really grasp the gravity of tragedy... or fuck man, someone ask Matt if he can even remember what he was trying to suggest a decade ago when he wrote this song. I don't know shit.

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

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.