74. The National - “Nobody Else Will Be There”

The National released a beautiful album in 2017. Its sad, poetic, raw, and honest – all anybody could ever ask from a work of art and everything we’ve come to expect from the band. It reminds me of their earlier releases, as if its emanating directly from the heart, soaked in emotion and yet filtered through the craftsmanship of a literary eye. However, unlike those earlier releases, this album is tied together by the sort of immaculate production that only comes once one is a seasoned and established artist. It’s a wonderful dynamic to witness, artists and creatives who continue to hone their craft and evolve despite achieving fame and security. The National’s artistry hasn’t been dulled by time, but rather, like a fine wine become more deep, rich, and nuanced.

This song is a lesson in subtlety. It’s brittle yet soaked in reverb, never rising above a natural sense of calm, almost as if one is picking up the subconscious thoughts of a middle-aged man through the radio waves of an old and dusty transistor radio. The emotion is at once both familiar and incredibly distant. To the twenty-something year old it feels like looking out over an outstretched landscape and seeing the vague, blurry outline of something you think you might notice, but up until now have only felt hints of.

Life is beginning to grow stale. Even new things are beginning to lose their allure and get tainted by the knowledge of experience. The passion has dwindled and the lust for life has been tempered. It’s almost as if every day has become steeped in a sort of depressive fog or covered in a thin cobweb of unavoidable reluctance. It’s a sad acceptance that time will continue moving on, carrying you along as you grow older and everything within and around you slowly wears down. Its the realization of the inevitable, the dulling of one’s existence and the fading of the once vibrant picture that was your life.