THE NATIONAL - I Am Easy To Find (2019), additional listens

 

(I'm not sure exactly which number listen this was.)

I know I recognized about five records ago that I'd be a lot happier if I spent less brain power trying to decipher National bullshit word salad lyrics.  Sometimes I can't help it.  I'm a lyrics guy; it's not an absolute but I really do prefer if songs are about something.  I Am Easy has a lot of quiet songs that allow the singing to be prominent, plus all of my time listening to and writing about Fish has my mind primed to dive into the words. 

Basically, there are some songwriters who can directly explain what's on their mind and make the listener care, often with some clever turns of phrase, like, for example, certain singer-songwriters whose stage name rhymes with "ish."*  We've established that, for one reason or another, direct isn't the style of Matt Berninger et al, for the most part.  Except that there are exceptions.  He has the ability to write a very evocative and easy to understand lyric like "Quiet Light," yet refuses to do so very often.

But I'm learning to lie here in the quiet light
While I watch the sky go from black to grey
Learning how not to die, inside a little every time
I think about you and wonder if you are awake

Okay, character trying to convince himself that he's in the process of moving on from obsessively missing someone, got it.  To the point, yet dotted with some clever turns of phrase.

Most National lyrics are not that.  Weird poetry and such.  The way I see that, if you're trying to do that as a songwriter, there are three ways you can manage that.

1)  Keep it simple/limited

Pop music in general often doesn't try to be clever or original, because simple sentiments about, say, wanting someone really badly, or being sad, or whatever, are likely to fit neatly into a 4/4 time signature whilst applying to lots of listeners.  The National equivalent of that is to throw in one line that's weird but passes quickly so that it doesn't change the meaning of a song too much.  Besides the aforementioned "Quiet Light" confining its bullshit word salad impulses to one bit about department stores, I Am Easy has a few songs that're mostly straightforward except when they're not.  "I Am Easy To Find" has the shitty lyric "you never were much of a New Yorker" which is just one line, whereas the rest of the song sticks with simpler statements - a character standing in the open, waiting for someone and declaring themself "easy to find."  Meanwhile, record highlight "Hairpin Turns" surrounds its poetry with just enough context such that even if one doesn't like a particular turn of phrase, the overall meaning is clear:

What are we going through, you and me?
What is it you want me to be learning?
We're always arguing about the same things
Days of brutalism and hairpin turns

Days of what?  The school of architecture?  Even with the chorus built around it, though, it's clear that the narrators (as embodied so nicely by Matt and Gail Dorsey and offset so nicely by a pretty piano melody) are living their life together tenuous moment after tenuous moment.  The song has one of my favorite Matt lyrics overall.

2)  Make it all about the music

Easier if you're in a hard-rock/metal or a blues band.  Very tricky to pull off, in my mind, in indie-rock.  But if you can come up with words that fit neatly, rhythmically, into a musical idea, then the listener won't care what those words are.  Obviously, whether or not the strategy works is going to be heavily subjective, listener dependent.  In previous posts I mentioned how "The Pull Of You" goes into those insistent spoken word sections that convey two people's push and pull.  So, I don't actually care if "you got me all wrong.  If I said I was sorry for always being underwater, would you stay?  You can take me!  There's no difference between you and me.  Tell me what you would say if I said that to you" is good writing or not, so much as I care about the way Lisa Hanigan says it.  Similarly, the lively drum beat paired with the off kilter strings ensure that I do not care in the slightest what "Where Is Her Head" is supposed to be about.  The song rocks whilst leaving one unsettled.  One bit of wordplay does all the lifting that needs to be done.  One more example: although not a "rock" situation, "Dust Swirls In Strange Light" is a unique enough sound for the band that all you need is the evocative title, and the rest of the lyrics don't really matter.

Problem is, the National don't often write high-energy lively music that enables one to forget about the lyrics.  No "Turtleneck"s here.  I mean, "You Had Your Soul With You" is one of the hardest rockers on the record, for fuck's sake.  (For what it's worth, that's another good one.  I'm loving how frenetic the little string part is; rather than a typical slow-build opening track, it's another classic National burst of nervous energy.)  I imagine that "So Far So Fast" is probably meant to be a pivotal track, with the line "don't you know someday somebody will come and find you?" reflecting back on the "easy to find" thing.  I can't say for sure, because there's only two real musical ideas in a six minute song, so I can't be arsed to pay much attention.

3)  Knit together evocative turns of phrase

If someone likes collections of words, the listener's brain will do the heavy lifting in tying lyrics together, making them seem to be about something even if they're not sure what they're about.  This has historically been where the National prefer to work.  As always, there are times when I like what they come up with and more times when I don't.  Good-lyric/bad-lyric, Berniger edition:

Good lyric

I haven't totally deciphered "Not In Kansas," a song that's basically a stream of consciousness ramble done over a spare guitar figure, with a choral counterpoint thrown in at an unexpected time.  I don't need to.  You have just enough lines establishing a conservative upbringing in a small town that the pop culture nods can find a spot.  You have the recurring R.E.M. references to kinda tie things together.  I really smile at:

First Testament was really great
The sequel was incredible
Like the Godfathers or the first two Strokes

Meanwhile, the core conflict seems to come to a head in this stanza:

Oh godmother, you can't ignore us
There isn't anybody else left to love us
I wanted you when I was a child
I raked the leaves and I started fires
Now I'm reading whatever you give me
It's half your fault so half forgive me

Should the first line actually be thought of as "God / Mother?"  I think I have a sense of what it means; I'm okay being wrong.

Bad lyric

Okay, so, looking up the phrase "Roman Holiday," if only to take my mind off the annoying "hol....iday" inflection, one learns that the term comes from enjoyment of someone else's discomfort.  How the fuck does that explain the word vomit of:

Roman holiday, every time it rains
Roman holiday, we're all Rainey anyway
She said, please, think the best of him
Please, think the best of me
There are police in the museum

 

Huh?

Looking up what Matt has said about the song, he says that... uh, okay, that the "Patti" and "Robert" mentioned in the first verse are noted arts-people Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, and stories about how romantic in a not particularly sexual way their relationship was.  Well, I most certainly would not have in a hundred years gotten that from the lyrics.  This information still does not tell me why the song has that title, or what the rain has to do with anything, and the police line only kinda-sorta works if you do a bunch of reading.  This is bad writing, full stop.  And no, it doesn't help that I also hate "Roman Holiday" on a musical level - worst from the band in quite some time.

Well, hopefully it's okay that this post was mostly about lyrics.  Yeah, I know, it's my blog.  So, that topic was the thing I felt like talking about on this occasion.  I do feel that I should also, you know, say something about my opinion of the record as a piece of music.  Short version is that I Am Easy is a mixed bag that's taking a little longer to grow because in short, it's too damn long.  There is absolutely some good or even great stuff on the record.  An hour is also a lot of time to spend hearing these guys mumble at a medium tempo about uncertainty in relationships, uncertainty in life.  It's too early to jump to conclusions, but I'm wondering if they've reached the Stephen King phase of their best work being behind them because of loss of interest in editing.  Statistically, two long records within a year of each other are bound to have a fair number of misses.**  I Am Easy sounds very much like what it is: a collection of rejects from Sleep Well with a few new things mixed in.  Even with the gimmick of the additional vocalists, this sounds like a National record full of National songs - a record that's slightly below their recent batting average thanks to the proverbial hitter being in a mild slump.  

A few other takes:

- The ongoing movement towards more integrated soundscape goes on.  I'm kind of surprised again that it took until Sleep Well Beast for us to get all these electronic elements given that making soundscapes is kind of the National brand.  Just as one example, listen to the bass part that follows the beats in "Quiet Light."  At least I think it's bass.  Keys meld with bass that melds with strings, and I can't even say who's playing what.  Just Dessners all the way down.

- I so hope that these pauses in the middle of a line (see "Roman Holiday," "Hey Rosie," and "Rylan" are the worst offenders) go away.  If this becomes an ongoing vocal tic, expect my posts to get a lot crankier.

- Besides the plodding "Roman Holiday," imagine nixing the other plodding songs.  I'm sure others will disagree on which are the "good ones."  But let's do the exercise.  I would miss absolutely nothing if we tossed "Oblivions," "Hey Rosie," "So Far So Fast," and "Rylan" (and "Underwater").  That leaves you with quite a solid record that's still long enough to be an LP:  "You Had Your Soul," "Quiet Light," "Pull Of You," "Easy To Find," "Where Is Her Head," "Not In Kansas," "Dust Swirls," "Hairpin Turns," and "Light Years."  I like, or at least tolerate, all those songs.  And "Her Father In The Pool" can stay as an interlude.  Ten tracks, decent length.  That'd score at least a 3.5, probably a 4.

Favorite track:  "Hairpin Turns"

Runner up:  "Not In Kansas"

Least favorite:  "Roman Holiday"

Overall rating:  3/5

Definitive running list of records by the National that I have listened to in order of what I have decided is unambiguously their quality
1)  Sleep Well Beast

2)  Boxer

3)  Trouble Will Find Me

4)  High Violet

5)  Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers

6)  Alligator

7)  I Am Easy To Find

8)  The National

9)  Cherry Tree

 

Thoughts on First Two Pages Of Frankenstein whenever I get around to it!

 

 

*Have I mentioned that I really like Fish?

 

**Good thing the National wouldn't be crazy enough to release two full-length records right on top of each other again!