learning to let go with the national

what "first two pages of frankenstein" means to me

I discovered the National about twelve years ago when a friend shared “All the Wine” with me. The song attached itself to me immediately so I listened to the rest of Alligator and then I listened to it again. I moved on to Boxer and then went back to the beginning. I had found my new obsession.

It wasn’t just the pervasive sadness in the National’s music I was attracted to. I had been listening to a lot of emo in this era of my life; emotions-on-your-sleeve music was appealing to me. But what I was hearing on these albums contained so much more than surface level sadness. There was something deeper, more profound in the lyrics, in the music. Woven throughout the threads of sadness in their music was anger, remorse, confusion, a tapestry of feelings that felt thick and heavy, a weighted blanket providing comfort and safety within.

All these years later, I still feel that comfort within the despair, that sense that even though things are sad, there’s a familiarity in these tears and I am going to console myself by wallowing. It’s something I am very good at, and the National provide the perfect soundtrack to a good wallow.

So here we are with a new National album. I always have this sense of dreaded anticipation when a favorite band puts out a new record. Will it be good? Will it be as great as their last or their first? Will I love it? I pre-ordered First Two Pages of Frankenstein when it was announced. I listened to the singles they released before the album but half heartedly because I like to listen to new album at once, with the context of track listing to guide me.

The album came out last Friday, but I was in the hospital without my airpods. I needed to listen to it fully, putting my whole self into it, and I couldn’t do that in a hospital bed while wrapped up in tubes and wires. So I waited. When I came home Sunday, the album was there waiting for me. I held it. I admired it. I sighed. Finally.

But I did not listen to it on vinyl at first. I needed to listen on streaming so I could stop after each song and gather my thoughts and cry if I need to. And lord, did I need to. Let me tell you, if you’ve been through a divorce some of these lyrics will knife you in the heart. Having recently gone through that trauma, my first listen of the album was made up of me gasping or clutching my heart or having tears well up in my eyes. They got me. They got me again.

Emotional trauma is something you never get over. It lingers in your heart, in your soul, in your brain. It informs your every move, it reshapes and remolds your personality, it weighs on you in a way that feels like it will never let up. Holding all that inside you is never good for you. I’ve preached in this here newsletter about living your feelings, letting your tears and anguish go. But I’m not always good at that. I’ve been keeping a lot in. I’ve been having a hard time crying. I had this fear that I was turning stoic, that I was becoming one of those people who bottle everything up and put on a brave face.

just proof of how much i’ve listened

And then along comes the National and this album and I found myself weeping, sobbing, letting my pain out, reveling in my emotions, nodding at certain lines. Songs about letting go, giving up, splitting up. “You should take it, I’m only gonna break it” - such a simple line - reminded me of putting stuff in a bag for me, me begging him to take the stuff that would only remind me of us if I kept it around. And then there’s Phoebe Bridgers, singing with Matt Berninger, blending their voices sweetly and perfectly. “This isn’t helping, I know you think it’s kindness but it’s not” and I am sobbing at the same time my heart is filling with…something. Remorse? Regret? Ah, here’s the sadness, here’s the loneliness, here’s the wallowing I’m so good at.

I listen to First Two Pages of Frankenstein twelve times in the space of a day. I am listening to it now. I listened on vinyl and the sound of these incredible songs filling my living room with their sorrow is sometimes too much to bear. I listen on Spotify and I stop after certain songs to gather myself, to gain some composure. Then I’m lost in the music again, lost in the words, lost in the world this band has created for me, a world in which I’m able to let go, to purge myself of all that despair and loss and ugliness.

It takes the National to break me in the way I needed to be broken. I am a piñata, filled with stale emotions that are rotting away inside me, eating me up. This record takes a swing at me and I let loose a torrent of feelings, I am spilling over. I am free.