The National: self-titled — compact disc
$9.99
The National: self-titled — compact disc
$9.99
Introducing five displaced Ohioans living in NYC…before the Midwestern twang wore off. On “The Perfect Song” Matt sings “Shallow frame and shaky sticks but I know there's a river in me.” Indeed that river’s kept flowing and, in time, they made many more perfect songs.
𝗛𝗪𝗬-𝟬𝟬𝟭 ‘The National’ by The National
𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗲: July-October 2001
𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 “Son” or “Cold Girl Fever” or “Theory of the Crows”
𝗥𝗜𝗬𝗟: canonical indie rock ~ origin stories with an alt-country vibe ~ water metaphors
The debut LP didn’t have a a proper release date. We pooled $15,000 and in the summer of 2001, some CDs arrived at Alec and Bryce’s shared Brooklyn home. Eventually a few small distributors said “We’ll take 30 copies and see how it goes.”
A few months later and a few miles away, 9/11 happened. That day someone left the windows open in our apartment; we came home to find cardboard boxes of unloved discs coated in dust from the wreckage. The National played Mercury Lounge on October 18, 2001, then departed for their first American tour.
And so it goes.
The timeline says it all. About our collective drive to make and share music; why it was greeted with such disinterest; about weird memories, eerie feelings and traumatic forgetting that defines those early days. Still fans can find traces. AmericanMary.com is named after one of these songs; later, the lyric and melody of “29 Years” were quoted in the much beloved Boxer track “Slow Show”
Modesty was a hallmark. We described The National as “two sets of brothers and one tall, blonde best friend” or “A rough-voiced Berninger singing about women and water” (rain, tears, canals). We loved Radiohead and Wilco, The Sea and Cake and Silver Jews. (A few of us admired the Dave Matthews Band or Grateful Dead—quietly, privately, slightly embarrassed.)
Would any of us verbalize ambitions that The National could be as significant a band as any of them? Probably not. But here we are. Another lyric, this time from “Beautiful Head”: "Do not tell me I've changed / You're just raising your standards / Do not give me away / I am the same.” Good songs, solid LP, great band. We’re still thankful.
