The National
Moody Theater, ACL Live
April 21 and 23, 2014
Setlist
It wasn't until this past year that I started joining the music lovers who hang back after a show, trying to get the setlist or other memento from those bands whose words and songs we cling to. We're a slightly rabid lot, honestly, though subtly so. I've also met some of the kindest, funniest, most passionate people while lingering. Music brings people together.
Setlists never seemed important to me until I started wondering what story the bands wanted to tell that night. I'm sure that song selection is often arbitrary and largely designed to woo and ignite the crowd in a particular way. To leave us believing that we just had the best night ever and need to tell our friends to buy the albums. But I'm not that entirely jaded. I think there is more to a show and musicians and that music always comes back to story. And now, in addition to the experience, I turn to the setlist to better know it.
----
On nights one and two of their three-night stop in Austin, The National opened with "Sea of Love" and "Don't Swallow the Cap", respectively, which are both high-energy, fast-tempo songs that can rally a crowd into moving and singing. On night three, they opened with a song that I didn't expect: "Start a War" off Boxer. It's a slower song with no particular lyric meant for shouting or starting the night with intensity--as might happen with "Graceless" or "Squalor Victoria".
But, in retrospect, this was the best song to prologue the story that I heard that night. I emphasize that this is the story that I heard. If you were there, perhaps you heard a different one. Perhaps you didn't hear one and just enjoyed the music. But that's another aspect of what I love about music: you experience it and feel it uniquely, as you need and want to at this time. So, take from it as you will. This is the story I heard.
----
We expected something, something better than before/
We expected something more
-Start a War, The National
For me, everything is a love story. Not necessarily romantic love. I live entirely from the heart (wishing I lived more from the head). In the relatively short time I've lived this life (short since I'm aspiring to live to at least 100), I've learned that ultimately, it's love that defines and matters the most. And, so all of our stories--for better and for worse-- somehow grow from and return to it.
Love stories. Not Hollywood romantic-comedy style. Hollywood gives us an expectation of love that doesn't mesh well with the reality. There is no perfect love story. We know this (and by this point, dear reader, you have probably lived enough to know this) but it's still hard not to enter our next relationship expecting something, something better than before. That this time, the one we love won't have a quirk, a flaw or twenty, or a physical trait our ideal doesn't. That this time, you won't have some sort of struggle together: financial, emotional, health. But they do. You do. We always do.
Do you really think you can just put it in a safe, behind a painting, lock it up and leave?
Yet, at some point--with the right (imperfect) person and in the right (imperfect) time--you both decide not to walk away even though you could. It's comfortable and less vulnerable to keep all the emotions locked up in a safe. Plus, you can hide them behind a painting that you have artfully created to represent the parts and design that you want to show. But, if you do and if you leave, then you lose the love.
----
All the very best of us string ourselves up for love.
- Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks, The National
During their recent tours, The National close with an acoustic version of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks". I think part of this is because, at the end of the day, we all want to sing along with people who are--at least for the moment--living the same life. It's emotional, it's meaningful. And, The National simply gives us that shared moment to take with us.
But, I also think it's the end of the story that I heard that night.
The lyric above is one of my favorites in terms of defining relationships. Dark and pessimistic, right? Not really. Part of loving someone is willingly hanging your real self up for them to see--fully exposed--and trusting that they won't cut you down. And this is hard and vulnerable and, if you've ever been cut down before, seemingly impossible to do.
However, you can't love someone if who you are and what you feel is in the safe So, whereas that lyric initially sounds dark and depressing, if you think about it, it's a comforting thought to know that all of us flawed, imperfect jokers can be loved for who we are and what we feel--by other right (imperfect) people in the right (imperfect) times. And that's how tonight's story ends. Journeying to that point where the cost of sacrifice doesn't matter for the benefit of love.
Finally, that's why I think it's also perfect to end the night with an acoustic song. Singing along to a song stripped bare of studio enhancements and audio engineering. It's a send-off, the musical bon voyage, to strip ourselves bare, be who we are. Love people who are ultimately just like us.
Swans are a-swimming. We'll explain everything to the geeks.