I literally can’t stop listening to High Violet, the new album by The National.

Upon every further listen something more unfurls itself within the sound, structure or lyrics of the 11 songs that make up this collection. It is an immensely dark album, yet strangely supportive, thought-provoking and life-affirming. The thing that I always got from The National - that I always valued - was that these were a bunch of guys who found their calling, and thus success, in a very opposite manner to most musicians and bands. Each in their early 30’s when they begun 11 years ago now, they all worked ‘respectable’ corporate jobs before The National. Labelled the white-collar Springsteens they spoke for the middle classes - a seemingly rare feat in rock n’ roll. Rather than telling us to ditch our jobs, our materially obsessed lives; they worked within them and understood the realities of surviving in the 21st century. It wasn’t escapist bullshit, it was supportively depressed caricatures of modern living, the corporate tightrope and sharing a small space with another person in an insanely expensive city. For those people trudging to work each morning doing the ‘right’ and ‘respectable’ thing, they acted like a motherly shoulder to rest that frazzled, weary head on during the busy commute - night or day.

So, whilst perusing Songmeanings.net recently I came across this interpretation of “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks’ which I really identified with and feel explains the very raison d’être of The National:

“Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks’

Leave your home
Change your name
Live alone
Eat your cake

The first verse expresses the temptation to escape a relationship, probably a marriage, or a family to “live alone”, and “eat your cake” insinuating that it would free-up doing something more, some extra capacity that is now limited by a burden of responsibilities and strain.

Vanderlyle, crybaby, cry
Oh the waters are risin’
Still no surprisin’ you
Vanderlyle, crybaby, cry
Man its all been forgivin’
Swans are a swimmin’
I’ll explain everything to the geeks

All the very best of us
String ourselves up for love
All the very best of us
String ourselves up for love
All the very best of us
String ourselves up for love
All the very best of us
String ourselves up for love

Hangin’ from chandeliers
Same small world
At your heels

The second verse realizes beautifully why it won’t happen. Waters rise, but swans swim together, and mate for life. Someone who loves you, forgives you for all the crying. The “geeks” may want your heart, but in the end they can’t have it; not the best of us.

The best of what and who you have to pour into love, voluntarily “string ourselves up for love”. Yet living in the “same small world” means it always be “at your heals”. The “geeks” will always want more… [but ultimately they’ll always end their days alone and without hope for the future.]

It is such a beautiful song and ends a perfect album with a perfect sentiment that expresses singer Matt Berninger’s development as a writer from the bands first self-titled album 9 years ago. Having gone from singing laments of “You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I saw you” (“29 Years”) to the black humored: “Never look her in the eyes, Never tell the truth… Never tell the one you want that you do, Save it for the deathbed, When you know you kept her wanting you.” (“Cardinal Song”) to the rambunctious but infirm man about town: “I’m on a good mixture, I do not want to waste it, I wanna go gator around the warm beds of beginners, I’m really worked up” (“City Middle”)… but now he realises, and is ultimately happy to proclaim: “All the very best of us string ourselves up for love” … even he, himself. He realises and concedes now that we all change our lives, change our ideals and our futures to make way for love. It is not a sign of weakness any longer, it is - again - a realistic and valiant move in the act of just plain living.