The break-up album occupies a unique place in the world of music.
There is no other category of record that is so pigeonholed by its subject matter and emotional content – sifting through the spent ashes of a romantic relationship is a musical genre all in itself. It makes sense; by definition, a painful (or relieving) feeling of separation is something that must ultimately be worked through alone, and listening to music in the aftermath of a break-up is the perfect indulgence in comforting isolation; a delicious paradox of solitude and companionship.
Established purveyors of musical melancholy, it’s now hard to imagine a time when The National didn’t occupy their current position as esteemed veterans of the indie world. Recently releasing their superlative sixth L.P Trouble Will Find (4AD), the band have taken a refreshingly patient path to playing such huge shows as upcoming dates at London’s Alexandra Palace; with every release, they’ve managed to innovate and consolidate their ‘sound’ in equal measure, never resting on the laurels of past critical acclaim, but always retaining the fundamental elements of their deeply affecting musical introspection. Quietly, shyly, The National have become one of the biggest and best-loved bands going.
It was a different picture back in 2003. When their second album Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers was released ten years ago this September, band members Matt Berninger, Aaron and Bruce Dessner, and Scott and Bryan Devendorf were all juggling music with various day jobs in New York – they would only become a ‘full-time’ band after the success of Boxer in 2007. Like their eponymous debut The National (2001), Sad Songs… came out on the Dessner brothers’ label Brassland Records, and while the album gained enthused plaudits from sources like Pitchfork (who described Berninger’s lyricism as a “gorgeous train-wreck”), it would take another two albums and four years for the band to achieve widespread critical acclaim.
Listening to Sad Songs… a decade on, it might sound like a more disjointed effort than later releases – a talented band still working out their niche, playing around with styles, sounds and effects over the course of twelve, very different sounding songs. More so than any of the band’s other albums, it’s Berninger’s lyrics that really hold the collection together – by paying special attention to the words, stylistic disparities in the music can start to make a lot more sense, with the album’s frenetic ups and downs being heard to rise and fall within a consistent (if conflicted) lyrical train of thought. Listened to in this way, it’s arguable that the songs form The National’s most emotionally coherent record to date – their very own break-up album.
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Cardinal Song might seem like an odd choice for an album opener – it’s a six-minute, slow paced ode, split into two distinct sections – but it does well to establish the record’s specific emotional turmoil at the outset. The shimmering guitars and drum-fills that kick off the album suddenly drop into a somber acoustic sound for the song’s last third, and Berninger’s knowing, second person cynicism – “Never tell the one you want, that you do/Save it for the deathbed” – breaks down as the violins come in (don’t we all?), lapsing into drunken apologetic confessions: “Forgive me girls I am confused/Stiff and pissed and lost, and loose.” Following track Slipping Husband tries to regain the high ground of romantic wisdom, urging an unhappily married friend to get a grip and stop his solipsistic complaining. But by the time Berninger screams “Dear we better get a drink in you/Before you start to bore us” in sheer desperation, he sounds like he’s berating himself as much as anybody else.
Each track on Sad Songs… sounds like an attempt at navigating this knife-edged schism between feelings of indifference and intense vulnerability stemming from sexual relationships. On It Never Happened, Berninger asks for his lover to “put me in your beautiful bed/And cover me”, before eventually trying to backtrack with the cocksure denial that “Nothing ever happened here/Bad things never happen to the beautiful.” Thirsty openly submits to feelings of inadequacy and confusion with the admission that “I don’t have a hawk in my heart/No dumbass dove in my brain,” and simply longs for the assurance of an unidentified embrace to “Take these girly arms/And ever keep me;” tracks such as Trophy Wife and Available contain further attempts at tired cynicism that aren’t quite enough to mask the fragility underscoring Berninger’s words.
There’s little sense of chronology throughout the album; instead, the songs seem to connect as a series of confused mental back-and-forths, drawn together by overriding emotional themes of romantic dysphoria and heartbreak that are wrestled with in different places from different angles. Berninger goes out into the world to traipse city streets on Fashion Coat, before ultimately deciding that: “Everywhere I am is just another thing without you in it.” He then retreats back into isolation on Patterns of Fairytales, losing himself in wistfulness and self-torturing visions of his ex-lover in someone else’s bed; dosing up on his own musical therapy by “turning on the stereo/And I’m turning into fairytales.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dty88vnZMbU
The overarching narrative of these troubled vignettes comes together in the resigned pathos of the album’s close. Final track Lucky You find Berninger in his calmest and most broken state – again addressing his former partner, he informs her that “You own me, there’s nothing you can do,” soberly accepting the painful new normal while honestly acknowledging his unresolved attachment to the past. He struggles to move on while being haunted by ghosts of the relationship, and ruefully applauds his ex for being “too smart to remember/Lucky you.” Musically, it’s the closest The National have ever come to writing a classic ballad, but Berninger’s lyrics elevate the song above its sentimental sonic conventions and allow the final track to encapsulate the full scope of the album’s confused emotional pain.
Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers might not be everyone’s ideal listening material in the wake of a break-up; there’s not much to be found in the way of hopeful resolution, no real solutions to feelings of heartbreak. For detractors of The National’s music who choose to dismiss the band as overly depressing, it could be said to provide some heavy ammunition. But there’s much reward to be found in travelling with Berninger and co. through these tempestuous mental vicissitudes of failed romance; the album is bursting with the honest and raw empathy and emotion that only the best songwriting (and songwriters) can provide.
As bands go, The National are very much in the big leagues these days. Ten years ago, these five adopted New Yorkers were quietly showing signs of the success they would become; spinning their own arresting, tortured take on the tried and tested break-up album.