This Must Be The Genius We’ve Been Waiting Years For

The National “Turtleneck”

This is actually the first time I’ve featured The National on this site in over 15 years of publication, aside from being included in survey mixes or mentioned in passing in other entries. I guess I was just waiting for them to rock more.

“Turtleneck” is an abrasive, rowdy rock song, and as such is a major outlier in the National discography. It reminds me a bit of The Afghan Whigs in particular, though Matt Berninger’s voice conveys very different things than Greg Dulli – there’s no trace of sexual menace or seedy glamor, but in its place you get an acute anxiety and agitation. Berninger typically speak-sings his way through songs at the bottom of his register, but here’s he’s up near the top of it, with the treble signaling exasperation and a sense of feeling trapped in obligations. The lyrics move in a few different directions, alluding to romantic trauma, bad teenage memories, and Trump-era terror, but the through line is embarrassment and degradation. It’s a song about reckoning with living at the mercy of other people, and losing faith in them entirely. Berninger doesn’t sound like a guy who takes any pleasure in being cynical and pessimistic. If anything, he sounds like he’s being destroyed by feeling that way, but has no other valid way of reacting.

Buy it from Amazon.