Only four more songs to go in our 'Sea of Heroes'! This is one of my favourite arrangements for this series.
This is also a very important song to me personally for a number of reasons. I didn't discover The National by myself, I was introduced to them more or less at gunpoint. And I have to say it did take me a while to "get" them. At first I just heard so much bottled up misery channelled into songs that meandered and meandered and never seemed to find a chorus with a singer who seemed to care more about his lyrics than a comprehensive melody. Well, joke's on me. I love them now. But only because that gun was kept aimed squarely at my temple.
There's a couple of bands out there though, that I just don't get at all the first time I hear them. No matter how open-minded I think I am towards music. But it's just the greatest feeling when you suddenly do start to get a band like that and a whole new avenue of music starts to unfold before your eyes (or ears rather). Glad it did with this band! Though I still don't get Wolf Parade, but hey...maybe I will someday...
It was clear to me from the get-go that I wouldn't be able to do a cover of this song anywhere near the original. So I just sort of rewrote it for myself. Haven't listened back to the original in a couple of years now because I just wanted to get this right and my own take of it in there. For a song that holds so much personal relevance I just needed to make it sound as much me as possible. That's where the bass line, the drum pattern and the backing vocals come from.
I hope you like it as much as I do!
-Jon
P.S. Here's the original: