Wet grass, small puddles of water on the sidewalks of a large city and the darkness of a midnight sky that is washed out by all the lights and skyscrapers, giving the sense that it’s just the early morning, though it can’t be: that’s how I feel when I listen to the album Boxer by the National.
Released in 2007, it’s the third full album of the band and my favorite. If I were in high school listening to it, or even just a sophomore in college, I don’t think I could appreciate the album like I currently do.
For me, this album is a deep meditation on adulthood, on love, on anxiety and longing and regret and purpose, all of which I’m currently trying to figure out. I’m a senior with just one semester left in my college career, and I have no idea what I’m doing once I graduate. That terrifies me. I think this album shares the same fears that I do.
“Fake Empire,” the first track on the album, sets the mood with an opening piano piece that always seems to ruminate in the air even when the song is over. The opening is slow, deliberate and feels like the song itself is searching for its own meaning, like it hasn’t figured out what it wants to be. Probably the most haunting lyrics of the song are: “We’re half-awake in our fake empire.”
The lyrics are a sentiment that I can understand, having felt like I did build my own “empire,” in a sense, through the years of college. I have friends that I’ve been close to since freshman year, routines that have been the same for four years now and a sense of place and purpose that seems to all be going away. These last four years are about to vanish upon graduation, be swept up in the current of mundanity that is often associated with adult life.
In “Squalor Victoria,” the National seems to mourn the fate of adulthood, singing “Underline everything / I’m a professional in my beloved white shirt,” an idea that is consistent throughout the album. There is a certain type of sadness that comes with adult life, a certain type of reminiscing for the days before they had to have full-time jobs. In “Racing like a pro,” the band sings, “Your mind is racing like a pro now / Oh my god, it doesn’t mean a lot to you / One time, you were a glowing young ruffian / Oh my god, it was a million years ago.”
The lyrics haunt because I think that might be how I feel in five years, settled into a life that may or may not be what I want, looking back at the un-predictability of college and wishing for a break of routine. That’s not to say that the inventible progression to a post-grad life is bad, but simple that it’s a change that some people are ready for and others that are not.
For the National, the band seems to believe that being an adult, that having that more rigid schedule and expectations correlates with losing friends . . . or at least being distant from them. On the second track of the album, “Mistaken for Strangers,” the band seems to hit a high point thematically and continually holds a tension with that idea, never letting the listener forget what the album is trying to explore with lyrics such as: “You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends / When you pass them at night.”
In the song, “Green Gloves,” the band still continues with this theme of losing friends and feeling distant with lines that sing: “Falling out of touch with all my / Friends are somewhere, getting wasted / Hope they’re staying glued together / I have arms for them.”
The themes and topics for this album would be hard to deal with as a listener, in my opinion, if not for the masterful balance between the tones of songs—some being slower and more somber, and some being just a little bit more upbeat and hopeful. I think that one of the reasons that this album feels so impactful is because it doesn’t sound like the artist has already reached a conclusion to adulthood, friendship and life just yet; every song seems like a type of stream-of-consciousness, like the singer is spewing how he feels at the moment and is trying to make sense of it, along with the listener. Because of this, the album doesn’t feel preachy, but invitational to everyone, wanting listeners to explore what is being sung along with the artist.
The last track of the album, “Santa Clara,” completes Boxer with a certain sense of resolution while also not lessening the journey and the honesty of all the other songs in the album. The first lines of the song read: “I don’t worry anymore, nothing like I did before /I don’t worry, I just / watch them rolling back / I don’t worry anymore / ‘Cause it’s alright, alright to see a ghost.”
There is a certain type of acceptance for the singer now. He still reminisces his past life, his past friendships, but he’s okay with seeing the ghost of his past. In the same song, the National sings: “I will settle in and dream.” Through my interpretation, the act of dreaming is because the singer is not completely okay with where his life is right now, but he has hope for things to get better.
Towards the end of the song, the lyrics read: “I’m gonna run to the river, kiss my hand and wave / I’m gonna run to the river, gonna send ’em on their way / ‘Cause they’re gonna be cool, happy, genius heroes / I’m gonna miss them so much.” The singer concludes his introspection with “send ‘em on their way” (a reference to the ghosts mentioned earlier in the song) and “I’m gonna miss them so much.” The singer accepts his pain, accepts how much he misses his friends and past life, but he’s okay now with sending them away.
I think this album is impactful for most people because we all will have relationships that we are going to have to watch deteriorate. And although this will be challenging, although starting a new life out of college and taking on new responsibilities will be challenging, this album can help to console the pain of those who will go through it, while also giving hope for something better to come.