You don't think before you jump
And I said I wouldn't get sucked in, ah-ah-ah-ah The National – This Is the Last Time
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Swamps often have bio-silt beneath the water’s surface that causes you to seek much deeper than surface level.
He knew loving her might be like this and he tried to stay out of the murky territory.
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He tried to keep it together; tried to be good enough as himself, but the bad creeped out.
I was coming back from what seemed like a ruin
I couldn't see you coming so far
I just turn around and there you are The National – Pink Rabbits
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The first lines of the verse point to the narrator beginning to put his life back on track after the emotional difficulty of the break up (‘coming back from what seemed like a ruin’). Just when he believes his past is in the past and the prospects for reconciliation have gone away (‘I couldn’t see you coming so far’), she turns back up in his life.
I didn't ask for this pain, it just came over me
Well, I love a storm, but I don't love lightning
All the waters coming up so fast, it's frightening The National – Pink Rabbits
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The opening lines of this verse are intended to convey the enormity of the narrator’s pain. The narrator rejects the image of rain as being unable to convey the scope of his pain, he reaches for a bigger metaphor: the sea. The substitution of sea for rain also evokes the idea that the narrator is drowning–a suggestion heightened by the subsequent lines (‘I didn’t ask for this pain it just came over me/All the waters coming up so fast’).
“I love a storm, but I don’t like lightning” suggests that the narrator is not afraid of a little strife within relationships every once in a while, but he doesn’t like getting struck by lightning (being broken up with, being hurt by someone, etc). It is the sudden, violent quality of lightening rather than the dull, plodding gloom of a rain storm that makes it difficult to cope.
When he says “it’s frightening”“ , he is showing that he is afraid of being hurt or being left behind.
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Tunnel vision is the loss of peripheral vision. He’s focused on just what is right in front of him.
Wandering aimlessly, but moving forward none theless.
Ah-ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah
I was teething on roses, I was in guns and noses
Ah-ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah The National – Humiliation
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He’s high and spiraling wildly. Cocaine often makes people grind their teeth, and so instead of Guns N' Roses, it’s guns and noses.
ACCEPTED COMMENT: These four lines are all self-referential.
The line “teething on roses” seems to be a reference to “All the Wine,” a 2005 song by the National, where a drunk and oblivious narrator, carrying a “big wet rose” in his mouth, walks around the city blissfully unaware of how he looks to everyone else. “Humiliation” is in many ways a counterpoint to that song, and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that it is the same narrator years later, looking back at his former self. (It should be noted that the following track on Trouble Will Find Me, “Pink Rabbit,” also contains several references to “All the Wine” as well.)
Also, this being a song about self-consciousness (and given Matt Berninger’s distinctive nose), it’s likely that “Guns ‘N Noses” is just a self-deprecating way of referring to the days when the National were still a relatively unknown band.
I see eyes of a white menace
The surprise of the week
Is that I never heard the sound The National – Humiliation
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Venice refers to Venice, CA (part of L.A. county), not Italy….and it seems as if he uses it for the sake of the rhyme scheme more than anything.
The white menace is some external stimuli affecting his life that he wasn’t prepared for. The mysteriousness of what THIS is, opens it up for us to think about our own menace in the night….
Davy says that I look taller
But I can't get my head around it
I keep feeling smaller and smaller The National – I Need My Girl
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This verse sets out a theme of the song–the tension between outward appearance and internal (mental) state. Here the narrator contrasts the fact that people are observing that he is older (“I look taller”) with his distress at not feeling any wiser (“I can’t get my head around it”) or more at ease in the world (“I keep feeling smaller and smaller”)
The theme of growing/shrinking (and others' perception of it vs. your own) shows up throughout this album, especially in “Graceless”. It feels very Alice In Wonderland.
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He juxtaposes anti-depression medications with the aforementioned side effects of life that will be his solace.
It’s a play on the dependency on meds…How we’ve come to rely on them for our own stability. Matt ultimately rejects this as the solution to a meaningless life and rests his laurels on the byproducts of what he’s created to provide context and meaning to his life: family, children and love.
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He can’t be available to her love (and torment) any longer.