Puzzling Out the Fake Empire

"Fake Empire" by The National. It's such an odd little song.

It was given to me last year, the last song on an otherwise quiet, contemplative mix. I was laying on my bed in the dark (better for close listening), looking out at the moon rising through the flowers in my windowbox. Listening, wondering-why these songs, why this order-what was the giver trying to say? After 9 songs of still music when this song started I had to get up and move. The whole CD was great but this one, this one stuck-probably, because as Nick Hornby writes in his excellent Songbook, I hadn't solved it yet. I asked other fans of The National, everyone I knew who was familiar with it, why?? Why is the empire fake?

It's such an odd little song.

It starts with a dischordant jangly piano, played in synchopation at both ends, but not in the same rhythm, for an effect that stops just short of cacophony. It jars the ear but also grabs it like music you're not hearing clearly in a dream.

"stay out super late tonight

picking apples, making pies

put a little something in our lemonade

and take it with us

we're half awake

in our fake empire

we're half awake

in our fake empire

tiptoe through our shiny silks

with our diamond slippers on

do our gay ballet at night

bluebirds on our shoulders

Here we really start to build with the foreshadowing of other instruments yet to come.

we're half awake

in our fake empire

we're half awake

in our fake empire

And now, drums. Crisp, almost martial, imposing musical order where there wasn't. Driving, so driving in fact that it's hard to keep still and keep listening. And then other instruments dive in.

turn out the light

say goodnight

stop thinking for a little while

let's not try to figure out

everything at once

it's hard to keep track of you

falling through the sky

we're half awake

in our fake empire

we're half awake

in our fake empire"

The music is faster and louder and faster with horns kicking in, almost frantically in a musical tumble. Frenetic, yet energizing. The order the drums imposed breaks down entirely but the effect is not displeasing.

And why is the empire fake? The emotions seem genuine so why is the empire fake? After a year or more of thought it wasn't until my long distance love was here, in my space and place for the first time, that I think I cracked the mystery.

He makes me laugh, this man (have I ever laughed so hard?) and one night as we were laying together after a party, cracking up till 4am, feeling like the only people on the planet, I thought-with a sudden clarity-this is what The National were singing about. The empire is fake because it is an empire of two. Like the Romantics (movement not the band) and their idea of a world of two-"replete with thee" etc.-the lovely, dreamlike world described in the song is a construct between two lovers. It's wholly real because their feelings are true, but not in any way an actual empire. But, like people in the song I'll too choose to be half awake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQE7-2r3vg

photo by Carrie Radford