The National Quotes

I think we're a bit of an odd band, because it's a true democracy and a true collaborative group. We're all really obsessive music listeners, and I think it's hard for us to write songs that we all believe in, and we can feel excited about. Also, it takes us a long time to discover the songs. You know, I write a lot of music and I give it to Matt. My brother writes a lot of music and he gives it to Matt, and he develops lyrical ideas. But it takes a long time, even once there are lyrical ideas, to put a song together with an arrangement and drums and the orchestral elements. We throw away a lot more than we finish. There were probably 50 songs we were trying to write for Boxer—12 that we could agree on.
Aaron Dessner

I write a lot of the initial music, and it’s based on either lead guitar or piano as the basic foundation of it. Then I’ll give it to Matt and he’ll listen to all of these sketches — they’re like a soundtrack for all of these months and months of writing lyrical ideas. Eventually, we get together as a band and really work on things together. We change things and have our own parts, like Brian’s drumming is really songwriting in a way, because he literally composes his drum parts — he doesn’t just play along. It’s very collaborative.
Aaron Dessner