In the wake of The National's 2019 album I Am Easy To Find, frontman Matt Berninger embarked on a solo journey with his 2020 debut album, Serpentine Prison. However, the COVID-19 pandemic period that followed saw Berninger grappling with burnout and an intense depression, leaving him in a state of emotional turmoil.
The support and faith of his bandmates and love of his wife, Carin Besser, helped him through. This melancholic piano-led song is about his mental health struggles.
Penned with The National multi-instrumentalist Aaron Dessner, the opening verse of the song paints a picture of Berninger's near breakdown during the pandemic period, set against the band's signature piano-driven sound.
As the chorus unfolds, Berninger lays bare the depths of his pain, admitting he couldn't write lyrics for a year. It was only through the help of antidepressants and the unyielding love of his wife that he was able to pick himself up and find his way back to his creative spirit.
Don't you understand?
Your mind is not your friend again
It takes you by the hand
And leaves you nowhere
Speaking to Uncut magazine, Berninger revealed how the COVID period saw him facing burnout and a depression that felt like "a genuine illness," "being nauseous" and "sadness and fear about everything." He likened it to "the train going off the tracks."
Besser's advice, "This isn't you, this isn't real, this is just your brain right now, your mind is not your friend," inspired a line in the chorus and the song title.
In the second verse, Berninger poetically utilizes darkness as a metaphor to describe the depths of his depression.
You feel it in your nerves
It's chokin' out the sun
You try in vain to be persuaded
That it's nothin'
Berninger's lyrics highlight the all-too-common societal tendency to dismiss mental health issues as mere thoughts that can be easily brushed aside. As the song progresses, it becomes clear that the effects of depression cannot simply be ignored because they permeate every aspect of one's daily life.
In the poignant third verse, Berninger seeks refuge from the world as he looks for a moment of respite from his struggles. The yearning for calm is palpable in his lyrics, as he navigates the complexities of his mental health journey with honesty and vulnerability.
Tranquilize the oceans
Between the poles
You're crawling under rocks
And climbing into holes
"I was trying to write about how the quiet, rational, and kind side of your mind can tell you, 'Everything will be okay, you're just depressed. It'll pass,'" Berninger told Apple Music. "But the other, louder side is saying, 'It's all too sad and painful and never going to get any better.' I was trying to listen to the quiet side."
"Your Mind Is Not Your Friend" serves as the fourth single from The National's ninth album
First Two Pages Of Frankenstein.
Mary Shelley's classic horror novel sparked this song and inspired the album title. "When I feel stuck, I'll often grab a book off the shelf just to get some words in my head, and the first two pages of Frankenstein ended up triggering 'Your Mind Is Not Your Friend,'" explained Berninger. "The book starts off with the narrator on a voyage near the Arctic Circle, and that image of being adrift helped me to write about feeling disconnected and lost and lacking in purpose. Once I started confronting that strange, blurry panic of not having ideas, everything began to crack open a bit."
The chorus is further elevated by a hauntingly beautiful backing vocal from singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers. Speaking with Apple Music's Zane Lowe, Berninger revealed he had connected with Bridgers in the past to work on music together. He spoke admiringly of Bridgers' ability to write about the things that one may hate about themselves.
Berninger added that because his wife partially inspired the song, it made sense to add another voice to the mix. Bridgers' tender and warm vocal delivery serves as a soothing counterpoint to Berninger's raw and emotive performance "because her voice is just such a tender, just warm hug and so it added that sort of dimension to it, which was crucial for it to work."
Bridgers also contributes to another First Two Pages Of Frankenstein song, "This Isn't Helping."
