Today The National shared another new track from their highly anticipated LP First Two Pages of Frankenstein, titled “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend.” The song features Phoebe Bridgers and comes with a mind-bending music video starring Matt Berninger’s brother Tom, directed by Bridgers’ brother Jackson.
“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,’” Berninger said about the song. “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.”
In the video, Tom and Matt tap into what seems to be their inner child and the endless well of imagination that sleeps within all of us. Throughout the track, which was inspired by escaping writer’s block, they shift from a gray world and slip into the absurd, colorful and free while wearing black suits – Matt’s is peppered with bright flowers. Bridgers also makes a short cameo in the film and picks up a baby sitting on a playground where the brothers embrace and cavort.
The second marks another collaboration between Bridgers and Berninger, who crafted the track “Walking on a String” for Zach Galifinakakis’ excellent film Between Two Ferns: The Movie.
First Two Pages of Frankenstein is out April 28, and the new song follows “Eucalyptus,” “New Order T-Shirt” and “Tropic Morning News.”
Watch the video and listen to “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend” below.
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