In May, The National excited fans by debuting three new songs at a show in Spain. The tracks were titled “Tropic Morning News (Haversham),” “Grease In Your Hair (Birdie),” and “Bathwater (Mount Auburn).” Now, posters have appeared in Brooklyn teasing a song called “Weird Goodbyes” by The National featuring Bon Iver, which is now circulating on Reddit.
“Weird Goodbyes” is actually “Bathwater (Mount Auburn),” but has been renamed and was also performed last month in Cooperstown, New York during their North American tour. They haven’t released a studio album since 2019’s I Am Easy To Find, so listeners are eager for more. In our interview with the band for that LP, Matt Berninger discussed some of his early inspirations for making music, “Listening to records in my basement, I felt I learned how to be a good human being, a person with empathy and love, to be accepting of people that were different than me, and be accepting of people’s shortcomings and patience,” he said. “I learned about mental health, about depression, about sex. The awkwardness of sex too, not from Led Zeppelin or Motley Crue. I’m learning about that from The Breeders. Or Nina Simone. Roberta Flack was teaching me about sex.
Watch The National perform “Weird Goodbyes” in Cooperstown above.