Last night, March 3, The National dropped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to treat viewers to an electric performance of their new song, “Tropic Morning News.”
Complete with red lighting and a moody, moving backdrop, lead singer Matt Berninger carried the entire band through a five-minute take. “I was suffering more than I let on / The tropic morning news was on / There’s nothing stopping me now / From saying all the painful parts out loud,” he emotionally sang.
The song is featured on the group’s forthcoming album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein, alongside the other recently-released single, “New Order T-Shirt” and some soon-to-come collaborations with Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens, and Phoebe Bridgers.
Fans can also expect to catch them playing selections from the new record when their tour begins in May. More information, along with a complete list of dates, is available here.
As Berninger notes in a statement via Rolling Stone, he was in a “very dark spot where I couldn’t come up with lyrics or melodies at all.”
“Even though we’d always been anxious whenever we were working on a record, this was the first time it ever felt like maybe things really had come to an end,” he said.
Check out The National’s “Tropic Morning News” performance above.