Most of the things we love are the things that embarrass us. Most of the reasons we love people are the same reasons they embarrass us. I got into the National late, after just about everybody I knew, when High Violet came out in 2010. I may have been a dilettante and a joiner, but I joined with the fullest heart, with the most aggressively committed sentimentalism imaginable. I got into the band with my whole face, with my whole bad leaking heart, the kind every one of their songs chronicled; a bad leaking heart that was majestic and untrustworthy and slightly off-key, dragging itself desultory and bloated down the sidewalk to another party to drink at the open bar with everybody else’s bad hearts.

I had never loved a band like I loved this band, and the truth is I never really have since. I acknowledge that quite a lot of music is better than the National, more accomplished, more important, more coherent, and less embarrassing. But we rarely love things for reasons that aren’t embarrassing. The things we really love say more about who we are than we’d like them to say. The National are far and away my favorite band, but if you asked me what music I like and I didn’t know you well, I wouldn’t necessarily mention them. That answer would reveal too much. Maybe I don’t want you to know me that well; maybe I don’t want to be that known.