You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
The National formed in 1999.
They've released six albums and have been nominated for a Grammy.
Their music has been everywhere from Game of Thrones to Bob's Burgers to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
In 2013, they released their sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me,
which debuted at number three on the Billboard charts.
The band is made up of singer Matt Berninger,
along with two sets of brothers, guitarists Bryce and Aaron Dessner,
who are twins, and Brian and Scott Devendorf, who play drums and bass, respectively.
In this episode, Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner break down Sea of Love, a song that they co-wrote.
You'll hear how it went from Aaron's original guitar demo to a densely layered recording with contributions from their bandmates and others.
My name's Aaron Dessner,
and I play guitar and piano and other instruments and write a lot of the music.
And I am Matt, and I don't write any of the music.
I write the lyrics and the vocal melodies and that kind of stuff.
This song just started with a demo that was kind of like a rough, loud guitar.
Kind of sounds like Nirvana playing Crazy Horse or something.
I'm sketching a song, humming along to it, but mainly with Matt in mind,