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Released in May 2007, The National's fourth full-length is the album that saved them. It's where the Ohio-via-Brooklyn five-piece found the sound, success and spiritual growth to become one of the most critically acclaimed bands of their time. Obsessively researched and featuring intimate interviews with the fighters who were there in the ring, Ryan Pinkard captures a transformative chapter in The National's story, revealing how their breakthrough album is deeply intertwined with their personal lives, the New York indie rock renaissance of the early aughts and a generational experience in America.
List of contents
Author's NoteCast of CharactersIntroduction
1. Twenty-Nine Years
2. Underline Everything
3. Kitty Gets a Scratch
4. The Band in the Sidebar
5. The English Are Waiting
6. Clap Your Hands Say No
7. Don't Get Stuck in a Corner
8. Apartment Story
9. Bob Dylan Shat in My Room
10. Eeyore on Nyquil
11. Circling the Vortex
12. Waiting for Winter to Leave
13. Stay Down, Champion, Stay Down
14. Let Them All Have Your Neck
15. Signs of Hope and Change
16. That Same Desperate Struggle
EpilogueAcknowledgmentsNotes
About the author
Ryan Pinkard is a writer, editor, and record collector from Colorado. He is the author of the 33 1/3 book about The National's
Boxer (2022) and an editor on numerous other 33 1/3 titles.
Summary
“Pinkard’s account... brings to light the ambition and artistry, the stress and frustration, and ultimately the joy of making this very special album."—Peter Katis, The National’s engineer, and mixer on Boxer
“I am spooked by how well [Pinkard] has captured these characters and this madcap project. I am not sure how he did it.” —Carin Besser, co-lyricist on Boxer and wife to Matt Berninger
“Accessible, perceptive, sometimes hilarious, but more often harrowing, Pinkard’s book gets a running start on its subject, tracing The National’s trajectory from their first notes together to the creation of Boxer.” —Stephen M. Deusner, music critic and author
We all know the Boxer. The fighter who remembers every glove but still remains. That grisly, bruised American allegory who somehow gets up more times than he’s knocked down. This is the fight that nearly broke The National. The one that allowed them to become champions.
Released in 2007, The National’s fourth full-length album is the one that saved them. For fans, Boxer is a profound personal meditation on the unmagnificent lives of adults, an elegant culmination of their sophisticated songwriting, and the first National album many fell in love with. For the band, Boxer symbolizes an obsession, a years-long struggle, a love story, a final give-it-everything-you’ve-got effort to keep their fantasy of being a real rock band alive.
Based on extensive original interviews with the fighters who were in the ring and the spectators who witnessed it unfold, Ryan Pinkard obsessively reconstructs a transformative chapter in The National’s story, revealing how the Ohio-via-Brooklyn five-piece found the sound, success, and spiritual growth to evolve into one of the most critically acclaimed bands of their time.
Foreword
Demonstrates how Boxer came at a do-or-die moment for a hardworking, fiercely-driven group that has since gone the distance.
Additional text
Accessible, perceptive, sometimes hilarious, but more often harrowing, Pinkard’s book gets a running start on its subject, tracing The National’s trajectory from their first notes together to the creation of Boxer.
