We are currently nearing the end of quite a long drought between National album releases. In just two more months, the Brooklyn-bred band will finally unveil their highly-anticipated follow-up to the incredible 2013 release Trouble Will Find Me, an album titled Sleep Well Beast. Just before sharing that record with the world however, the band decided to unveil the whole thing before a live audience this weekend in upstate New York in close proximity to producer-guitarist Aaron Dessner’s Long Pond studio in the Hudson Valley where it was recorded.
Fortunately for all of us, someone filmed some of that performance and today we were gifted our first glimpse at one their record’s centerpiece songs. The new track is titled “Born To Beg” and it’s slotted smack dab in the middle of Sleep Well Beast. It’s a decidedly melancholy composition, propelled by tender piano instrumentation and bizarre, random electronic flourishes. In other words, it’s a National song.
You can watch the live debut of “Born To Beg” above and check out the tracklist of The National’s seventh album Sleep Well Beast below.
1. “Nobody Else Will Be There”
2. “Day I Die”
3. “Walk It Back”
4. “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”
5. “Born to Beg”
6. “Turtleneck”
7. “Empire Line”
8. “I’ll Still Destroy You”
9. “Guilty Party”
10. “Carin at the Liquor Store”
11. “Dark Side of the Gym”
12. “Sleep Well Beast”
