Claude says:The National's ninth album came out of a rough patch — Berninger stuck in a lyric drought so deep he thought the band might be done, the Dessners scattered across continents working on film scores and Taylor Swift records. The turning point was "Tropic Morning News," co-written with Berninger's wife and recorded partly live in Hamburg, which felt Dylan-esque and electric enough to pull them back together at Long Pond in upstate New York. You grabbed it the month it dropped in 2023 and lived hard with it through May — "The Alcott" with Swift, "Tropic Morning News," the Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens tracks — then let it drift by summer's end.