The National tease new single with Bon Iver
Judging from the arrival of new posters, It looks like The National are about to release a single with Bon Iver titled ‘Weird Goodbye’. The group have been airing the new track during recent live performances too, though without the aid of Justin Vernon – having played it for the first time in Pamplona, Spain, back in May.
Since that concert – the band’s first in 3 years – the track has been performed at seven other shows, including The National’s headline performance at Dillon, Colorado, and the Outlandia festival. The song appeared on printed setlists as ‘Weird Goodbye’ for the first time for a concert at Cooperstown, New York. It’s not the only new addition to the band’s setlist either. Other titles include ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Grease In Your Hair’.
The posters in question were originally spotted by a Reddit user, who saw them on the walls of Brooklyn. As it stands, no release date for ‘Weird Goodbye’ has been confirmed. That being said, it looks as though the track’s arrival is imminent.
In other news, The National were recently joined at two shows by Bartees Strange, who provided guest vocals for ‘Mistaken For Strangers’. He performed the Boxer cut with Matt Berninger at concerts in Missoula and Calgary. The collaboration was bound to happen at some point. Let’s not forget that Strange released an EP of five National covers before dropping his debut album in 2020. “Special thanks to [Strange] for playing a better version of Lemonworld than ours and joining us on ‘Mistaken For Strangers’,” The National wrote in a message on Instagram after the Calgary show.
The last official track The National released was their Cyrano soundtrack-included ‘Somebody Desperate’ – their first release since I Am Easy To Find. In the March after that album was released, guitarist Bryce Dessner confirmed that the band were working on a follow-up to the 2019 album. With these new tracks, it looks like they are nearing the final phases of production. You can check out fan footage of ‘Weird Goodbye’ below.
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