The exception is the one The National song that's yet to come on this list, but apart from that instead of "Fake Empire" and "Runaway" it could've been "Slipped" and "Geese of Beverly Road" or "90-Mile Water Wall" and "Mr. November" or any of a dozen other combinations.
"Fake Empire" stands out among those for two reasons, one tangible and one not. The first is that it's got just a genius meter change. It starts out in 4/4 with a three-against-four feel and about halfway through the song just slides into a 3/4, which then slides back into four-against-three.
The second is that it manages to be melancholy and wistful without being outright depressing, which is a tough line to walk. I listen to this song and I just feel lots. I don't know that I feel anything in particular. There's a sense of nostalgia and lost youth, just because the first four lines: "Stay out super late tonight / Picking apples, making pies / Put a little something in our lemonade / And take it with us" describe the kind of night you'd have in your early 20s that by the time you're closer to 30 just exhausts you to think about. Maybe I just think that because I've got my own issues with nostalgia and missing a time when I was more optimistic, and had reason to be.
I guess that's one of the nice things about The National, is that they tend to have really wonderful-sounding lyrics, but the meanings are vague enough that you can just project whatever you're feeling onto them. Instead of telling a meaningful story, it incorporates whatever meaning you want into an empty framework. It's the opposite of, say, Bruce Springsteen, for whom every song has a narrative with named characters, and most of the time it's more affecting.
