If you were to pick only one transcendent moment out of The National's highly impressive, wonderfully emotive oeuvre, it has to be when the otherwise unremarkable "Slow Show" breaks down into one of the most beautiful evocations of the feeling of love you could ever hope to hear, as Matt Berninger delivers the stunning refrain: "you know I dreamed about you / for twenty-nine years before I saw you." The line effortlessly captures that sentiment we all struggle to express sometimes, and to my mind is one of the most perfect encapsulations of how it feels to be in love.

Yet the line first appeared during "29 Years," which stands out as an anachronism on their self-titled debut album due to the lo-fi nature of the recording in contrast to the songs that surround it. If The National (2001) was the sound of a band still finding their feet, then "29 Years" is a drunken late night phone call rescued from the answer phone of an ex-girlfriend in order to be inexplicably included on their debut release. It took them six years to give it the context it deserved, and you cannot help but speculate that Berninger was biding his time until he felt able to do the line justice. That he did so in such spectacular fashion is one of the many, many reasons why people feel such a deep affection for them.