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LISTEN: The National’s First Song for a Movie

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Moody indie rockers the National and their fellow Brooklynite Sharon Van Etten collaborated on “Think You Can Wait” for the upcoming Paul Giamatti film Win, Win, and the song just leaked online.

“This was the first time we had written specifically for a film,” frontman Matt Berninger told HitFix of Win, Win, out in March. “We wouldn’t normally do that, but Tom McCarthy’s movies (including 2009’s Oscar-winning animation Up) are so good. Watching [Win Win] helped inspire the way the song was written.”

The tune is dark and orchestral — like the band’s excellent 2010 release High Violet — with piano, strings, and shimmering cymbals swelling to a tense crescendo. Berninger and Etten’s dark lyrics — “I was drifting, crying… I was slipping under … I’m out of my mind” — reflect the film’s plot: Giamatti plays a struggling attorney, who is short on cash and suffering stress-related chest pains, and the high school wrestling team he coaches is really, really bad. But soon he discovers a troubled teen and star athlete, who leads him on a path of moral and self discovery … until the teen’s deadbeat mom re-enters the picture.

LISTEN: The National, “Think You Can Wait”

WATCH: Win Win trailer

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nbe33D59euY