The National – Fake Empire

The song “fake empire“ by US indie rock band The National was published in 2007. While first listening to that song, it conveys a feeling of happiness and melancholia at the same time.

For me, the song offers a great potential of being interpreted in different ways. Although an interpretation towards a disenchantment of the idea of America is equally possible, I decided on looking into the theme of finding a new love.

The song evokes a purity in the feeling of happiness that you only feel if you have freshly fallen in love with somebody. This is the time, in which you feel like children together, forgetting about everything else and “stay out super late tonight”. You do not care what you do as long as you do it together, like “picking apples, making pies.”

“We’re half awake in a fake empire” shows nonetheless, how you know that the real world is out there and approaching. Your regular lives are not as fun as what you are experiencing when being together. Therefore, your dream world is only a “fake empire”.

When in the state of early love, you are not worrying about what others think about your public displays, you “do your gay ballet on ice.” The second stanza could allude to the “The Wizard of Oz” (“shiny city” and “diamond slippers”), in which the “empire” of Oz was built on the Wizard of Oz who turns out to be a “fake”. The “bluebirds on our shoulders” have a clear Disney-esque happiness to them, but it also accentuates the delusion of the lovers, because it is not their own world, but one surrounded by hyperbolic happiness. You are trying to lie to yourself that you can stay in this cheerfulness, though you know you cannot, you are “half awake”.

You are in such a natural high, in which you postpone the inevitable, you try to ignore it with “no thinking for a little while”. You consciously make an effort not to rush or label things because presently, things are great and the feeling has just begun (“let’s not try and figure out everything at once”). Thus your isolated, bittersweet world is only a “fake empire”.

The use of positively connoted words in the stanzas in contrast with the negatively connoted chorus clarifies the pleasing emotions in the beginning which are disrupted by a subconscious presence of reality. Although love is wonderfully thrilling at first, the song gives a sad prospect of love. The initial feelings diminish after some time as reality urges into one’s consciousness and the daily routine begins.

Stay out super late tonight

picking apples, making pies

put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us

we're half-awake in a fake empire

we're half-awake in a fake empire

Tiptoe through our shiny city

with our diamond slippers on

do our gay ballet on ice

bluebirds on our shoulders

we're half-awake in a fake empire

we're half-awake in a fake empire

Turn the light out say goodnight

no thinking for a little while

lets not try to figure out everything at once

It's hard to keep track of you falling through the sky

we're half-awake in a fake empire

we're half-awake in a fake empire