Breakup Songs for Someone I Didn’t Date, Track Three
On The National’s “Brainy,” intellectual attraction, and the gravity of brilliance
Most love songs chase bodies or vibes. Almost none chase minds. “Brainy,” track three on The National’s Boxer, is the rare one that does. It captures the rush of falling for someone whose intelligence pulls you into orbit, and the instability that can come with it.
With Nico I felt every kind of attraction. She was gorgeous and sexy, she fit me in ways I could not fully explain, and above all her mind lit me up. Her wit, her analysis, her writing, the way she thought. Being drawn to someone’s mind is durable and dangerous. Looks fade. The mind keeps you.
Why this song
Matt Berninger’s narrator never uses her name. He just calls her “brainy.” The defining feature is her mind, not her body or a pose.
“I’ve been dragging around/
From the end of your coat for two weeks”
Bull’s-eye. She did not design that dynamic, but I often felt like I was riding her coattails. She is a star, an intellectual and creative force. When you fall into someone like that, you get swept by their gravity. Not a bad thing, but a thing.
Lines that landed
“Everywhere you go is swirling/
Everything you say has water under it”
The price of that brilliance is turbulence. Her orbit could be volatile, emotional, sometimes manic. Certainty was rare. Six months out, I am only now realizing how insecure it felt to live inside that weather.
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“Water under it” reads as weight and undertow. What she said carried depth and consequences. TV shows, Sondheim lyrics, personal relationships, none of it was inconsequential.
“You know I keep your fingerprints/
In a pink folder in the middle of my table”
Berninger can be esoteric, but this one feels plain: reverence on the edge of obsession. We leave fingerprints without thinking. Choosing to keep and display them is a declaration.
“You’re the tall kingdom I surround/
Think I better follow you around”
Nico does have a kingdom, and she was every bit the queen. Outwardly vibrant and idyllic, the center of many worlds. Inside was not peaceful. She was sad, troubled, haunted. I wanted to be the moat. You cannot protect someone from their own demons.
“You might need me more than you think you will”
She would not have expected it at first, but she grew to need me. When she ran into her ex and spiraled, she came to me. When the cops hassled her after a night out, she came to me. When work felt bleak, she came to me. I was there to keep her on an even keel.
I also wanted her to need me. I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone, and I thought that reliance would hold us together through the ambiguity. It probably did, for a while. Being someone’s rock is not enough to make a relationship work.
“You keep changing your fancy, fancy mind/
Every time I decide to let it go”
Fifteen months of talking every day to someone you love who does not officially feel the same is brutal. I wrote and deleted more messages than I can count saying I could not do it anymore. Then a gift, a compliment, a full day of talking. Close enough to stay; not close enough to be loved.
“I was up all night again/
Boning up and reading the American dictionary/
You’ll never believe me what I found”
Not literal dictionary-reading. It is the compulsion to bone up, to impress. The funny part is she liked me as I was. She pursued me. I still felt I had to be sharp, always on. Exhausting. I thought hearing how she felt would steady me, but she could not go there. Full vulnerability felt dangerous to her. People leave. No one stays. She believed that. I still do not know how she truly felt. When I finally asked, she said, “you’re my friend.” It landed like a slap after more than a year of near-constant communication.
How it fit us
When I first built the playlist, “Brainy” was there just to mark intellectual attraction. Listening closer, the whole song fit. Attraction to someone highly intelligent is complex because the relationship is complex. That was us.
A complex song for an incredibly complicated love.
Next week: a track that uncannily captures our dynamic. Follow to get it in your feed.
I’m writing a memoir about loving someone who was terrified of love. Join me on Substack for weekly essays, or follow me on Bluesky at @thomrmirror.bsky.social
