5. "Apartment Story" by The National (2007)

We're half awake in a fake empire. Somewhat chilling, thus begins the masterful Boxer. On opener "Fake Empire," a stark piano line moves into perfectly-timed drum fills and the song expands, like the rest of the album, into dark, groovy territory. Boxer is a masterpiece of early twenty-first century musical narrative--loosely-tied threads of love, loss, and dislocation. Lyrically and musically, Boxer's urban elegance shimmers in the streetlights, rewarding listen after listen with a rich, world-weary texture that can leave one bewildered and breathless. The album's sophisticated back-alley mix of chamber-pop, folk, and post-punk captures the perfect tone of modern city dreams.

"Mistaken For Strangers" reveals the sobering, friendless streets that we walk as adults; there was not a better song this decade (or album, for that matter) depicting the vagaries of the white-collar world.

You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends

when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery citibank lights

arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under

oh you you wouldn't want an angel watching over

surprise, surprise they wouldn't wanna watch

another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults

Given the decade of Enron, bear markets, and executive excess, The National's songs were timely and prescient. But if navigating the workplace was difficult, maintaining monogamous harmony was equally perilous.

"Start A War" details the quiet, earnest please of a broken relationship:

Whatever went away, I'll get it over again

I'll get money, I'll get funny again

Walk away now and you're gonna start a war

As one critic noted, Matt Berninger's characters toy with adulthood and dress for success, but they also grapple with near-paralyzing insecurity. Fortunately, it is the music's sublime assuredness, played in a deceptively subdued manner, that both underscores and alleviates the difficulties of the workplace and the bedroom. Strangely enough, it's out of this heavy context that the finest pop song of the decade was produced.

With its rolling drums and luxurious layer of guitars, "Apartment Story" sweeps up Berninger's perfect image of urban escape:

We'll stay inside till somebody finds us

Do whatever the TV tells us

Stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz for days

Like many of the band's songs, the narrative reflects the struggles of adult relationships.

Be still for a second while I try and try to pin your flowers on

Can you carry my drink I have everything else

I can tie my tie all by myself

I'm getting tied, I'm forgetting why

Yet it's the song's willingness to allow for the possibility of escape and connection that transcends into something universal.

Hold ourselves together with our arms around the stereo for hours

While it sings to itself or whatever it does

when it sings to itself of its long lost lost loves

I'm getting tied, I'm forgetting why

Tired and wired we ruin too easy

Sleep in our and clothes and wait for winter to leave

but I'll be with you behind the couch when they come

on a different day just like this one

Sophisticated, subtle, and beguiling, the song's vulnerable optimism builds to the splendid and repeated bridge-chorus. "Apartment Story" is proof that a four-minute pop song can resonate well beyond your living room walls. "So worry not / all things are well / we'll be alright / we have our looks and our perfume on."

Then there is the video, so wonderfully sweet and good-natured and, consistent with this list, one of the decade's best.

Why listen? "Apartment Story" actually gets better after dozens of listens. If the Beatles had written this song we would have been hearing incessantly about how great it is for the past forty years. But The D Man doubts that the Fab Four could have; unlike many bands, The National finally hit their creative stride well after growing up, working in real professions, and experiencing real relationships. "Apartment Story" is a product of having been part of the Establishment and then allowing that experience to color the song's imaginative (and escapist) power. Indeed, not everyone has to be a penniless, narrow-rounded vagabond on the way to making inspired music. The National's real-world experience, narratives, and musicianship is refreshing--and worthy of our appreciation.

Something else? "Slow Show," "Abel," "Secret Meeting," "All The Wine," "About Today."

BONUS: The band features two sets of brothers: Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Scott and Bryan Devendorf. That's pretty cool in The D Man's book. And Berninger and the Dessners played high school basketball together in Cincinnatti, Ohio. Ditto.