As most of you know, I’m a scientist. The latest in my scientific research tests the hypothesis that Matt Berninger and The National are incapable of writing a bad song. Good news, my hypothesis came true! That’s how scientific professionals talk, right? As if their hypotheses were wishes?

The National went on CBC’s show Q the other day (yesterday? What day is it?) and debuted two new songs, “I Need My Girl” and “Rylan.” Surprise! They’re both good. They also played “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” and Bon Iver sang back up vocals like he did at Coachella last year and like Sufjan did a while ago (no links, I’m lazy today). Upon immediate listen, I like “I Need My Girl” a bit more, but upon second listen I already really like the lyrics in “Rylan,” so it’s a toss up. Sidenote: Rylan sounds like a cool name. I wanna hang out with someone named Rylan. Except not the one from the song, because that Rylan sounds like a bit of a downer…

Here are both songs for your listening pleasure. If you’re familiar with their older song “Mr. November,” I invite you to sing those lyrics along with “I Need My Girl” because it’s basically the same rhythm and reminds me of it (without the loud parts). Science! Anyway, here you go.

“I Need My Girl”

“Rylan”