About the album

Musically, “How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?” features what Dessner calls maybe the “clearest distillation” of his varying songwriting and production styles. Songs like “Reese,” the Dessner-sung “Magnolia” and the elegiac “Hutch” are built on the kinds of tear-jerking piano melodies millions of fans have come to love from The National, but then move at their own pace toward unusual sonic destinations. “Aaron’s greatest gift as a collaborator is his ability to evolve and experiment with the emotional sound that is so natural to him,” Vernon says of the material.

That sense of shared experience extended to the new album’s title, which was coined by Swift after Dessner told her he wasn’t sure what to call the new album. Intuitively summing up the themes, she suggested titling it “How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?,” a question which she pointed out could refer to multiple subjects addressed therein: “childhood, family, marriages, a depression, a losing streak, a winning streak or a creative streak. Taylor saw it all so clearly,” Dessner says. “A year ago, we’d never even worked together. It’s so cool that this community keeps extending and that everyone who contributed to this album connected so naturally to the emotions at the heart of the music.”

Prescriptions