Turn on the radio these days - if you dare - and you're immediately bombarded by whatever fly-by-night recycled dance beats, or whatever Rhianna's got cooking up this week (that "Rockstar" song is truly dire, even if Slash dispenses what amounts to a lazy solo), or the disposable pop that's been dished down our throats from Justin Bieber or Ke$ha. This kind of pop leaves me with an "meh" feeling; I've heard it before, and there's nothing new that excites me.

However, every once in a while, it's refreshing to hear a song that fully captures how you feel at that exact moment. Or how you've been feeling for some time. The song "Afraid of Everything" by The National does that: it's the rare song that captures the fear and terror most men face during their mid-lives, when they've settled down and started to raise a family, and they live in constant dread of a world they can't control or protect their family from. 

 Lead singer Matt Berninger's lyrics are sublime, and his vocals, delivered in a semi-insistent baritone, interpret the urgency between the lines:

 Venom radio and venom television
I'm afraid of everyone, I'm afraid of everyone
They're the young blue bodies
With the old red bodies
I'm afraid of everyone, I'm afraid of everyone
With my kid on my shoulders I try

Not to hurt anybody I like
But I don't have the drugs to sort
I don't have the drugs to sort it out
Sort it out

I'll defend my family with my orange umbrella
I'm afraid of everyone, I'm afraid of everyone
With my shining blue star
Spangling anekatips tennis shoes on
I'm afraid of everyone, I'm afraid of everyone

With my kid on my shoulders I try
Not to hurt anybody I like

But I don't have the drugs to sort
I don't have the drugs to sort it out
Sort it out
I don't have the drugs to sort it out
Sort it out

Your voice is swallowing my soul, soul, soul
(repeat)

As a husband and the parent to an almost 3-year-old, I can fully appreciate Berninger's urgency; he'll do what he must to protect his family, but against what? What is it that he's so afraid of? 

It's obvious that it's not so much he's afraid of everything; he's afraid of how he can't control everything around him. I know that feeling all too well. 

And that line, "I don't have the drugs to sort it out" is amazing. I'm of that generation that medicates itself to cope with the everyday. Yet those drugs sometimes aren't enough; those drugs are supposed to help us, yet they're making us more fearful, or, in some cases, resigned to forever life in fear.

This is a great song from a terrific band that I've recently begun to enjoy more and more.