Sunday, February 16, 2025

Little Simz to curate Meltdown Festival 2025

Little Simz is set to curate this year's Meltdown festival. Returning between June 12 and June 22, the annual...

Latest Posts

Ozzy Osbourne will only do ‘little bits and pieces’ with Black Sabbath at farewell concert

Ozzy Osbourne will just be doing "little bits and pieces" with Black Sabbath during his final gig. The Prince...

Inhaler’s Elijah Hewson wishes dad Bono offered more advice

Inhaler frontman Elijah Hewson wishes his dad Bono would give him more advice. The 25-year-old singer insisted he hasn't...

Sir Ringo Starr loves living in Los Angeles

Sir Ringo Starr loves the "atmosphere" of Los Angeles. The 84-year-old icon - who first found fame as a...

Gary Brooker brought back to life on unique version of A Whiter Shade of Pale on Think Loud 4 Parkinson’s charity record

A unique version of Procol Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ featuring late singer Gary Brooker is among the songs on new...

The National’s Matt Berninger combined his own insecurities with Cyrano story for Somebody Desperate

The National frontman Matt Berninger wrote ‘Somebody Desperate’ about “someone confronting their own insecurities”.

The quintet’s new single – which appears in the end credits of the new film adaptation of ‘Cyrano’ – deals lyrically with honesty, and while the words intertwine with the film’s plot, he also drew on a lot of personal experience.

Matt told NME: “It’s a song about someone being honest about not being honest with themselves, and about not being honest with other people.

“It’s someone confronting their own insecurities, and how they put on false pretences to cover up those insecurities.”

He explained how he was able to channel his “own insecurities” and emotions, and combine them with the story itself when it came to the soundtrack as a whole, which saw him and his wife Carin Besser pen lyrics to music from The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner.

He added: “I was writing a lot from my own perspective and bringing my own insecurities and my own feelings to the story.

“It’s easy to channel what these characters are going through, because we all have these deep insecurities when it comes to our hearts, and I’ve written about this stuff forever.”

The new adaptation is based on the play ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’, which is in turn a fictionalised account of the poet of the same name, and it stars Peter Dinklage in the titular role.

Reflecting on his connection with the characters, Matt said: “I was really enthusiastic about it when Erica Schmidt [Dinklage’s wife and Cyrano script-writer] first approached us.

“It did feel in my wheelhouse, with all these romantically insecure characters where I could write about love and desire and fear.

“I grew up feeling like a little awkward teenager, and the story of somebody wooing someone they’re infatuated with through songs obviously really resonated with me. It’s a way to package their messy feelings into something beautiful.”

Latest Posts

Ozzy Osbourne will only do ‘little bits and pieces’ with Black Sabbath at farewell concert

Ozzy Osbourne will just be doing "little bits and pieces" with Black Sabbath during his final gig. The Prince...

Inhaler’s Elijah Hewson wishes dad Bono offered more advice

Inhaler frontman Elijah Hewson wishes his dad Bono would give him more advice. The 25-year-old singer insisted he hasn't...

Sir Ringo Starr loves living in Los Angeles

Sir Ringo Starr loves the "atmosphere" of Los Angeles. The 84-year-old icon - who first found fame as a...

Gary Brooker brought back to life on unique version of A Whiter Shade of Pale on Think Loud 4 Parkinson’s charity record

A unique version of Procol Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ featuring late singer Gary Brooker is among the songs on new...

Don't Miss

Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us Spotify streams jump a whopping 430 per cent post-Super Bowl

Kendrick Lamar's Drake diss song 'Not Like Us' saw a significant 430 per cent jump in Spotify streams following his Super Bowl...

Patti Smith sets 2025 dates to perform seminal debut album Horses in its entirety

Patti Smith is set to play a pair of London Palladium shows as part of a tour performing her seminal debut album...

Travis Scott would love to work with Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift

Travis Scott wants to collaborate with Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift. The 'Sicko Mode' hitmaker - who has worked...

Jessie J records comeback LP

Jessie J has been secretly recording a new album. The 'Domino' hitmaker has teamed up with Ryan Tedder -...

Jesse Eisenberg haunted by stint as ‘Saturday Night Live’ host

Jesse Eisenberg’s 2011 stint as host of ‘Saturday Night Live’ still lingers in his mind as one of the most “unbelievably inappropriate”...

Stay in touch

To be updated with all the latest news, offers and special announcements.