A brought home City of God last night, and M and I watched this amazing movie, again, with him because he'd never seen it. And then I fell asleep, happy to have spent time with my teenager, and woke an hour later to David Letterman introducing The National, who played "Fake Empire", the most beautiful song. How did my brain know to wake for this? I've never heard of The National. But the drumming, the privacy in the lead singer's voice. There's a music muse watching out for me so that I don't sleep through songs like this. (This also happened with "Unmade Bed" - Sonic Youth; "Turn On Me" - The Shins; "Wolf Like Me" - TV On The Radio - Letterman, again.) I downloaded Boxer and Alligator this morning, and while I write an essay about growing up in a musical family who stopped playing music together, I've been getting to know the band who woke me because I needed to listen.