“Your Mind Is Not Your Friend” is a collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers who also features on “This Isn’t Helping”, from the upcoming album. The song emerged during a period of writer’s block for Matt Berninger – a challenge he partially overcame with the help of Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein.

“When I feel stuck, I’ll often grab a book off the shelf just to get some words in my head, and the first two pages of Frankenstein ended up triggering “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend”,” Berninger recalls. “The book starts off with the narrator on a voyage near the Arctic Circle, and that image of being adrift helped me to write about feeling disconnected and lost and lacking in purpose. Once I started confronting that strange, blurry panic of not having ideas, everything began to crack open a bit.”

The wistful, nostalgic video for “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend” stars Matt’s brother Tom Berninger who made a film about The National in 2014 – Mistaken For Strangers. Extending the sibling theme, the clip was directed by Jackson Bridgers, Phoebe’s brother, and was filmed at locations around Los Angeles.

In recognition of the song’s mental health theme, The National is making a donation to TinyChanges.org, the charity established in the memory of Frightened Rabbit lead singer Scott Hutchinson by his family. “Scott made tiny changes that had a big impact,” they write on the charity’s website. “His honesty and openness about his own mental health inspired people from all walks of life.”