Songfacts®:

• The National wrote and recorded this morose tune for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack. Speaking to NME, the band's frontman Matt Berninger said it was initially deemed "too dark" by the film's makers. "The song almost didn't make it because it was too dark for The Hunger Games soundtrack, which I thought was sort of funny because It's about killing kids, I don't know how a song can be darker than that?" he said. "So we had to change the name of the song; I actually like the name 'Lean'."
  
  Berniger added: "The song was originally called 'Dying Is Easy' and I think that they thought it was a little too dark. But, you know, I get it. It was a really fun project…It was a cool change from how we normally work on things – to write something for something else. It was kind of a pressure release thing and it was fun, we really enjoyed it."