What Is a Lemonworld?

I'll be the first to admit that my musical library is significantly expanding since my roommate, Sarah, met a boy who works for the radio station here on campus. He recommends artists to her, she plays them while in the apartment, and I in turn start to like what she's playing. Our newest discovery is The National, a Brooklyn-based band formed in 1999. The first song Sarah recommended was titled "Lemonworld," and to say that I became obsessed upon first listen would be an understatement. I'm not sure if it's the opening chords or the lyrics which give the song a haunting feeling, but being in the spirit of Halloween I'm all for it. The question of "What exactly is a Lemonworld?" arose when the lead singer and songwriter Matt Berninger sung the words "you and your sister live in a Lemonworld." I think a natural reaction would be to ask that exact question and wonder how exactly one would come to live in a Lemonworld. I'm not sure why, but the first thing that came to mind was that living in a Lemonworld was something similar to viewing things through rose colored glasses. Then I thought that maybe it something to do with a lemon being bright and colorful on the outside but sour within.
To find the answer to this pressing question, I took to the oh-so reliable world of the internet. Pretty soon though I found the answer I was looking for. A website called songfacts.com had a direct quote from Berninger.

A Lemonworld is an invented, sexy, weird place where you can escape from New York. I had some image of it being a big beautiful, maybe semi-decrepit house. You know the documentary Grey Gardens? It's set in a house out in the Hamptons, it's about this crazy mother and daughter who live there in their own little world. It's also very depressing and odd and beautiful. Anyways, I had this sense of a Lemonworld as a place where these two sexy sisters who wear bathing suits all the time and drink a lot, y'know, 'put flowers in my mouth and we can say we invented a summer lovin' torture party' – that's awesome! That's sexy, weird, and fun. My wife and her sister are very close in age, they're both hilarious and sexy and brilliant, so I think I was channeling them a little bit. It's a fun world.

After reading the words direct from the man who wrote the song, I couldn't imagine how it wasn't obvious before that this was what a Lemonworld was. Despite the fact that I have never seen or even heard of the documentary which he speaks of, I immediately pictured what he was talking about. An old Victorian house with enormous wrap around porches which looks perfect from far away but upon closer look you can see all the cracks and paint chips. Surrounding the house is a vast yard both in front and back, the grass as green as a Christmas tree. In this Lemonworld there's no such thing as not laughing or not being as carefree as you can. And in imagining this world, the listener slowly fades into it, leaving whatever surroundings they are currently in (mine being the Undergraduate Library) and just feeling at peace.