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Friday, October 9, 2009

Song / Love "Here Comes a Feeling You Thought You'd Forgotten"

Posted by Eric Grandy on Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 2:35 PM

Totally loving the new Vampire Weekend song stuck in my head, and had some further thoughts on the matter. First of all, someone pointed out that the band—who are smart guys, and who have just spent the past two years dealing with countless critics dissecting their art and aesthetics—are clearly just trolling the haters (who get dutifully apoplectic at any perceived notion of class or privilege) at this point with lyrics about their Mexican winter vacation and such. Second, it occurred to me that these lyrics ("in December, drinking horchata/I'd look psychotic in a balaclava") didn't just have a general precedent in the VW song "Campus" ("spilled keffir on your keffiyeh") but that in fact "Horchata" is a direct, probably conscious echo of that song's winning "exotic" drink/apparel formula—like so:

horchata:balaclava::keffir:keffiyeh

See what they did there?

Finally, I think people are getting caught on the obvious lyrical snags of this song and missing some really fun lyrical play happening deeper in the track—the way the lines repeat with small substitutions to come up with new meanings; the weirdly intimate imagery and dramatic tension of the couplet "With lips and teeth to ask how my day went/boots and fists to pound on the pavement"; the way all that organic matter comes pushing through the pavements and tool sheds of the workaday world just as the song hits its instrumentally overgrown climax (and, really, the whole song is about the tension between the workaday world—yes, even Vampire Weekends get the blues—and the dream of paradisaical escape...or at least it's about trying to choose between skiing and the beach for your winter break).

Also, I think the marimbas are cute.

Also, is it possible the SW music editor was let go just for being totally wrong about this song and what it means for VW's viability vis a vis some supposedly imminent "hipster" backlash? Alas, probably not. (For those who thought my previous post on this song was pre-emptive, though, it was in fact a lighthearted if perhaps too thinly veiled riposte to exactly this wrongheadedness.)

Comments (13) RSS

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I don't consider myself an dyed-in-the-wool VW hater; I've listened to their stuff and thought it OK, but never find myself coming back to it. This song isn't really changing that trajectory.

I tend to judge music initially by my response to how it sounds, and not to the words (unless there's some really awful phrase like "that bitch ain't a part of my life"), and to me this song manages somehow to sound both slapdash and overwrought at the same time - throwing a bunch of shit together and seeing what sticks, and doing the same back-and-forth a bunch of times, then recording some half-assed vocals (how many takes did he do?) to lay on top of the whole mess. I wouldn't necessarily change the channel or run out of the coffee shop if I heard it, but there's not much there that makes we want to listen again.

Posted by Levislade

on October 9, 2009 at 3:26 PM

Well, I tend to be a lyrics geek (I think most writers are), but I also think there's a fantastically catchy melody at the heart of this song, and I think the kind of flat back-and-forth song structure you describe is somewhat ameliorated by the addition or removal of little string parts or other touches here or there. What's wrong with the vocal takes?

Posted by Eric Grandy on October 9, 2009 at 3:44 PM

Eric, You make a compelling point, fashion forward individuals and terrorists are fond of keffiyehs, while balaclavas are all the rage with bank robbers and snowmobile enthusiasts.

Posted by Greydon Clark on October 9, 2009 at 3:46 PM

I don't know, the vocals just sound kinda pitchy and tentative to me.

Posted by Levislade

on October 9, 2009 at 4:01 PM

this band sucks by every human definition of what a band should be and you sit here dickin off about em while americans die in the streets of their own cities -- posted from an AT&T blackberry

Posted by Joy on October 9, 2009 at 5:06 PM

I confess that I'm so bad at listening to lyrics that it took me this long to realize that everyone was talking about balaclavas and not baklava.

Posted by josh

on October 9, 2009 at 7:42 PM

song is flames. also a beverage: aranciata.

Posted by andrewmatson

on October 9, 2009 at 8:05 PM

Drink that Kool-Aid Grandy! Drink it up! Taste good don' it??

oKay -- Jus' kidding.

My main prob is with the vocals too. Tentative is a good word for them, passionless works as well. Hard to put into words, but there's jus' no meat to 'em.

And I'm not a hater per-se. I recently downloaded a song by Warm Heart of Africa, with Koenig on lead vocals, and I find it vastly superior to this track.

I am listening to the song as I write, and I've finally figured out who he reminds me of. Ever hear of a dude named Nick Heyward? He had this band Haircut 100 in the 80's. I think they are the template that VW is based on. I also thought that the early Paul Simon comparisons were pretty lazy.

I'm not hearing this fantastically catchy melody either. The strings & marimba are nice touches though.

Mos' likely just comes down to one's taste in musics.

Posted by Keekee on October 9, 2009 at 9:52 PM

Disappointing lack of Grandy bashing in this post. Moving on!

Posted by The perfect troll on October 9, 2009 at 11:05 PM

this band blows and will be forgotten very soon.

Posted by taint on October 10, 2009 at 8:53 AM

i'm cutting out and framing this entire column.

eric, you and charles mudede are priceless. keep it up. you keep this paper from existing only as merely important. you send it to a place of eternal brilliance that is usually only found in outsider art.

maybe its a result of you inhaling exhaust fumes for breakfast, or maybe its the repeated violent donkey punches to your skull, forcing the exhaust pipe far into your cranium. did you fall down a flight of stairs with your iPhone in hand and this was composed?

holy crap you are priceless.
huzzah, young squire!

Posted by big mean old troll on October 10, 2009 at 11:55 AM

I really did not enjoy your 4th grade report, Eric. Please use bigger words and maybe a subject that isn't so goddamn retarded.

Posted by erics next report will be about his favorite smurf on October 10, 2009 at 1:06 PM

who, again, are these people that find mentions of horchata to be exotic appropriation? do they live in cities of even moderate size? I mean, I can get a glass of horchata from the fast food taco shop on the corner downtown.

Posted by josh

on October 12, 2009 at 5:25 PM