The Return of Vampire Weekend: Ezra Koenig with Ariel Rechtshaid

00:00:15Speaker 1: Pushkin until you get to that zen place where you accept the fact that by putting work out into the world you are not potentially opening yourself up to misinterpretation and unfair criticism, you are inviting misinterpretation. It's very easy to get in your head and be like, what's the point of this. A couple of months ago, Rick Ruber and I met up at Rick's Shangla Studios with Ezra Kanig, singer and songwriter for the band Vampire Weekend. It was a Sunday morning, not long before the fires had devastated the area. Kanig was putting the finishing touches on the band's first album in six years, Father of the Bride. Our deal with Ezra is that we weren't allowed to air this until the album finally came out, and now it has. In fact, it's the number one record in the country. I imagine that if this conversation had happened today, it would be different because the world has validated how brilliant Father the Bride is. But back in October, all of that was uncertain, which is what makes this conversation so fascinating. Rick knows Ezra well, and there seemed to be a deep bond of respect and affection between the two of them. I'd never met him before, and I was struck by how open and thoughtful he was. He came with his guitar, which was sitting on the floor until Rick gently suggested he hold it, and that's when Ezra really came alive. Father the Bride is the first Vampire Weekend record without Rostam Batmanleach. Rostam had been with the band for a decade and produced all of their albums, so it was a change to have Ariel Recksheed as this album's sole producer. Ariel, whose work with Adele, Blood Orange and Madonna, came with Ezra to Malibu that day and you'll hear him joining in the conversation talking about how he and Ezra worked together making sure the band was telling complete stories with their songs. Be earlier. Oh, you were going a Ampire Weekend D is a good I'm like, yeah, it's good. What's it like. I'm like, it's a lot of Ezra narrative that is now completed. Like each song has a message and it ends. So for the last episode of Broken Record season two, we bring you a special episode Ezra and Ariel with Me and Rick talking about the anxieties of putting out new music after such a long time away. I'm Matthew Blackwell, this is broken record. Of course, the past few years is like a little nerve racking, like, oh my god, this is taking so long, what's going on? And then now that we're here, I'm kind of like, I don't look back on any time in the past two years having been that would have been a good time to release a Vampire Weekend album. I don't know if next year is a good time, but definitely the last two years weren't a good time. And yeah, I'm kind of been enjoying like thing to stuff and pushing it and you know it just feel it feels right in a weird way? Does it When you say you're pushing it? Is it because you're going back over things over and over again or are you walking away from them? What are you doing a little bit of both. There's one song that we've tweaked so many times and probably to a lot of people, the difference is negligible, but we got it to a place where we're a little happier with how it sounds, and it's barely even arrangement. Some very slight arrangement things. It's mostly mixing. I think it's all arrangement. There is a moment where like the mixing becomes turn this up, turn this down, but that takes five minutes. It's like cracking the code on arrangement is really what it's When the arrangement's right, there's a there's a wide margin of correct for the mix. I think, yeah, that's why we start mixing and mastering songs and then they're not necessarily done, and then we listen to the what a final version would sound like, and then we go back to the drawing board and how many iterations do you have? You had of this song a lot. But the funny thing is that with everything on its record, the majority of what you hear, the spirit of what you hear, came very quickly, actually, and it's just kind of holding on to what was good about the initial burst of creativity, but also making it like a you know, a little bit more correct. If that even makes any sense. It's hard to articulate because it doesn't. There is no rationale behind. It's just like a feel thing. But in terms of a proachial sessions, how many are there for the sime a lot hundreds, yes, hundreds of different versions, no hundreds of sessions, and so what that means is like hundreds of like okay, like it could be as simple. It's just this is a little bit louder than that, and that's saved. Like you know that such a number one, twenty one, but like big picture changes on this song, not that man fairly mind. Yeah, it's not like when because up until this final up until his final push, which was like me just being like, I'm not going to be, you know, oppressed by this original version anymore. I'm going to break the mold of like the drums that we were holding onto and all this stuff. Up until then, it was pretty much just like two versions like the original and then like starting to um one bpm slower or two bpm slower, and then like maybe a few piano flourishes and stuff like that, you know, but the palette never changed. Like it's not like one of those stories where it's like a Heart of Glass was like a slow reggae song and then became disco. So so truly, even within these hundreds of slight variations, there's somebody you might play them the very first version, this version they'd be like and they'd know they were different recordings, but in spirit, yeah, maybe not that different. Do you want to play the song? Sure? Could play? Could just played it right off here. This is the most res version of this song that we've been tweaking forever. Wait, when you were listening that time, there's still things you want to do to it. I mean sometimes when we listen to it with other people, it passes behind such a blur that I can't tell if I can't even tell what I think about it. Did you hear anything you wanted to change? You can always hear it things, But you know, the second I hear something, I also hear the conversation that you and I are having right after I have that thought, and it's like it's not worth it. Yeah, that song for whatever reason, because it's this weird like middle tempo. That's probably why it's been frustrating for us that there's times, depending on how much coffee I've had or how tired I am, that I can hear it as fast or slow. So sometimes, especially when we're playing for other people, the whole thing feels very fast and goes by quickly, the same way like if you have to like you know, like give a speech in front of people, like and then you're there and you're just like it goes by the very quickly. So I don't know, it's hard. It's hard to like listen diligently in that that kind of situation. But in broad strokes, it's like it's how the song is supposed to be. So it's interesting to me, is I haven't heard it probably in six months. Yeah, and it sounds maybe three percent different, that's all it is. But it's better. Okay, thank god, that's good. It feels much more finished than it did before, much more great, which is interesting because not a lot has changed. Yeah, well then you and you know this, that's the hardest thing. Yeah, you know, when you're sort of like you're in this like beautiful old house and you're there's something wrong, it's like a little crooked and you're like just trying to fix it without redoing it. It changes a lot of stuff. Yeah. So, and especially and especially with us because I go when, like I was saying before, sometimes I'm surprised when I go back to an old recording by how bad my voice sounds, or how rough something is, or how maybe something seems a little off, and so then I've also wondered at times, is that part of what makes that probably weekend who we are is being a little fucked up, being a little non professional. So that's always like a funny push and pull like that. We've very rarely used outside mixers in the band on a couple of tracks on the last album, and on a couple of tracks on this album, including this song, because there's always been that fear of like if our should sounded too good or two finished, would it not be us? So that's also this whole other conversation to get stressed about. Do you remember when you wrote this? What was the first thing that came It's it's a little bit complicated because the oldest version of this song, which included some of the lines, was I guess the a version of Stone Wells of hominy ahtle Bait Witness Anybody with a Word in Man, and originally was almost like this kind of baroque tweet like Kinks type song. And actually the only aside from the lyrics, the only vestigial element of that is that kind of baroque part bum bum bum bum bump with our pages. So it was kind of like a very different type of song, and so it kind of started with I guess what we would call the chorus, um, did you write it on the piano? Yeah, that part on the piano, and then I wrote the guitar part boom separately, and then we started working together, but not even necessarily I mean correct. Yeah, the way these songs, my experience with Ezra and the songs is there lots of ideas from lots of different places that we kind of stitched together most oftentime. Definitely, definitely with this one. Yeah, it's like several So the riff was not part of the original song. No, no, So it was fun because you know, like sometimes you have a good verse and then it's like time to write the chorus, and that's always that's always like such sucks because then the chorus is going to be the most important part. And if the chorus is not as good as the verse, it's really frustrating and you might throw the whole song away. So at least here, in a weird way, we were starting with a chorus, a chorus E part and then we had to work backwards to um. Basically my memories that there was this there's a song that had this, and the chord progression goes like five one four, And then I remember we were we were sitting there talking, well, we don't want to have the entire song be five one four bomb bomb bomb guitar. Yeah, yeah, you have better access. Yeah. So the part that I originally wrote on piano, you know, the chords are so it's this isn't B, so it's F sharp B. So we already had the stars Feminine Witness and about it, so that was pre existing. And then and then I think at some point we look back and we're like, well, if the song is five, I mean, these are like the simplest chords ever. So they're like, it's five one four, what could the verse be? And they were like, what might make sense of the verse would start on one. So I just I vaguely remember us sitting at your house in front of the computer, being like, the chords could start out on one and something could happen and just kind of like singing jamming. And then I think I thought of that riff, being like, well I had this riff that one, and they we're like, oh, that makes sense because it's it's like then then the verse goes one, No, no, and a little four, one four, and then it feels kind of big to go five and you know, you're talking about one, four, and five, the most classic chords ever. So it's not some huge mystery, but that's kind of how it started to come together. And then I'd say, like write lyrics to it to make sure that there was actually some sense of storytelling or that it made sense to me. And I worked on that a bunch with another friend of ours, Dave Maclevich, who's kind of served as like my editor for the first time I really had like an editor on this, just somebody to be like. I would show him the lyrics, you look at them, kind of mark them up, be like that that doesn't sound like you. That's that's a little trite. Whatever. What does this mean? Well, I mean, I don't know if that's what you're that's what editors doing, Okay, it's so it's almost disheartening to feel like to hear that you have to go through the same prosaic bullshit that writer. Well, I actively sought it out and didn't so because I would because I always think that, like especially on the early Vampire Weekend albums, and maybe that's some of the charm. I know when there's like a filler verse that is pure I don't want to say it doesn't make sense, because that's being a little too hard on myself, I think. But you know, when there's a verse that's pure vibe, and I think just being a little older and wanted to try something more challenging, and also just having more experiences, many more different types of musicians and stuff, because you know, we just had the band. I hadn't been around other people's processes before because I get older and I'd sometimes get invited to a session just watch a bunch of people pause and be like, what's the song about. That was big for me because as realise, I'd never done that before. What's the song about? I almost thought that was a prosaic question, what's the song about? Like what's life about? You know, it's just like it's about many things, like what's Oxford Comma about? He asked me what Oxford Comma was about? Man? And now actually I can, I can explain what it's about. But so in these songs, I don't know if they're anymore is specific. There's there's other songs on the album that are very straight forward in a sense. But on this song, I was really like, it was nice to have somebody to bounce stuff off. But you know, me and Ryl did that too, but Dave was like very specifically, like the kind of lyrical editor. So I could really think about I already had this thing, the stone Walls of Harmony, Hall Bear Witness, and this stuff is still viby. There's still going to be people who say the song doesn't make any sense, but this one truly makes a lot of sense to me. So I had to pause and say, Okay, I have this chorus, what does that chorus mean? What are verses that would add to it? And so like we really went back and forth a few times about like, you know, tweaking small things, and I remember one of those lyrical tweaks on this song. Yeah, the So there's always the stone Walls of Harmony, Hall Bear Witness. Anybody with a worried mind could never forgive the site. And then the next part used to be different. I don't remember what it was. I almost remember a bit witness and about it with Wooded mac netfal gave the side. I don't think it was always wicked, It wasn't wicked. We landed on wicked and like it was. I was like, I was excited. Wicked is one of my favorite words, and this is like for the real heads, the real Vampire Weekend heads will know that I've used that word on a few occasions, one of which is on the on the Beyonce song what a Wicked Way. Those are like my two these will be my two real wicked lyrics. Um So Wicked Snakes was something, and I remember coming up with dignified was exciting because I was like, oh, dignified is exactly the type of it makes sense in the context of what I mean. And also, you know, this song has like a touch of like stonesy energy, and I remember thinking that, like, dignified sounds like one of those words that kind of gives Mick Jagger. I don't know who wrote the lyrics. Keith and Mick Jagger lyrics their flavor because I always liked defend them passionately when people like they're just like ripping off blue songs and country and you know, American or whatever, and I'd always be like, yes, that's true. And for whatever reason, though I don't know if it's their englishness or just their sensibility as human beings. They have these funny words, just like when Macture was like I saw her to day, the reception. I just always think that, Like, it's so funny and weird that he said reception. I don't know why, just like to me that he's aid reception is WEIRDO. It's not a song word. Well, don't hear reception a lot in songs? Yeah, and then his delivery reception and dignified is not a song word. It's yeah, not typically that's what makes it great. I remember at first it was something about At first it was undignified, which I thought was even better. What are you snice inside place? I remember I wanted to it was gonna be like dun d d D dune and they and so undignified. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that doesn't sound like me anymore. That's funny. But what you thought was country, it's so uni yeah, dignified. I wouldn't be surprised that popped up in some weird country song. We'll be back after the break. We're back with Vampire Weekends. Ezra Kennick and producer Ario Recksheed. When you said, the editor sometimes said to you, that doesn't sound like you. What is something that doesn't sound like you. Does that mean? I know that gets so weird. It's He's just it's it's that one you just know when you see it. Well, he's also he's a musician, so he's in a band called Chromeo, and more than anything's an old friend of yours. He's an old friend and he knows and he knows Vampire Weekend really well. So he knows the modes of Vampire Weekend and so he would often tell me that that something should be a little more yah hey, because that's one of our songs on the last album, which is probably one of our like heavier, more biblical songs. And so he would have a shorthand for referring to Vampire Weekend songs and being like, you could bring a little more of that side of yourself out here. And you know, I've I've always had this experience with lyrics because they're so personal to me that, um, you know, I'll go to the mat for something that I like. But I've always found working with other people, whether it's R. L. Rostam as producers or Dave specifically as this type of lyrical editor where I know I know when I'm trying to slip some bullshit through, you know. So if somebody says like, I'm not sure I like that lyric, but it's one that I know. I know it makes sense, I know it's poetic, I know it's me. Then I'll say to them like, okay, all right, you don't like it, that's all right. Maybe you had you had a bad experience with that phrase before. But when somebody said says like, I don't know about that one, and I know it was one of those ones that I was sneakily trying to just hope nobody noticed because I knew it was cliched, stupid, meaningless whatever, And then they it's like then they're pushing on a sore point and I'm like, oh, fuck, you're right. Then I know I have to rewrite it so and I don't think I could ever do that by myself. Yeah, there is some sense of as you're writing, you'll have sort of the key lines that you know work and that sort of make the song the song, and then there's a little bit of a jigsaw puzzle of sort of filling in the rest, and it happens to varying degrees of success, Like some of the lines end up just being sort of passing lines. But if someone's reading the passing lines as if they carry the same weight as the main lines, then it does force you to sort of analyze the lyrics more. You know, for the sake of telling the story, it doesn't make a difference, but for the sake of the poetry, it makes a difference. You could do it musically or lyrically, that that feeling of you know the song has special moments, so you know it's a worthwhile song, and then there's this feeling but could what if you went back and turns some of the world parts into the best parts, then the whole thing is better. And I think that happens a lot too, where somebody writes a good chorus and you know it's a good chorus, and you're like, well, who cares if verse three sucks? But if you're talking about like a Leonard Cohen or somebody who would spend years revising, and then you look at like it's cliche it now, but like a song like Hallelujah, and you're like, damn verse three and four of that song. I also have to say, I don't know exactly what verse three and four of that song are, but I know some of those later verses, like the one about have senior flag on the marble arch or something, and you're like that, to me, maybe is one of the best lines in the whole song, and maybe that's better than the opening verses or something. And then that's what makes it probably such a durable, strong song that there's so many entry points, and I don't know, can you pick another song from the album and can we do this a very similar kind of I've got kind of one that was fun and that I think Dave really helped me understand what it's about, and r L really helps understand what it was supposed to sound like. And this one is a tiny bit. They're like two people who said that this was not their favorite song on the album. So I always have been presenting this within our circles, like this one's a bit controversial because some people they're favorite, some people it's not. And it's this one called married in a gold Rush, and it's, uh, it's funny because we did the earliest version before RL. You put in that like weird chopped up choir stuff and the weird drums was kind of like fairly straightforward folky country on acoustic guitars leg and that so basically, let's started with the chorus kind of oh no no. I had this verse. I knew that it was cool to start a song something this hat. Something's happening in the country, and the governments to blame. We got married in a gold rush and the rush has never the same. I just thought that was a fun way to open a song. And I like this concept that married in a gold rush. It just seemed like it's one of those things that it sounds like two bizarre things slapped together. You know. It's like married in a fever plus plus something about a gold rush, you know, turned together. And then the more I thought about it, I was like, but I always like when seemingly random things actually start to feel very meaningful. And then I thought about it and I was like, married a goldish makes a lot of sense to me. It's it's how I feel about life and the world and stuff. And then I was talking about it with Dave and I was like, is this just gonna seem like and it's still might I gotta be honest, but is this just gonna come across like like a goofy lightweight country excursion? And we talked about like, well, people are gonna hear it how they hear it, and I think the production the arrangement helped take it out of that territory. But people are gonna hear it how they hear it, and all that matters is that it's like meaningful to me. So we talked a lot about the chorus and also the songs. The duet, so it's a man and a woman's sing. It's Daniel him on the record. So the chorus goes like, I don't want to hear the rumors, please don't say it. Laugh. I just want to go out to night and make my baby proud. And then she goes, but who's your baby good? If you don't know about now, there's two seats on Midnight Train. The gold won't weigh us down. And I think originally this reminds me also how long we've been working on this album, is that I remember when that Ed Sheeron song came out, with that kind of like tropical Ed sheer And song where he's like there's some part where they'd say go like, boy, you've done to go. And I remember when that came out, which already feels like a million years ago. But I remember we've been working on the song from and be like, oh damn, he said that too. That just to give some perspective on how long we take. But wait long enough, we will all have for out and get surance. Yeah no, that's that's why we have to wait another another couple of years. But to that one, I remember, before it fully came together, I knew. I think it started out it was kind of more just some cliched, random, like you know, rewrite of a country song from somebody who didn't fully engage with the material. I think originally I just had some vague lyrics that went like like I don't want to hear it, baby, please don't say it. Laugh, I just want to go out to night and make my daddy proud boy. Who's your daddy? Girl? If you don't know about that, it was like some weird I don't know why I wanted to say daddy. That just seemed funny to me. My dadd used to play this some old country song called roly Poly Daddy's a Little Fatty? Is that like a fan of song? You guys know, roly Poly Daddy is a little Fatty's fat, little fat He eats corntators. He's gonna grow up to be a big man. Some days, I don't know. The word daddy seemed funny to me. That's a real story that you're telling. Yeah, that's a real song. Roly Poly Daddy's little fatty he was. He wasn't fast damming there. Yeah. So he had like some strong country selections, but it was one of many genres. But so I had this I thought it was I couldn't get off the word daddy in the song for some reason. And so but then I talked with David, like, well, what does that mean? And then I'm like, well, maybe maybe daddy's a metaphor. Also, the album is called Father of the Bride, and I've had that name in my head for a long time, so the concept of like father as a metaphor was already interesting to me. But but I just want to go out tonight and make my daddy proud. And then then the woman's asking, boy, who's your daddy? And then I remember just trying to come up with like some metaphysical answer. So there were like some bad versions where I basically said, well, you know, my Daddy's like I can't remember what it was like the sky above or it was like some kind of weird philosophical thing. And then we talked about, like, what is this daddy shit it does? It doesn't make any sense, and then we kind of realized it's the whole point of the song, and in some ways, the whole album is trying to write songs that are about real conversations between people, which is the one thing in Vampire Weekend songwriting. Even though I've done a lot of stuff I wanted to do, I've never done something that's simple, which is something as I get older, I admire more a song where you know who the narrator is, you know what the situation is, you know what they're talking about, and it's something semi universal about the relationships between human beings. So so then it became little by little we talked about it. We almost started to like I remember Dave and I just having these long discussions about because I knew on a gut level what married in a gold rush meant to me, and it was like something came together when times were good and now it's done, and gold rush adds this kind of like element of greed and finance to it, and I was like that that means a lot to me, and so then we just had to but we had to expand it a little bit to kind of paint a story about it. And we're like, uh, like, what does it mean that he wants to like make his baby proud? And he's trying to tell the woman like and you know, maybe they're teasing each other a little bit, but you know, she's saying, who's your baby. He's like, come on, don't you know by now it's you essentially, and like let's get on the let's get on the train. Let's not let the gold waist down. And we just kind of started to like talk about situations throughout history and you know, and I remember at some point we were just talking, he brought up the uh the family that owned like the climped painting in Austria or something, you know, and not to make it Judeo Holocaust centric, but just situations where a golden era ends abruptly and people have to get out of dodge and leave their shit. So anyway, just the fact that Dave kind of helped recontextualize the lyrics with some type of setting for a second, then the whole thing became more meaningful. To me, and I didn't have to worry as much about Daddy and stuff. I was like, Oh, these are two people in a situation. Maybe they're trying to have a sense of humor about it, but I don't want to say it specifically about that. But even just him throwing out that example started making me think of other stories and situations I was aware of, and just gave the whole thing a little more grav a toss and just grounded it for me. And so in a weird way, like I was talking about before this experience I had in my late twenties of being in a session with people and somebody like being like, hold on, what's what's the song about? Who's talking in the song? And that being very novel to me, kind of this was like our version of it where I was like a lyric, a vague concept, you know, that's all I had. And then and then for us to really the only way that we kind of improve on it was to say like, rather than searching for a vibe daddy metaphor, to say like, let's like, stop, what are these people talking about? And then suddenly, even though I can totally imagine for a certain type of listener. At the end of the chorus, there's two seats on the Midnight Train. The gold Mount weighs down. Could come across as a cliche, because the Midnight Train is, you know, just a cliche of songwriting. By that point, I was kind of into it because I was like, I like that this song maybe as a series of cliches that comes together to mean something to me, and whether the and I know some people will will hear what I hear and some people might not. But then, but then suddenly, rather than being a string of random things pulled from songs, it suddenly felt like something that was meaningful to me. And married and gold rush and midnight Train and all that stuff actually was telling a very specific story rather than just being a fun mashup of references. Can you play us a little more of it? Well, it's funny because it is a duet, so singing her parts in falsettle, we're kind of we're singing a pretty similar range on the side, it's probably lower than yours. Yeah, So so yeah. The opening thing is I go, something's happening in the country, and the governments to blame. We got married in a gold rush in the rush has never felt the same. And then Danielle comes in shed a moment at cafe shed kissing, pouring rain. We got married in a gold rush and side gold would Loiz bring mid pain. Then it goes into the chorus. But so that even that's an example where it's like the I think I already had that line. There's something I liked about the female voice singing shit a moment in a cafe that's some like Mick Jagger shit. I just thought it. And again it's like it's I think with our songs and the way we talk about music and what we do, there's there's literally moments where we sit around. I found sometimes people have been like found at bizarre when they hear me talk, And I think this is a lot of it comes from Dave and I think Uriel share is a similar sensibility. We'll be talking about something just be like, yo, that's funny, and people be like, what are you talking? You're not like making like a comedy, But we do use funny a lot to refer to things that we mean kind of like interesting, meaningful, surprising. So at first I think having a song like this and just having somebody go cafe just seemed funny. Shit moment in cafe shit kissing parn Rain we got married in a gold rush and the sagous with pain. But then as we started to say, like fill it out a little bit, and again this is like the shit that maybe only is meaningful to us, but you know, talking to Dave and even when he starts talking about this kind of you know, Viennese Jewish family owning a climped or something, and again didn't try to jam that into the song itself, but even just to have that vision or that that vibe in the back of my head, suddenly the references to gold felt a little more meaningful. And then even the reference to a cafe cafe felt a little more meaningful too, because then you start thinking about like that was the Golden Age Viennese cafe culture, or you know, there's a similar shit in Germany, and then even the word cafe stop being just kind of funny to like put into a song, and almost had this weird resonance. And again you cannot there's no way you can guarantee that the listener will remotely have that resonance. But yeah, that's another example of how having that kind of editor writer type relationship, help me clarify what the song was about, and help me go back and be like, well, if that's what the song is about, the word daddy is just stupid, but the word cafe actually looks better in that light. We'll be back with more from Ezra and Ariel after the break we're back. How much time do you think about what other people are going to think of the songs versus what you think of the songs? Too much? Constantly? And that's probably also part of the issue with why it's so much more fun to work on the record than to release it, Because until you get to that zen place where you accept the fact that by putting work out into the world you are not potentially opening yourself up to misinterpretation and unfair criticism, you are inviting misinterpretation. You know, until you get to the place where you just accept that that's the way of the world and how it is, it kind of it's very easy to get in your head and be like, what's the point of this. I already did what I wanted to do. Now I have to I know some people will like this and be excited, and some other people will misinterpret it, and you know, call the thing that I think is meaningful dumb, and call the thing that I think is dumb meaningful, and just knowing that it's going to happen. I haven't gotten to a place yet where I can fully kind of laugh about that. That still puts me off, makes me less enthusiastic about releasing things. How does the conversation end in so well, then the second verse goes, yeah, let's just go through the verses real quick, just because I like the second verse. The second goes hanging gardens turn to desert, and then she goes, oh that love in turn. Hey, we got married in a gold rush and those wedding bears were ringing out of faith. And then oh, then there's a bridge. Third verse is the best. Yeah. Then the third verse goes the third verse so after there's this kind of bridge where this this extended metaphor of like an empty mind in an abandoned mind town. Then then the third verse goes, I go, I thought you might learn some manners, and then she goes, I thought you might learn to sing, and then we go we were born before the gold Rush, so I cannot remember anything that one's I think I was happy with that that mix of tone, because like the first part I love in those old country songs when they roast each other. That was a song that my dad familiarized with me growing up, was I think. I think it's Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. It's one of the classic duet partner repairs. But they have the song like, you know, the reason our kids ugly little darling. And I just realized, like some of those the country duets are very emotional, but other ones they're just funny, and they have that tone of like roasting each other. You're the reason I've changed from beer is soda pop. You're the reason I, you know, like being a little mean to each other. So I thought there's something funny about I thought you might learn some manners. I thought you might learn to sing. That just seemed like what the yeah, what Lauretta Lyn would sing to Conway or Tammy Whynet would sing to George Jones or something. But then the next part we were bonded before the gold Rush, so I can't I remember anything. I think that kind of brings it back to the more eerie feeling of what the song is really trying to communicate, some feeling of we got brainwashed through this like good time, golden era, and now it's over and I can't even remember what happened before then, so clearly we have to look to the future. And then then the fine end of it goes, why can't I remember anything? Oh, I want to put things back together. I want to give it. Don't want to take time to disavow the gold rush and the bitterness that's flourished in its wake. I don't want to hear the rumors. And there's one last kind of slightly more triumphant chorus, but yeah, that's that. That basically is the resolution, and even that's new for a Vampire Weekend song to have resolution. I mean, we've definitely had a lot of third verses that took the song to a new place. But to me, when it's two people talking to each other in some weird transitional moment, that is a type of resolution, like I want to put things back together, I want to give it, don't want to take time to disavow the gold rush and the bitterness that's flourished. And it's way that also gets back to some that make Jaggers shit, just like throwing him. It's like extra words like flourished. Um. But but again that part is meaningful to me, that that I remember the first demo we had of this before the song got like got the cool drums and the cool groove and the things that really make the recording what it is. There was a version that was like upright bass and yeah, and I did, and I felt the story was shining through, but it still wasn't. It all kind of comes together, but it all leads off of the concept of the song. Yes, it's the form is kind of country, but it's not derivative country music, you know. We I think you and I both have too much respect for George Jones. For George Jones, Um is he your favorite? I like him a lot um, you know, I like I like all the all the basic people that everybody likes, Tim At, George, John's, Conway and Loretta Um. And we're not above having gone through some some low hanging fruit ideas on the way, right, I mean right, like we don't even you know it would have. And also I think if if we had gone full country, it would the song would just be less interesting. What's cool about this song is sometimes you play it for people and people be like it's like a country song and then other people just be like, Oh, that's cool, and that's that's a very interesting thing about country. And is that the back in the day, remember that we've we've joked about this a lot. Back in the day, people there used to be a thing that that people would say, I guess like white middle class American teenagers generally would say, I like everything's at rapp and country. And then my joke over the past few years is kind of India has declined or whatever has been Like people used to say they liked everything except rapper country. Now music is only rap or country, like because the middle ground of rock music or indie rock doesn't make sense to a lot of people. Um, And I'm just I'm saying that as just an observer. So if so, the idea that you like everything but rapper country, what isn't wrap slash country? Got rap country, country, rap, rap, rock country rock? You know what what is not rapper country? Um? But if we do you hear that turned up on the on the weekend record? Oh yeah, turn up on the weekend. That guy's from the Upper east Side by the way, um, which it's called big Wet. Yeah, it's like a country rap record but ridiculously from Yes so Native Persona. It's it's like auto tune country rap went to Dalton. Then yeah, probably very literally may have gone to Dalton. But but there's something about like kind of realizing that, oh country. It is kind of lame when people go country, because country is one of the pillars of American music. And also even when people used to say these silly things like I like everything but rap or country, they were listening to country. You know, like, I guarantee I may have even known this person when I was like growing up. You know that there's probably a kid somewhere who's like, oh man, I hate country, Like what do you like? Like Bruce Springsteen, The Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, you'd be like, yeah, you hate country, right, you literally are listening to country. I like the Rolling Stones, You're these guys lit half their songs are country. You gripple didn't even have pedal steel sometimes, but yeah, but again the like, yeah you like the River by Bruce Springstein, but you don't like country. You know, at some point you're just calling things by different names. And and I think kind of realizing that made it feel like, Okay, there's there's nothing wrong with kind of leaning a little bit into country as a songwriting form or or a pillar of American music, but there's something that just didn't feel like us about going country. So we tried to make sure that we there's some brief moments on the record that lean that way, but it's it ultimately hopefully comes across as one of many flavors. And and I'd like to think of the song in both the songwriting and the h and the production and arrangement tips its hat a little bit to some of these classic country duets, but not in some like big like dress up genre way, like the way that you know, like the Wrong Stones, Far Away Eyes. It's literally Mick Jagger being like I'm a stupid Southern ner. Like he literally puts on this voice and it's like I've ran ten red lines for geez. I was like, that's a that's a bit much. I do like that song, but it's still have been much hopefully we just you know, kind of using it as a almost as like a poetic form the country duet. What what do you learn from that? You know, two people talking each other in a country song. What do you take from that other than you know, pedal steel in southern accents, you know, did you always have your who you said? You said your duet partner was, oh, Danielle Him from the band Him, And there's three duets with her on the record and she's a big part of it. Did you always have her in mind when you were when you were writing those duets? No, I had not, exactly, and even in some weird so it's originally I kind of thought, well, man, we'll get a country person, a country singer that could be interesting some like you know, reach across the aisle type thing, and had some conversations and reached out to a couple of people when I had like one conversation with somebody's manager about like, you know, maybe bringing them in and with this person who's like a fairly well known country singer. And then the manager responded and was like, oh, you know, she she knows Vampire Weekend a little bit. She thinks she thinks you guys are cool, like can we jump on the phone talk? But so I talked with her, and I, you know, kind of made a pitch to her about why I think it could be interesting. She was like, all right, well, you know, just to just send us the song and we'll take it from there, which I think is very typical in almost every form of music, including modern Nashville country, where somebody where where you would of course it makes sense send us the song, we'll see if we like the song. And then we were like making a making a little bounce to send and there's something about it just didn't feel right. We just couldn't bring ourselves to send the bounce because it was like there's something about it that just felt too empty. And again, for all the ways in which the indie world has ceased to exist or the way we make music has changed or whatever, that's one of the few things that I'll probably always hold on to in terms of indie spirit, is like things have to happen organically, and you have to have a relationship with the people you make music with. You wanted to meet, you didn't you wanted you wanted to write there when you were singing it? Is that what you're I want? Yeah, I want to be like you know, next time you're in La, come by the studio, listen to the song. We can play the whole everything we've been working on. You can see how you feel you could try putting down some vocals. See how that says. There's something about just like sending the song to say like what do you think of the song? That I just felt like that's just not how And again I'm not judging. I can totally see it from their point of view, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to do that. And then so then we're talking about like, well, who's could try And then you know, uh, our also worked with him forever and we know Daniel really well, and and so we were kind of like there there's a few times you would come down just to help us. It was super downstairs, and just to see if like even the when we were still kind of this is early days by the way, right Aman, yeah, time, so it's just to even see if the song was written in a range that made sense for a female. And there was something so again like as you put it, like it's part of as lyrics were starting to make more sense, that moment kind of like made sense. You know. She just very casually came in saying at one take and it was like, what are we even thinking about? You know, just this is like says, this is a family, This makes perfect sense. This is like there's already a chemistry. It's real, you know, and it's it's so much more if we're referencing anything, we're referencing that relationship. Yeah, exactly. That's the difference, is that me and Danielle singing together, people who know each other, part of the same community of musicians, work with the same producers, all this and all that kind of stuff. Then then the reference of why we're seeing together, like I'll just put it, is a real human relationship. Me duetting with a country star, the reference that it's kitch, it's kitch. Yeah, And I'm not saying that there might not be a time in my life that I build that type of relationship with a country singer, but then that that might even be pushing into that far away eyes was an Emily Harris was great. It's a great country dueticist. No, no, but but Emily that this is a great example because I always think about her her vocals on Bob Dylan's Desire, and also how this is the first Vamper Weekend album that has a bunch of outside musician It's the first off Vamper Weekend album that has featured guests period, and even that was important too, that it's it's two people, it's Danielle and Steve Lacey, and they're both on multiple songs. And I kind of thought about that too, because because there's a classic type of major label pop, hip hop, whatever album where you look at the features and you're kind of like, oh, they covered their bases, they got they got who's who of every genre, and that doesn't mean it's not artistic, but it happened, but it's not. It's not always artistic where you're kind of like, oh, you spread your chips out on the table, did do it with a country person? Do it with an R and B person? Got rock singer? You know, you spread your chips out on the table, And that would never make sense for a Vampire Weekend album. So our thought too was also like, you know, when you think about emular sing back back up on multiple songs on Desire or something, or you know what a Jean luc Ponti playing fail, you know, just just the idea that they're people, even if it's only for one album, that people came together for the whole narrative, and that if somebody's worth bringing on one song, they're worth bringing on three songs, Daniel ultimately between lead and background vocals, maybe sings on like eleven twelve songs or something. So for an album that hopefully is about human relationships, it makes sense to make it that way. And that's it. The last episode of our second season of Broken Record. Thanks so much for listing. We're working hard to bring you a whole new set of interviews with your favorite musicians soon. In the meantime, reach out to us at Broken Record at Pushkin dot f M if you have ideas of who you'd like to hear on the podcast. Thanks to Vampire Weekends Ezra Kanig and producer Ario Recksheed for joining us at Shangelaw Studios in Malibu to hear their new record, Father the Bride. Visit Broken Record podcast dot com. Broken Record is produced by Justin Richmond and Jason Gambrel, with help from mil LaBelle, Jacob Smith, Julia Barton, and Jacob Weisberg. Special thanks to my co hosts Rick Reuben and Bruce Hudlam for Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.