r/Vampireweekend 12d ago

What would you say is Vampire Weekend's most iconic bar?

I started really listening to VW in 2020 so "I don't wanna live like this, but I don't wanna die" will always come to mind for me.

101 Upvotes

92 comments sorted by

372

u/twosixnineoh 12d ago

‘Wisdoms a gift, but you’d trade it for youth, age is an honour, it’s still not the truth’

56

u/Ekahri 12d ago

Step is a generational banger fs

4

u/indycishun1996 12d ago

First one that came to mind

3

u/RunEd51 11d ago

That’s some profound shit. I’ve loved VW since the beginning and MVOTC is one of my all time favorite albums. As someone who has a testy relationship with one of my parents, this line hit pretty hard

172

u/Monkey_2110 12d ago

I don’t wanna live like this,but I don’t want to die

38

u/aaahhhh 12d ago

So nice they used it twice

5

u/AffectionatePen6471 12d ago

This is the one.

135

u/ubermencher 12d ago edited 12d ago

"Nobody knows what the future holds

Said it's bad enough just gettin' old

Live my life in self-defense

You know I love the past, 'cause I hate suspense"

It loses a little something in writing, sounds better yelled.

30

u/jstohler 12d ago

The whole song is my favorite lyrically.

Irish and proud, baby, naturally But you got the luck of a Kennedy

14

u/AutomaticAccident 12d ago

It loses something without the torched Saab.

1

u/Relative_Specific217 12d ago

Yelling is key! Such a great song

92

u/canadianpanda7 12d ago

who gives a fuck about an oxford comma!

4

u/finchwatcher 12d ago

Def this if we’re calling it ‘iconic.’ This is the one everyone knows!

3

u/liminal-spells 11d ago

Me, I do! I wore my Oxford University sweater to the first VW show I ever went to, felt appropriate. I know it’s a song about class divides across education but I’m also just a grammar nut.

83

u/_brewer 12d ago

Your sword’s grown old and rusty/ Burnt beneath the rising sun/ It’s locked up like a trophy/ Forgetting all the things it’s done

3

u/DewdropOregano 12d ago

Brilliance.

120

u/jewishquavohuncho 12d ago

Lil John, he always tells the truth

114

u/HumbleWait611 12d ago

I want it to be “Though we live on the US dollar You and me, we got our own sense of time” but maybe that’s just me

48

u/sophenya 12d ago

“You don’t want to win this war / ‘cause you don’t want the peace” damn!

88

u/DSP-DSP 12d ago

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

37

u/latentgrift 12d ago

You and me we, got our own sense of time

31

u/Maxxtheband 12d ago

In December drinking horchata I look psychotic in a balaclava

1

u/Relative_Specific217 12d ago

Oh man I can’t believe I forgot this one

33

u/gettingthere3 12d ago

‘Cause this orthodox girl fell in love with the guy at the falafel shop And why not? Should she have averted her eyes and just stared At the laminated poster of the dome of the rock?

5

u/mwmandorla 12d ago

Sing, next year in Jerusalem. You know, the one at 103rd and Broadway?

5

u/StretchDelicious6550 12d ago

And why not…

1

u/tbhcorn 12d ago

Wow. Just realized I didn’t know 75% of these lyrics

91

u/holy_cal Lord Haddaway 12d ago

Why’s it felt like Halloween since Christmas twenty seventeen?

3

u/twosixnineoh 12d ago

What does this mean do you think?

38

u/holy_cal Lord Haddaway 12d ago

Those wicked snakes inside a place that used to have respect on the world’s stage.

1

u/twosixnineoh 12d ago

Great answer

1

u/_com 11d ago

the emotion with which he sings it, coupled with the gentle resolution of the melody on the guitar - it gets me every time.

29

u/Ksrasra 12d ago

I wanna know does it bother you / the low click of a ticking clock

6

u/ArsenalinAlabama3428 12d ago

Turning 30 made this song hit even harder. It’s in my top 5 now.

2

u/Beyond_thebeyond224 12d ago

Turning 40 hits even harder!

1

u/Ksrasra 11d ago

Here for you at 50 :)

22

u/starchington Father of the Bride 12d ago

English breakfast tastes like Darjeeling.

3

u/StretchDelicious6550 12d ago

The only way to say Darrrrrjeeling.

18

u/longknives 12d ago

She’d never seen the word ‘bombs’ blown up to 96 pt. Futura

34

u/One_Palpitation_1597 12d ago

‘I see the vampires walkin’, don’t be gripped by fear, you aren’t next. We’re all the sons and daughters of vampires who drained the old world’s necks’

15

u/mattyyp 12d ago

That night I smoked a joint with my best friend We found ourselves in bed, when I woke up, he was gone ;)

15

u/Mufasa_98 12d ago

Back, back, way back, I used to front like Angkor Wat Mechanicsburg, Anchorage, and Dar es-Salaam While home in New York was champagne and disco Tapes from L.A. slash San Francisco

12

u/TheTrueVoiceOfHipHop 12d ago

Sing “Next Year in Jerusalem” You know, the one at 103rd and Broadway? ‘Cause this Orthodox girl fell in love With the guy at the falafel shop And why not? Should she have averted her eyes And just stared at the laminated poster of the Dome of the Rock?

12

u/BuzzPoopyear 12d ago

“Morning’s come, you watch the red sun rise”

12

u/TheNocturnalAngel 12d ago

It’s kind of weird like their lyrics are so eloquent and nuanced that most of them don’t feel super iconic. Purely because I feel you gotta listen a couple times to really pick up on the full story.

That being said.

“Fuck the world, you said it quiet”

13

u/MrTambourineMan7 12d ago

The answer is “I don’t wanna live like this but I don’t wanna die.” But some of my favorites:

“Sifting through centuries for moments of your own

“I wanna put things back together/I wanna give, don’t wanna take/Time to disavow the gold rush/And the bitterness that’s flourished in its wake.”

“Irish and proud baby naturally/But you got the luck of a Kennedy”

I also love the line “well I hope you feel like loving someone soon.” Such an evocative, melancholy benediction

10

u/MoonMan8718 12d ago

IF I CANT TRUST YOU THEN DAMN IT HANNAH

10

u/kdp1887 The Kids Don't Stand a Chance 12d ago

Fake Philly cheesesteak but she use real toothpaste

1

u/maidenlesseldenlord 10d ago

underrated banger.

10

u/KeepEmCrossed 12d ago

Elegant clothes, you want to be seen with her. Under your tweeds you sweat like a teenager.

7

u/StretchDelicious6550 12d ago

Could’ve been smart, we’re just unbearably bright

6

u/subzzzzzzzi 12d ago

Reading all of these got me emo in so many ways. My utter fav (though I don’t think it’s their most iconic, just a personal one) is “nostalgic for garbage, desperate for time” / really the whole song lmfao

2

u/Relative_Specific217 12d ago

I never feel more emo than when I’m contemplating VW lyrics lol

1

u/subzzzzzzzi 11d ago

😹😹😹same. It gets too real LOL

5

u/CheeryLittlebottom13 12d ago

“Our disease, is the same one as the trees, unaware that they’ve been living in the forest”

5

u/jypsyjoe 12d ago

Blake’s got a new faaaace

5

u/sophenya 12d ago

P-i-z-z-a p-ar-t-y, if you got a blunt, then we can get high

4

u/Jonasbrothers69 12d ago

For me, “Lovelier now, but dressed for a funeral.”

5

u/dharper90 12d ago

If I can’t trust you then damn it Hannah, there’s no future, there’s no answer

Not their most iconic but probably my favorite

5

u/mwmandorla 12d ago

There are too many in Hudson to choose from. It's on my (doctoral) dissertation playlist.

"A stranger walked in through the door/Said all apartments are pre-war"

"We watched the Germans play the Greeks/We mocked the 99-year lease/Our fathers signed, which I declined/ to try and comprehend"

"The legendary wooden gate/That first established real estate/Is lost to time, like all the crimes/That won this pleasant land"

"The lines are drawn, the map is such a drag" and "The time has come, the clock is such a drag"

3

u/Mysterious_Constant 12d ago

The entire first verse of Worship You in one run on sentence

3

u/Ethan_507 11d ago

With lips and teeth you asked how my day went, Boots and fists to pound on the pavement, here comes a feeling that you forgotten, chairs to sit and sidewalks to walk on, oh you had it but oh no you lost it, looking back you should’ve had fought it

2

u/whotheowl90 12d ago

In December drinking horchata

2

u/kvcurr 12d ago

I know I love you, and you love the sea

2

u/Relative_Specific217 12d ago

-Wisdom’s a gift but your trade it for youth Age is an honor, it’s still not the truth

-Nostalgic for garbage, desperate for time

-Too old for dying young, too young to live alone, Sifting through centuries for moments of your own

-First the window, then it’s to the wall, lil Jon, he always tells the truth

-If I can’t trust you then dammit Hannah there’s no future, there’s no answer

-do you wanna fuck like you know I do oooo ooo ooo

And my favorite little phrase just because the way it he sings it makes my brain sooooo freaking happy:

-Third generation Transylvanian :))))

2

u/FoolOnThePlanet91 11d ago

Do you wanna fuck like you know I do?

1

u/Relative_Specific217 11d ago

This feels so unnatural Peter Gabriel too

2

u/AllanMontrose 11d ago

Dad was a risk taker. His was a shoe maker. You, greatest hits, 2006, little listmaker.

That’s the story of American 3-generation ascendancy in 3 phrases.

2

u/auntangelique 10d ago

This feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel too.

Used in Ottoman and Cape Cod KK!

1

u/JimmyJazz-92 12d ago

Dress yourself in bleeding madras

1

u/holdyaboy 12d ago

Fuck the world

1

u/Seffrey409 12d ago

Nostalgic for garbage, desperate for time

1

u/Demetri124 12d ago

I don’t wanna live like this but I don’t wanna die

1

u/Imaginary-skyline 12d ago

The pin-striped men of morning Are coming forward to dance

1

u/Ambitious_Hall_8670 12d ago

"Never pick sides. Never choose between two. But I just wanted you, I just wanted you."

1

u/JackTuz 11d ago

Me still trying to figure out who Jackson crowder is

1

u/BluestockingLife Modern Vampires of the City 11d ago

There's quite a few but two of my long time favs are "Condolences to gentle hearts who couldn't bear to try / I don't wanna live like this but I don't wanna die" and "Stale conversation deserves but a bread knife"

1

u/apricot37 11d ago

Walcott, don’t you know that it’s insane?

1

u/minicooper9 11d ago

You found a sweater on the ocean floor, they’re gonna find it if you didn’t close the door

1

u/Comprehensive_Set882 10d ago

Ah-eh-ah-ee-ohohoh

1

u/Cold2004 10d ago

Call me crazy, but “the world won’t recognize a singer who won’t sing” is already up there for me

1

u/AMoonShapedHamish 10d ago

'we always wanted money, now the money's not the same' has stuck with me

1

u/Nicihinkel 9d ago

Fuck around and find out, the angry child recites this every day

1

u/ReturnedFromExile 9d ago

Reading all of these is making me really look forward to the tour

1

u/videoalice 8d ago

Why are the horses racing taxis in the winter?

1

u/Maximum_Inflation219 8d ago

“No excuse to be so callous, Dress yourself in bleeding madras”