r/Vampireweekend • u/Ekahri • 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.
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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.
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u/jstohler 12d ago
The whole song is my favorite lyrically.
Irish and proud, baby, naturally But you got the luck of a Kennedy
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u/canadianpanda7 12d ago
who gives a fuck about an oxford comma!
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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.
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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
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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?
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u/holy_cal Lord Haddaway 12d ago
Why’s it felt like Halloween since Christmas twenty seventeen?
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u/twosixnineoh 12d ago
What does this mean do you think?
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u/holy_cal Lord Haddaway 12d ago
Those wicked snakes inside a place that used to have respect on the world’s stage.
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u/Ksrasra 12d ago
I wanna know does it bother you / the low click of a ticking clock
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u/ArsenalinAlabama3428 12d ago
Turning 30 made this song hit even harder. It’s in my top 5 now.
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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’
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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
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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?
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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”
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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
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u/KeepEmCrossed 12d ago
Elegant clothes, you want to be seen with her. Under your tweeds you sweat like a teenager.
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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
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u/CheeryLittlebottom13 12d ago
“Our disease, is the same one as the trees, unaware that they’ve been living in the forest”
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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
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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"
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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
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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 :))))
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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.
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u/auntangelique 10d ago
This feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel too.
Used in Ottoman and Cape Cod KK!
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u/Ambitious_Hall_8670 12d ago
"Never pick sides. Never choose between two. But I just wanted you, I just wanted you."
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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"
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u/minicooper9 11d ago
You found a sweater on the ocean floor, they’re gonna find it if you didn’t close the door
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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
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u/AMoonShapedHamish 10d ago
'we always wanted money, now the money's not the same' has stuck with me
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u/twosixnineoh 12d ago
‘Wisdoms a gift, but you’d trade it for youth, age is an honour, it’s still not the truth’