top ten songs: Vampire Weekend.

I have a long history with Vampire Weekend. I first heard them when I was working at American Eagle (the clothing store) – one of their songs was on the store soundtrack. I’ll be damned if I can positively remember which one, but I’m reasonably certain it was “A-Punk.” From there, I heard their songs nonstop on the Current, Minneapolis’s local indie/alt radio station. True story: they were playing on the radio one day, and I said to James, “It’s Vampire Weekend!” His response: “Vampires have their own weekend now?”

Fast forward ten years. I have certainly kept up with Vampire Weekend and never really stopped listening to them. Shortly before I was to depart for a two-week trip to Europe, their album Father of the Bride came out. “Harmony Hall” was the first song I heard off that album, and I instantly loved it. It’s one of those songs that stops you in your tracks.

Over the course of that trip, my friend Kim and I listened to that album. So many of the songs were so sad and evoked this feeling of terrible emptiness, which we likened to the end of our trip. Just days after I returned from my trip, my friend Sarah and I talked endlessly about this album. There’s something about it that brought out so many deep feelings, but we can’t stop listening to it. As I write this, Father of the Bride is playing on my record player.

This album rekindled my love for Vampire Weekend. Their first three albums are much happier and poppier than Father of the Bride, but they remind me of much simpler times. Contra is a masterpiece. With the exception of “Diane Young,” all the other songs on this list are from Contra.

So here are my top ten Vampire Weekend songs. You may notice that the first half of them are from Father of the Bride, but I haven’t had an album hit me so hard since Hamilton. Plus, Father of the Bride is an 18-track album, which is basically two albums in one. I could have made a list of ten songs from Father of the Bride alone, but don’t worry, I did include some variety.

Harmony Hall

“Harmony Hall” has brought me to near tears. More than once. The lyrics are stunning, and I’ve heard rumors it’s about the 2016 election: “wicked snakes inside a place we thought was dignified” sure does sound like American politics right now. The chorus of “I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t want to die” can describe many of my days. “Harmony Hall” has a Paul Simon sound to it, which is so comforting to me. I cannot get enough of this song.

Jerusalem, New York, Berlin

This is the last song on the album, which feels fitting. The song itself sounds final, and I actually hadn’t heard it until I returned from Berlin. Vampire Weekend speaks so well to desperation and insecurity in this album, and this song’s refrain is no exception: “All I do is lose, but baby/All I want’s to win.”

Stranger

These songs all mean so much to me coming off my trip to Europe. I had never been to Europe before, and that trip changed everything. I met some incredible people, did incredible things, and learned a lot about myself. Coming home, though, was more difficult than I ever imagined. I missed (and still do miss) the freedom, the new experiences, and the time with friends. Coming back to work and life was strange: “things have never been stranger/things are gonna stay strange.”

Rich Man

You guys, the VIOLIN in this song. It’s completely unexpected and absolutely gorgeous. I also love the waltz feeling to this song, which is so different than anything I’ve heard in a long time. You also may notice maracas, The instrumentation in this song is to die for.

This Life

While this is one of the most upbeat songs on the album, it’s also one of the saddest. “Baby, I know dreams tend to crumble at extremes/I just thought our dream would last a little bit longer.” This song makes me want to dance, but it also makes me want to cry. It’s about suffering and pain, but I can’t stop listening to it. “Oh Christ, I am good for nothing? This life and all its suffering.”

Diane Young

Ok, I’m taking a break from Father of the Bride and moving on to the rest of Vampire Weekend’s repertoire. “Diane Young” is from their third album, which was markedly different than Father of the Bride. “Diane Young” is a wordplay on “dying young,” and the song is about living dangerously. One of my favourite lines from this song is “You got the luck of a Kennedy.”

California English

One of the things I love most about Vampire Weekend is their willingness to experiment with unusual beats and instrumentation. “California English” is so fast-based with a weird beat, and it is so appealing. They sing so fast I can barely understand what the lyrics are, and it’s over before you know it.

Giving Up the Gun

You may have realized by now I love sad songs. My absolute favourite songs are the ones questioning identity and whether or not one has lived a worthwhile life. I am not a terribly sad person, but I do tend to wonder if I’m living the best life I can. Bands like Vampire Weekend, the Killers, and Twenty One Pilots feed right into that feeling with their incredible music. “Giving Up the Gun” is about the glory days of youth and how nothing will be the same. I often think about college and what an incredible time that was – but that experience is something that cannot be replicated. Don’t get me wrong: life is good. But life is different.

Horchata

I have never had horchata, but this song makes me want to drink it so badly. This is certainly the only song I know that rhymes “horchata” with “balaclava” and it WORKS. One of the lines in this song is “here comes a feeling you thought you’d forgotten,” which to me, harkens back to trying to grasp that feeling of freedom from college again. I felt that feeling in Berlin, and it was a feeling I thought I’d forgotten. What a great feeling it was.

White Sky

This song is so gentle and peaceful. It’s about exploring New York City, but I think it could be about exploring a lot of places. I absolutely love the part when Ezra Koening just sings the oohs and ahhs in such an interesting vocal pattern. Again: Vampire Weekend is not afraid to experiment.

There’s a league of other songs that I love so much that didn’t quite make the list in comparison to the others. I have more than enough favourites to write a Vampire Weekend part II blog. Vampire Weekend can do no wrong. In case you were curious:

• Hold Me Now
• 2021
• Sunflower
• M79
• Cousins
• Step
• Married in a Gold Rush
• We Belong Together
• Run
• Holiday
• Campus
• Bambina

After Father of the Bride coinciding perfectly with my trip to Europe. I have so many feelings and I don’t know what to do with them. Thanks a lot, Vampire Weekend. I hope you love them as much as I do.

(Vampire Weekend is just the latest in a long line of bands to receive the ten favourite song treatment. If you'd like to read about my other favorite bands and my ten favorite songs of theirs, here you go:)

Queen

David Bowie

Simon and Garfunkel

the Killers

the Clash

ABBA

Twenty One Pilots

The Rolling Stones

the case of the dastardly Luverne flamingo killers.

This story begins with a simple fact: I love flamingos. 

 They are beautiful and strange and fascinating. In my middle- and high school years, I had a flamingo Beanie Baby (remember those?!), flamingo socks, and flamingo shirts. In my adult years, I have photographs of flamingos (that I took), a flamingo shirt, glass antique flamingos...

Note the little speck of pink metal flamingo lawn ornament in the background.

...a giant flamingo inner tube, and lawn flamingos.

Lawn flamingos.

It’s important for you to know that I love lawn flamingos unironically. James bought me my first set of lawn flamingos (classic pink, of course) when we moved into our house. I proudly placed them in our front yard, among our flowers and our herb garden.

Less than a month later, they were dead.

In the middle of the night, our flamingos were massacred. One flamingo was later found in our neighbor’s birdbath, its underside smashed in. The other flamingo was never to be found – all that was left of him were his legs.

Sorrowfully, we pulled the abandoned flamingo legs out of the ground and brought our injured flamingo inside. He can no longer support his legs, so he sits, legless, in our front window – never to be hurt again.

A few months later, I bought a set of Halloween lawn flamingos – painted black with their skeletons showing. I adored them, but I didn’t put them out on our lawn for fear of them meeting the same fate as our pink flamingos. Instead, I propped them up in the front windows. They were not nearly as visible as if they had been in the front lawn, but at least they were safe from flamingo killers.

 

But not safe from housecats.

Fast forward a few years. I was at the Brookings Summer Arts Festival (where you can find me every year on the second weekend in July) when I stumbled across the most beautiful lawn flamingos I had ever seen. They were made of wood and painted a neon pink. I had to have one.

I brought this new flamingo home and planted him right next to our Little Free Library. No one would hurt a little flamingo by a little free library, right?

Right.

Kind of.

For three years, our flamingo lived happily on the lawn. We left him out all winter, his neon pink providing a beacon of home in the bleak winter landscape. 

 James repainted him after the first winter, giving his coat its sheen back. He was due for another paint job.

On the morning of May 4, 2019, I was preparing for a jewelry sale/showcase for my handmade jewelry business. The jewelry sale was to be outside on my lawn on the beautiful May Saturday.

And then I saw it.

My flamingo’s head was missing.

I felt a deep dread. Hoping against hope that his head had just slid off (he was three years old, after all) and was sitting in the grass, I approached the scene. As the flamingo came into full view, my fears were confirmed: his head was nowhere to be found.

Someone tore our flamingo’s head clean off.

With a heavy heart, I pulled his little body out of the ground. I couldn’t leave a headless flamingo on my lawn; he didn’t deserve that. I sadly walked his little body inside and gently set in our garage. It’s still there, awaiting a proper goodbye.

So what do I do now? I love lawn flamingos. They bring me joy, and I hope they have brought joy to others walking or driving by our lawn. But with the lawn flamingo mortality rate at 100% at our house, do I dare buy more? Their fate is sealed before they even get here. Can I put myself (or the flamingos) through that again?

Good citizens of Luverne, please keep your eyes open for the dastardly Flamingo Killers of Donaldson Street. They will strike again, and this time, it could be YOUR lawn flamingo or garden gnome or wooden sign with your name on it. No yard art or lawn ornament is safe. Let’s put an end to their killing spree and make the lawns safe for flamingos again.