Traffic Jams: Vampire Weekend – ‘Walcott’

Happy Memorial Day everyone! Isn’t it nice to have an extra day off every now and then? Did you have any fun plans over the weekend? I marked the occasion by hitting the road and heading to the beach for a few days in Cape Cod, which meant there were only two correct options for today’s Traffic Jams.

You could have had either Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa or Walcott by Saab-haters Vampire Weekend. In the end, I’m going to focus on the latter so CCKK can just be a cheeky bonus track you can listen to later.

Released in 2008, the track is the penultimate song on the band’s self-titled debut album, and it’s a legitimate banger.

I got pretty attached to Vampire Weekend when the first album came out. Back then, 14-year-old Owen was on a deep indie music dive and sapped up everything with a catchy guitar riff. Naturally, Vampire Weekend were primed and ready to become a new obsession, thanks to Ezra Koenig’s honey-like vocals, heartfelt lyrics and the band’s heavy Paul Simon influences.

But Walcott really fits the Memorial Day road trip vibe rather nicely, I think. In fact, Koenig agrees and even told British music magazine Q that it was “more a vacation song.”

The song gets its name from a crazy-sounding film that Koenig apparently worked on one summer in college. It’s about a guy named Walcott who travels to Cape Cod to warn the town about an impending vampire invasion. It’s this film that also gave the band its name.

So, while I’m not quite a vampire set on an invasion of Cape Cod, my pasty New York City complexion might lead the locals to worry that.

What did you get up to this weekend, and do you have any nice plans for the rest of your Memorial Day?