photo credit: New York Times
The album Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend is the story of a young man who is recruited by the military, engages in espionage for the US government, and eventually dies of heartbreak. Not so you say? Well, just hear me out… this is my interpretation of this album’s deeper meaning with lessons we all can learn from.
The Beginning:
Our protagonist, played by Ezra Koenig, finds himself on a road trip with his high school sweet heart Hannah Hunt. After graduating from an East Coast private school, they were anxious to leave the constraints of their yuppy families, and to take a romantic road trip all the way to the golden coast. “A gardener told me some plants move/But I could not believe it/Til me and Hannah Hunt saw/Crawling vines and/weeping willows/As we made our way from Providence to Phoenix” They find themselves in Santa Barbara where they plan to go to university, have fun in the sun, let the days pass without concern, and start a new life. But their plans start to unravel, and his confidence in the solidity of their relationship starts to wain. This is the beginning of the end of these best laid plans and the critical event that creates an infinite ripple … “If I can't trust you, then damn it, Hannah/There's no future, there's no answer” (Hannah Hunt)
The Break Up:
Break ups of this kind are the most painful. Young love is always pure and deep, and when it ends it shuts the door on those childhood dreams and ushers in a harsher adult world full of regret and resignation. As they begin to untangle their lives a messy process is revealed. They find themselves in an uncharted grey area, are they still in love or do they just love each other? Can they truly be friends? Those last looks, last hugs, last goodbyes will do you in.
“One look sent knees to the ground/Young bloods can't be settling down/Young hearts need the pressure to pound/So hold me close, my baby. “ As they throw away their future, the anger starts to set in…”I want to know, does it bother you?/The low click of a ticking clock/There's a headstone right in front of you/And everyone I know” (Don’t Lie)
The Questions:
As Hannah fades from the picture, our lad starts to spin out. The reality of loneliness starts to sink in, all the way in. The questions surface, why did it have to end? Maybe she never needed me anyway? Can I do this by myself? What is the next move, where to go, what to do. What could have been with Hannah? Life can never be the same now. The mental searching, scrambling, and uncertainty starts to fill his mind like an attended hose in a pool. It might overflow if he’s not careful. “The gloves are off, the wisdom teeth are out/What you on about? I feel it in my bones, I feel it in my bones/I'm stronger now, I'm ready for the house/Such a modest mouse/I can't do it alone, I can't do it alone. Wisdom's a gift, but you'd trade it for youth/Age is an honor, it's still not the truth/We saw the stars when they hid from the world/You cursed the sun when it stepped to your girl/Maybe she's gone, and I can't resurrect her/The truth is she doesn't need me to protect her/We know the true death, the true way of all flesh/Everyone's dying, but girl you're not old yet.” (Step)
The Decision:
Looking for guidance, he seeks out the advice of family, friends, teachers, and finally a priest. “I took your counsel and came to ruin/Leave me to myself, leave me to myself” (Everlasting Arms) Thoughts of death linger. “I hummed the "Dies Irae" as you played the Hallelujah…Oh I was made to live without you/But I'm never gonna understand, never understand” (Everlasting Arms) The literal translation from the original latin text of Dies Irae goes a little something like this: “Death is struck, and nature quaking, All creation is awaking, To its Judge an answer making. Lo, the book, exactly worded, Wherein all hath been recorded, Thence shall judgement be awarded.” "Dies irae" (Ecclesiastical Latin: [ˈdi.es ˈi.re]; "the Day of Wrath") is a Latin sequence attributed to either Thomas of Celano of the Franciscans (1200–1265)[1] or to Latino Malabranca Orsini (d. 1294), lector at the Dominican studium at Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (there is another college by the same name near Santa Barbara) (the Angelicum) in Rome.[2 (wikipedia) We all know that the only “everlasting arms” that truly exist are those of the Grim Reaper. He considers this option, he wonders what is wrong with him, he questions his choices, he questions what de deserves in this life. A new path starts to reveal it’s self, the decision starts to form. “Bend my finger back, snap! Wrap it in a paper towel/Break a twig in half and set it straight/Hit me with a wood bat, hit me with a canister/That's fired while the soldiers drive away/Bend my finger back, snap/On and on and on and on for days/Hit me with a wood bat, hit me like a Yankee/Like a son of freedom, never as a slave” (Finger Back) He knows the only way to redeem himself, to move forward, to create meaning and sense of this, is to dedicate his life to serving his country. “And show me where to find the surgeon's knife/Eviscerate me now, hack! Take me to my punishment/The punishment I've needed all my life. I don’t want to live like this but I don’t want to die” (Finger Back)
The Career:
Just like the majority of us, he desperately wants to leave the past behind. To start new. Everyone knows that you have to burn down the remnants of vulnerability, toughen up, and steel yourself against what is to come and truly embrace your decisions with responsibility, and even to accept the inevitability of an impending end that comes too soon. “You torched a Saab like a pile of leaves/I'd gone to find some better wheels/Four or five meters running 'round the bend/When the government agents surround you again/If Diane Young won't change your mind/Baby, baby, baby, baby right on time/Out of control but you're playing a role. So grab the wheel, keep holding it tight 'Til you're driving off in the black of the night/If Diane Young won't change your mind Baby, baby, baby, baby right on time.” (Diane Young) Time to enlist, to devote, to pledge, to shrug off frivolity. He leaves Santa Barbara, quits school, claims his post in the Army, first as private. He eats shit and works out. He prepares and learns the system. He moves up the ranks, he plays the game. They quickly realize his killer instincts and stoic personality should be put to better use: a patriot built for foreign espionage. “The time has a come/The clock is such a drag/All you who changed your stripes can wrap me in the flag.” (Hudson) He recedes from civilian life, doesn’t answer the phone when family calls, and disappears for months at a time. But the missions must be completed. The enemy must be defeated. America must be defended. Above all else, he perseveres in this career, this dedication, without so much as a question. “Through the fire and through the flames/You won't even say your name/Through the fire and through the flames/You won't even say your name/Only "I am that I am"/But who could ever live that way?” (Ya Hey)
The Aftermath:
Even success can take its toll, when hiding in plain sight is your specialty, and lying is your job. Decades have past, he wakes up one day and a drop of doubt rolls down the very back of his mind. It settles in a little fissure next to the long forgotten memories of those Santa Barbara sunsets. He’s facing retirement, he’s loosing his religion. “All the cameras and files/All the paranoid styles/All the tension and fear/Of a secret career/And I can't help but think/That you've seen the mistake/But you let it go” (Ya Hey) Isolation is just around the corner, the country got what they wanted out of him. What is he left with? Enemies, scapegoats, and sleep fraught with regret and the fear that this was all for nothing. “Over and over again, all these never-ending visions/Over and over again like a prize that's changing hands/The time has a come/The clock is such a drag” (Hudson) An old man with regret, a new fate worse than dying young. “In the dark of this place/There's the glow of your face/There's the dust on the screen/Of this broken machine/And I can't help but feel/That I've made some mistake” (Ya Hey) Maybe it was all for nothing, but maybe that was all there was anyway. Maybe it was a mistake. “Oh, sweet thing/Zion doesn't love you/And Babylon don't love you….Oh, you saint/America don't love you. Oh, the motherland don't love you/The fatherland don't love you/So why love anything?/Oh, good God/The faithless they don't love you/The zealous hearts don't love you/And that's not gonna change” (Ya Hey) His life comes to a sudden end. Hannah gets word of his passing and knows that it’s too late to tell the truth. “Hudson died in Hudson Bay/The water took its victim's name. The river's rise told Riverside to change their names again” (Hudson) The military marching band snare drums roll in, a requiem choir is qued. Time relentlessly ticks on.
The Next Generation:
Hannah returned to New York after dropping out of college and raised Hudson’s child alone. She never really got over him and she never forgot their young love. She let him go to his grave in ignorance, now she feels she may have made a mistake. If she had told him, would it have changed his life? Hudson’s secret son is all grown up, a modern vampire of the city. This long lost father’s death hits him like a ton of bricks. He’s crushed by losing someone he never knew, even though he can’t really understand why. “Hudson died on Hudson Bay/But I was born on Sutton Place/The rising tide helped me decide to change my name again” (Hudson) He knows he must live this down and clear a new path. Time to leave the past behind, a cycle repeats and the journey begins, perhaps this young turk will break free. “You take your time Young Lion” (Young Lion)
Epilogue:
When this album debuted in 2013 I could have sworn I read a review at the time that described its thematic content as being about espionage. However, when I mentioned that “everyone knows this album is about espionage” my husband looked at me like I was crazy. Then I thought maybe I was going crazy, I mean it’s been 2 years of a global pandemic- anything is possible. I went back and really listened to the lyrics and the sound and decided this album deserved a story, even if it’s just a figment of my imagination. I hope you enjoyed reading it.
xoxo
Robin Fator
