7. Vampire Weekend - A Punk

For this post (my second today) I'm going to ask that you indulge my wistful side and for those of you that didn't attend college with me you are going to be thoroughly lost... sorry.

There are songs out there that I love because of one listen. I don't mean the kind of song that you fall in love with immediately... I mean the kind of song that you love because one time you heard it and it was perfect for its situation. The kind of song that takes on a life of its own after being a crucial part of an insanely fun, drunk, miserable, or interesting time in your life. I can't hear Mr. Big's "To Be With You" without seeing the deck of Pat Croce's restaurant in Key West with a table full of empty gin and tonics in front of me. I can't hear "Hanging Around" by Counting Crows without seeing Goodwin's room and an empty bottle of SoCo on Dupont 3rd West. "Summer of 69," "Free Falling," and it goes without saying, "Take Me Home Tonight" all breathe the not so rarefied air of songs that I love WAY more than I could ever begin to explain and I could actually go on forever with this list.*

So where am I headed with this? I think that what I'm trying to say was captured pretty well by a friend of mine in reference to the song "Hot and Cold" by Katy Perry when he texted me, "Am I crazy or is Hot 'n Cold by Katy Perry the song we would all be screaming on Friday and Saturday nights at the Mansion@ if we were still at WM?" So is Hot and Cold the number seven song on this list? No. I like it, but no. "A Punk" by Vampire Weekend IS the kind of song that makes me wish I was back in the Mansion playing quarters and running horribly ineffective game on freshman girls/being scared of Thetas. That the whole song is solid pop gold is hard to dispute. From the heavily Clash influenced bouncing guitar riff to the absurd lyrics that for some reason remind me of an "Are You Afraid of the Dark" episode, this has to be one of the funnest songs of the year. But it's not so much about all that for me. When I hear it, particularly at the onset of the Ay Ay Ays of the chorus, I can picture people# shooting a quarter into a Vikings shot glass and talking trash while simultaneously pumping their fists along to the cadence of the song. I guess what I'm saying is that when I hear this song, I WANT to hear it at King and Queen apartments, Ludwell 702B, Chandler 212, or Campus Center Little Theater%. This obviously isn't going to happen short of a trespassing/breaking and entering charge on my record and a prominent mention in the Flat Hat's Police Beat but just the fact that the song brings me back to all that makes is significant and awesome and... well if you don't understand already, then you just won't.



*One more for ya, Pieces of Me by Ashlee Simpson, oh what 80 ounces of malt liquor can do to two reasonably intelligent people before an intramural softball game especially when 40 of those ounces are Steel Reserve

@If you don't know, don't ask.

#And by people, I think we all know who I could mean.

%Okay, maybe NOT at the Campus Center Little Theater considering my horrendous exercises in dating futility there