Classical Remains T-Shirt (white)

This is a three-color screen print printed on white Comfort Colors 1717 blanks. In-hand and ready to ship.

After broadening his lyrical themes on Vampire Weekend’s last two albums, Ezra Koenig reincorporated his fascination with class and social status into the subject matter of Only God Was Above Us. While Koenig has described “Classical” as the first of the band’s songs to combine “jazzy, early 90s hip hop energy with…up-tempo punk energy,” it is also an amalgamation of his early- and later-period lyrical focuses.

Like the songs found on the band’s debut album and Contra, the track is full of evocative imagery and ruminations on how socioeconomic class manifests itself in everyday life. Similar to the songs on Father of the Bride and the rest of OGWAU, however, “Classical”’s lyrics are less obtuse and more universal; unlike the hyper specific situations that the characters of “Oxford Comma” (“Know your butler, unlike other guys) and “Taxi Cab” (“I pretended I was horrified by the uniform and gloves outside of the courtyard gate”) found themselves in, “Classical” explores the global effects of class differences throughout history in a broadly applicable and relatively straightforward way.

A deep reading of the song's lyrics allows for multiple interpretations of its specific meaning, but Ezra Koenig has explicitly confirmed that it was inspired by the idea that the winners write history. However, he has also explained that the song is not advocating for exclusively holding that worldview: “Ultimately, [OGWAU] goes on a journey, and I don’t necessarily endorse the believe that…life is just harsh and the winners write history and there’s nothing good about it…but [that belief] is a real thing that everybody feels now and then.”

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