Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

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“Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”

Single by Vampire Weekend
from the album Vampire Weekend

Released

Recorded

Length

3:34

Label

Producer

Rostam Batmanglij

Vampire Weekend singles chronology

"Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa"
(2007)

"Mansard Roof"
(2007)

"Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" is a song by the indie rock band, Vampire Weekend, released on their debut album, Vampire Weekend. The song was rated 67th best song of 2007 by Rolling Stone magazine.^[1]

1 Background
2 Cover versions
3 Critical reception
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Background

In 2005, vocalist Ezra Koenig travelled through London on route to India and said that the trip got him "thinking a lot about colonialism and the aesthetic connections between preppy culture and the native cultures of places like Africa and India." This inspired Koenig to write a short story exploring those connections, and called it "Cape Cod Kwaasa Kwaasa", from which the song was named.^[2]

[edit] Cover versions

Peter Gabriel, former vocalist of Genesis, has shown interest in covering "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" after being introduced to the band by a member of Vampire Weekends' record label, XL Recordings. He said of the song, "I actually do like that song a lot and they've asked me to sing a version of it now which I may well do". In an interview with BBC 6Music, when asked about part of the lyrics which reference him ("This feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel, too"), Gabriel responded, "Well I haven't quite worked that out whether I should be doing that or substituting it with a name".^[3]

[edit] Critical reception

Pitchfork said that the song's "instrumentation and bubbly beat evoke[s] Paul Simon's Graceland and "transforms the buoyant spirit of "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" to a cheaply (but cleanly) recorded, stripped-down, no-fuss context." Pitchfork also said that "the unassuming nature of the production works in Vampire Weekend's favor, allowing subtle pleasures like that sunny falsetto vocalese at the end and the purity of the guitar tone to shine through."^[4]