Wood

Album: Half-Light (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • Rostam Batmanglij described this song on his website as, "the feeling of being in bed with someone, and dreaming something wild beside them."

    The track dates back to 2011 and was re-released on a 7-inch in early 2016 alongside "EOS," after Batmanglij announced his departure from Vampire Weekend.
  • Batmanglij started the song on an airplane. He explained, "It was a beat I made on my laptop with cut up tabla and digital sitar and me trying to push myself to write the hardest, fastest, most classical violin parts I could."

    He added, "I spent years trying to figure out what to sing on top of it, even recording real string players without a vocal part written - before realizing that everything would have to clear out before my voice could enter the picture."

    It was Vampire Weekend producer Ariel Rechtshaid that helped Batmanglij finally finish the song. He recalled: "Me and Ariel ended up spending about ten days hanging out but not that much time actually making music in the studio, not at the same time anyway. Ariel was dealing with illness in his family. But one of the things we were able to accomplish was recording the lead vocal on 'Wood', it was on a sunny morning with the front door of the studio wide open. Hopefully you get some of that feeling when you listen to it."

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