Songfacts®:

• "Hold You Now" is a duet between Vampire Weekend vocalist Ezra Koenig and Danielle Haim of the band Haim. The pair trade verses about an erratic relationship.
• Danielle Haim is the romantic partner of Father of the Bride producer Ariel Rechtshaid. "Hold You Now" is the first of a trio of country-folk ballads on the record to which she contributes vocals.
  
  Speaking to Pitchfork, Haim explained that she first met Koenig in Portugal in 2010 while she was touring with The Strokes vocalist Julian Casablancas.
  
  Eight years later, the Vampire Weekend singer started talking to Danielle about Father of the Bride; he played her "'Hold You Now," and suggested "'Maybe it should be like a duet". She readily agreed to help and it was the first song they officially collaborated on.
• The song starts of with Ezra Koenig fearing their relationship is doomed.
  
  I know the reason why you think you gotta leave
  
  Later in the song, Danielle Haim tells him their falling out is just a temporary blip.
  
  This ain't the end of nothing much, it's just another round
  
  Koenig told The Irish Times he is a fan of duets in which the singers have different viewpoints. "Sometimes you hear a duet and you're like, 'Aw, come on, they just broke up one song that somebody wrote'," he said. "The duets that I really love, like old country duets, are when people talk to each other and tease each other. The two singers are offering different perspectives on the same situations."
• The album title comes from a line in this song.
  
  Crying in those rumpled sheets like someone's 'bout to die
  You just watch your mouth when talking 'bout the father of the bride
  
  The Father of the Bride title was inspired by Steve Martin's 1991 romcom of the same name. Although Koenig had a baby with longtime partner, actress Rashida Jones, in 2018, the album name is something the singer chose years back, well before he became a father.
  
  "No, I came up with it too early for that, but I was clearly looking to adult themes," Koenig told the London Sunday Times. "Even though I didn't imagine when I chose the title that I'd be a father by the time it came out, I certainly wanted to look at responsibility and relationships, and those things happened in my life, too."
• The chorus is a sample of a Melanesian choral song, "God Yu Takem Laef Blong Mi", from the 1998 war film The Thin Red Line. It is sung by the Choir of All Saints from Honiara in Solomon Pidjin, the native language of the South Pacific Solomon Islands. Hans Zimmer's who composed The Thin Red Line soundtrack gets a co-writing credit on "Hold You Now."
• Translated into English the chorus reads:
  
  God, take my life and let it be
  Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
  Take my hands and let them move
  At the impulse of Thy love
• Father of the Bride debuted at #1 on the US Albums chart. In doing so, Vampire Weekend became the 118th artist to top the Billboard 200 three or more times. The band were the first of these 118 acts to achieve the feat without ever having charted a song on the Hot 100.