Songfacts®:

• Bassist Chris Baio explained to artistdirect.com that the band's name and this song originated from when front man Ezra Koenig went home for the summer between the freshman and sophomore years of college. He saw the movie The Lost Boys and wanted to make his own, east coast, New England version of the film: "For two days he filmed this movie called Vampire Weekend about this guy named Walcott whose dad gets killed by vampires, and he travels up to Cape Cod to warn the mayor of Cape Cod that vampires are attacking the country. He only made it for two days, and then sort of forgot about it for a while. And, then, two-and-a-half years later, during his senior year, he sort of unearthed the footage for it, and made it into a two minute trailer. And that was about a month before the band got together; so when the band came together, we sort of took it and not over-think it. That, and the song 'Walcott' are the only connection to that movie."
• Koenig told Q magazine February 2008: "It's not really a vampire song, more a vacation song."
• Much of Vampire Weekend was recorded in the Brooklyn apartments of Rostam Batmangli (keyboards) and Chris Baio (bass) or in a barn at Chris Tomson's (drums) parents' house.
• Koenig on the album influences in New Musical Express January 26, 2008: "Around the time the band was starting, I was listening to a lot of compilations of Madagascan pop music. During the recording process it was baroque classical music and Van Morrison all the way."