Song of the Week: "This Life"

"This Life"

Vampire Weekend

from Father of the Bride

2019

• "This Life" is the best song off an eighteen-track album with a very many good songs: Seriously, there's a ton to like here. It's Vampire Weekend in their overstuffed best. But "This Life" rises to the top.
• "This Life" is the early front-runner for Song of the Summer: It's got a buoyancy that absolutely screams SUMMER FUN.
• "This Life" samples another song: And we know how I feel about sampling. Luckily, the song it samples heavily—ILoveMakonnen's "Tonight"—is absolute fucking trash. This is what sampling should try to achieve. Take a song, make it better.
• "This Life" finds Vampire Weekend finally leaning into the Paul Simon comparisons: There's no way around it, so VW has accepted the similarities and run with it. This is the Graceland outtake we all wanted.
• "This Life" brings Vampire Weekend together with one of my other favorite bands of the '10s: Danielle Haim features heavily on Father of the Bride, and while she or her sisters are not on the album version of "This Life," it just makes sense that they would be on a live version. I want all my favorite artists on this track. Patrick Stickles needs to rip a fucking guitar solo after the first verse. Bryan Devendorf should be playing a second drum set. Where's Craig Finn to speak-sing about how "this life" is all about getting drunk in a dive bar with a fake ID in your pocket?
• "This Life" features the line "Oh Christ / Am I good for nothing?": Which absolutely fucking slays me every time. The fact that this band can cut through the good times and deliver such a cutting self-deprecating blow makes 'em one of the all-time greats.
• "This Life" better come on at a good time at this party later today: It's a late addition to the party playlist that will be shuffled on rented speakers, and I can't really think of a better first birthday block party song than "This Life."