You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece

tell the story of how they were made.

My name is Rishi Keish hereby.

The band Vampire Weekend started in 2006 in New York.

Their third album came out in 2013 and won a Grammy, but six years passed before they

put out their next album, Father of the Bride.

This album's also been nominated for a Grammy for the album of the year, and the lead single

from it Harmony Hall was nominated for Best Rock Song.

In this episode, Ezra Keneyke from Vampire Weekend takes Harmony Hall apart.

I spoke to him along with producer Ariel Rekshide, and the two of them detailed the winding

path the song went down over several years before it finally took shape.

I'm Ezra Keneyke from Vampire Weekend.

The very first time there was any bit of the song was me walking down the street kind

of mumbling and saying something about Harmony Hall.

I found a voice memo that is the beginning of the song and I'm outside.

You can hear other voices.

I thought that was from 2011.

I was actually surprised by how old that was, but time flies.

I remember thinking, okay, there's a phrase, Harmony Hall, and there's a vague idea.

I definitely thought that it had potential as a song.

Maybe over the next year, try it once or twice with an eye to it being on Modern Vampires

or a third album, but I just couldn't quite crack it.

...