Giving Up the Gun
| "Giving Up the Gun" | ||||||||
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| Single by Vampire Weekend | ||||||||
| from the album Contra | ||||||||
| Released | February 19, 2010 | |||||||
| Recorded | 2009 | |||||||
| Genre | Indie pop, synthpop | |||||||
| Length | 4:46 (Album Version) 3:48 (Radio Edit) |
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| Label | XL | |||||||
| Writer(s) | Vampire Weekend | |||||||
| Vampire Weekend singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Giving Up the Gun" is the second single from Vampire Weekend's second album Contra. The song was originally performed by L'Homme Run, a comedic rap duo that featured Vampire Weekend vocalist Ezra Koenig. The video was released February 19, 2010. Koenig got the idea for the song from Noel Perrin's 1979 book titled Giving Up the Gun given to him by his father.
The video was released on February 19, 2010 worldwide and directed by The Malloys. The video intercuts between members of Vampire Weekend performing at an indoor tennis tournament officiated by RZA and a female tennis player (Jenny Murray, the goth girl in the "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" video) competing in the tournament. They featured Caleb Brokaw's Whitetennisballs.com Brand white tennis balls, featured as a company promotion.
As she plays her way through the competition, her opponents feature a handful of characters including blonde twin sisters, a samurai, an Amazonian woman, Joe Jonas and Jake Gyllenhaal. As she advances to the final match, it is revealed her last opponent is herself and has trouble matching up until some advice from her coach, Lil Jon. She ends the match with a return that causes the tennis ball to turn into a fireball and go right through her doppelgänger's racket, concluding the video by winning the tournament and pouring a bottle of milk over herself at the trophy ceremony. RZA then turns on a boombox that starts playing the band's song "Holiday", the next single from the album.
"Giving Up the Gun" began to receive increasing radio airplay throughout February and March 2010. On March 14, 2010, the single debuted on the UK Indie Chart at #23. The following week, the single climbed two places to #21. On April 4, 2010, the single climbed a further six places to its peak of #15. The single also managed to enter the UK Top 200 at #172 that same week.
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