Vampire Weekend – “Houston Dubai,” “I Don’t Think Much About Her No More” (Mickey Newbury Cover) & “Lord Ullin’s Daughter” (Feat. Jude Law)
It’s been nearly a year since Vampire Weekend graced us with Father Of The Bride, their first album in more than half a decade. At 18 tracks, it’s the band’s longest release by far, but it could have been much longer. Upon announcing FOTB, Ezra Koenig revealed that at one point he was considering releasing two 23-track albums “on some human chromosome shit.” So you know he’s sitting on a lot of unreleased music.
Maybe he’ll clear the vaults out someday! In the meantime, we get the official release of three bonus tracks that were previously only legally available in Japan. There is “Houston Dubai,” a chipper excursion that plays like an acoustic version of the band’s early material. There is “I Don’t Think Much About Her No More,” a cover of Mickey Newbury’s mournful country ballad transformed into something a bit more like baroque Bob Dylan. (It’s the best of the bunch.) And there’s “Lord Ullin’s Daughter,” the one in which Jude Law reads a 200-year-old Scottish poem over an early version of the “Big Blue” instrumental.
Check out all three songs below, and revisit our Vampire Weekend cover story while you’re at it.