Vampire Weekend’s ‘Capricorn,’ Reviewed by a Capricorn
Finally, a morsel for the Capricorns. Vampire Weekend have released two singles from their upcoming album Only God Was Above Us. “Gen-X Cops” is upbeat subway surf-rock about the generation wars, while “Capricorn” is a meditative and melodic song with death on its mind. Speaking as a Capricorn, I prefer “Capricorn.”
Here’s the thing about Capricorns: We normally don’t get to have this. There is no definitive “Virgo’s Groove” or “Medley: Aquarius” for the water goat. We don’t have the evocative edge of Scorpios or confident simplicity of Leos. We don’t even get to have our own season; overshadowed by Christmas and New Year’s, we’re stuck with the universally loathed dregs of January. Also, Capricorns simply don’t have muse energy. At our worst, we are status-obsessed workaholics. At our best, we’re boring: dependable, practical, fiscally responsible. None of it makes for compelling art. (Though there are exceptions. See: Rihanna’s Capricorn anthem, “Work”.)
But on “Capricorn,” singer Ezra Koenig (an Aries; typical front-man behavior) takes a “still waters run deep” approach to our maligned sign and creates something soft and beautiful. This ruminative little track on aging is about trudging along in what feels like the fallout of some bygone heyday. It’s the unwanted person lingering at the party that everyone is saying, “Who invited him??” about, but the party is … Earth? New York under the unbearable weight of latter-day capitalism? Human life itself? “Can’t reach the moon now, can’t turn the tide” is the opening line, and it’s a fittingly pessimistic Capricorn worldview: We’re not the generation putting people on the moon, and also it’s too late for us to probably fix climate change, so we’re stuck in the middle, stubborn goats with mermaids’ tails adapting to rising oceans.
Koenig finds the best metaphor for that out-of-placeness in the plight of the December Cap: “Capricorn / the year that you were born / finished fast / and the next one wasn’t yours.” Capricorns are both the youngest and the oldest sign of the year, straddling the ball drop. “Too old for dying young / too young to live alone.” It is so rare that Capricorns are seen like this! Even rarer that we get pretty piano riffs and noise-inflected interjections and a strings section. We are normally paid Christmas music and dust.
The verses all end the same: “I know you’re tired of tryin’ / Listen clearly, you don’t have to try.” The Capricorn brand is too grind-set-coded: all about working hard, trudging forward, and pushing through. Of course, when the new album’s liner notes are released, I’m sure it will be revealed that all of this is some reference to a specific figure of New York history and I’ve missed the mark entirely, because Capricorns can’t have nice things. But for now, I’m claiming it anyway.
Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Rihanna, a Pisces, as a Capricorn. The author just really, really wanted it to be true.
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