Song Title and Meaning
On January 28, 2008, Michael Hogan of Vanity Fair interviewed Ezra Koenig regarding the title of the song and its relevance to the song's meaning. Koenig said he first encountered the Oxford comma (a comma used before the conjunction at the end of a list) after learning of a Columbia University Facebook group called Students for the Preservation of the Oxford Comma. The idea for the song came several months later while Koenig was sitting at a piano in his parents' house. He began "writing the song and the first thing that came out was 'Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?'" He stated that the song "is more about not giving a fuck than about Oxford commas."
The song's lyrics contain multiple references to rapper Lil Jon (claiming that "he always tells the truth"). Lil Jon sent Vampire Weekend a case of crunk juice as thanks for the name check, and a friendship formed between Vampire Weekend and Lil Jon that would pan out into Lil Jon's cameo in the music video for "Giving Up the Gun". Also mentioned is the city of Dharamsala, home of the 14th Dalai Lama ("the highest lama").
Read more about this topic: Oxford Comma (song)
Famous quotes containing the words song, title and/or meaning:
“The city sleeps and the country sleeps,
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;
And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“It was his title that killed me. I had never spoken to a lord before. Oh, me! what a fool, what a beast I have been!”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!”
—Bible: Hebrew, 2 Kings 2:12.
Elisha of Elijah, meaning he is more important than these.