"Diane Young" is a song by American
indie rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...
band
Vampire Weekend, taken from their third studio album ''
Modern Vampires of the City''. It was released as the lead single from the album on March 19, 2013. A promotional video of the single, which features two
Saab 900s burning throughout the duration of the song, was uploaded to
Vevo and
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
on March 18, 2013. The official video to the single was uploaded on June 3, 2013.
Background
The band has since stated that the song title and concept is a play on the phrase "Dying young".
Commercial performance
"Diane Young" peaked at #11 on the ''
Billboard''
Alternative Songs
Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks between 1988 and 2009, and Alternative Songs between 2009 and 2020) is a music chart published in the American magazine ''Billboard'' since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-play ...
chart. It also reached number 17 on the ''Billboard''
Hot Rock Songs chart and number 50 on
UK Singles Chart.
Music videos
The
promotional video for "Diane Young", dubbed the "official stream", was released on March 18, 2013. Throughout the duration of the video, two
900-series Saabs are shown burning in slow motion. The opening lyric for the song, "You torched a Saab like a pile of leaves", served as the inspiration for the video.
According to an interview with
Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
's
The Peak radio station, the video for "Diane Young" was made with only five seconds of footage from a
Phantom Cam which films at 1000 frames per second. The video concept came from Vampire Weekend member
Rostam Batmanglij's friend Borna Sammak, and was filmed while the band was performing at SXSW. There were allegations that the cars had been purchased under false pretenses and that the original owners had not been informed their cars would be destroyed. Vampire Weekend stated publicly that they were "stunned by the accusation", and denied any deliberate deceit in the purchase of the cars.
The official video for "Diane Young" premiered on June 3, 2013. The video was directed by Primo Kahn and features cameos from
Santigold,
Chromeo,
Sky Ferreira,
Despot,
Dave Longstreth from
Dirty Projectors and
Hamilton Leithauser from
The Walkmen.
The video parodies Leonardo da Vinci's ''
The Last Supper'', depicting a dinner party that becomes progressively chaotic, attended by members of the band and other guests. An unidentified and disinterested man wearing a balaclava, analogous to Jesus in ''The Last Supper'', is at the party (and video's) center.
Personnel
Vampire Weekend
*
Chris Baio – bass
*
Rostam Batmanglij – piano, guitars, banjo, vocal harmonies and backing vocals, drum and synth programming, keyboards, shaker
*
Ezra Koenig – lead vocals
*
Chris Tomson – drums
Additional musicians
* Adam Schatz – saxophone
* Jeff Curtin – additional drums
*
Ariel Rechtshaid – additional drum and synth programming
Technical
*
Rich Costey – mixing
* Chris Kasych – mix assistance,
Pro Tools engineering
* Eric Isip – assistance
*
Emily Lazar – mastering
*
Joe LaPorta – mastering
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
References
{{authority control
2013 songs
Vampire Weekend songs
XL Recordings singles
2013 singles
Song recordings produced by Ariel Rechtshaid
Songs written by Ezra Koenig
Songs written by Rostam Batmanglij