Giving Up the Gun

"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.

Music video

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.

Gun (disambiguation)

A gun is an object that propels another object through a hollow tube, primarily as weaponry.

Gun or Guns may also refer to:

Places

  • Kőszeg or Güns, a town in Hungary
  • Gun, a former administrative District of Japan
  • Gun, a Korean county
  • In entertainment

  • The Gun (history book), a 2010 book by C.J. Chivers
  • The Gun (novel), a 1933 novel by C. S. Forester
  • "The Gun" (short story), a short story by Philip K. Dick
  • "Guns" (essay), an essay by Stephen King
  • Gun (cellular automaton), a pattern in Conway's Game of Life
  • The Gun (1974 film), television film directed by John Badham
  • Gun (TV series), a short-lived anthology series produced by Robert Altman
  • Gun (video game), a video game set in the 1880s in the American West
  • Guns (miniseries), a Canadian television miniseries that aired on CBC Television in 2008
  • Gun (2010 film), an American film
  • Gun (2011 film), an Indian film
  • Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N), an organization in the Sonic The Hedgehog series of video games
  • "The Gun", an alternate name for the unmade Seinfeld episode "The Bet"
  • The Gun (1974 film)

    The Gun is a made for television film, of the suspense-thriller type, which ABC-TV transmitted as a Movie Of The Week on November 13, 1974. It starred David Huffman, Ron Thompson, Richard Bright, Pepe Serna, Lee de Broux, and Stephen Elliott, and was written directly for television by Jay Benson, Richard Levinson, and William Link and directed by John Badham, then a working director of television productions. Levinson and Link were also the producers of the film.

    Plot

    A series of interweaving stories tell the journey of a handgun—specifically, a long-barreled revolver with a blue-steel finish, whose caliber is not specified—as it passes from one owner to another. Some of these owners are lawless; others are law-abiding and, indeed, law enforcers. But in all the time it passes between its various owners, it is never actually fired (aside from the one test-firing it underwent at the factory) and is never shown actually to discharge any ammunition.

    Its last scene, however, depicts a child who finds the gun while it is fully loaded and has none of its safeties engaged. The film shock-cuts to black just then, but it is implied that the child has accidentally caused it to discharge a round of ammunition—and been seriously injured, or killed, by the bullet thus fired from it.

    The Gun (short story)

    The Gun is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1952 September issue of Planet Stories, and later published in Beyond Lies the Wub in 1984. "The Gun" has been published in Italian, German, French and Polish translations.

    Plot synopsis

    The plot centers around a group of space explorers who investigate a planet which appears deserted. However, they are shot down and crash land on the planet. While repairing their ship, a team of explorers sets to survey the surrounding area, where they discover the ruins of an ancient city. Upon further investigation, it is revealed that the gun which shot them down is in the city, and is programmed to shoot anything down which enters the airspace above the city. They examine the gun and discover that it is protecting a tomb directly underneath it -- a tomb which contains artifacts, film and photographs of a lost civilization. In order to prevent themselves from being shot down by the same gun while attempting to leave the planet, they destroy the gun and take the artifacts with them. As they leave the ship, hoping to return one day, it is revealed that several automatized machines begin to repair and erect the gun again: this time it is loaded with nuclear warheads.

    Podcasts:

    PLAYLIST TIME:

    Giving Up The Gun

    by: Vampire Weekend

    Your sword’s grown old and rusty
    Burnt beneath the rising sun
    It’s locked up like a trophy
    Forgetting all the things it’s done
    And though it’s been a long time
    You’re right back where you started from
    I see it in your eyes
    That now you’re giving up the gun
    When I was 17
    I had wrists like steel
    And I felt complete
    And now my body fades
    Behind a brass charade
    And I’m obsolete
    But if the chance remained
    To see those better days
    I’d cut the cannons down
    My ears are blown to bits
    From all the rifle hits
    But I still crave that sound
    CHORUS
    I heard you play guitar
    Down at a seedy bar
    Where skinheads used to fight
    Your Tokugawa smile
    And your garbage style
    Used to save the night
    You felt the coming wave
    Told me we’d all be brave
    You said you wouldn’t flinch
    But in the years that passed
    Since I saw you last
    You haven’t moved an inch
    CHORUS
    I see you shine in your way
    Go on, go on, go on




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