What's That Song From the Tommy Hilfiger and Honda Holiday Commercials?

Posted on Dec 1st 2010 12:30PM by Phil Brondyke
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'Holiday,' Vampire Weekend

We're coming up on a holiday, yes a holiday, the best time of the year. To capture this feeling verbatim, Vampire Weekend lent their single 'Holiday' to both Tommy Hilfiger and Honda for the holiday season.

For the Tommy Hilfiger spot, the retailer presents his fictional family, "The Hilfigers," donning his apparel and having a garrulous feast on a table extending out of the back of a wood-paneled Jeep Cherokee. The happy Vampire Weekend track provides the background for their merriment, until the vehicle is driven away mid-meal by a young member of the fictional Hilfiger clan. Fittingly, the commercial's title is 'Feast Interruptus.'

The outrageously art-directed Hilfiger spot is, in fact, eerily reminiscent of the official 'Holiday' music video, in which the band got dressed up in clothing of 18th century French aristocracy and romped through Southern California. Overindulging in desserts and beating up surfers, Vampire Weekend took a tongue-in-cheek shot at critics who have accused the Columbia University alumni of being half-sincere slumming preppies.

Honda takes 'Holiday' for a similar ride, as the car giant promotes their "people movers,"specifically, Honda's line of crossover SUVs and minivans. Stop-motion animation shows new Honda owners in various stages of joy, as their families present them with new, high-capacity Hondas. Again, the 'Holiday' hook conveys the happiness of receiving presents around the holiday season via an upbeat melody and concise, simple lyrics.

Although the hook is innocent as a '50s sitcom, the lyrics of 'Holiday' are a bit heavier. In an NME interview, VW lead singer Ezra Koenig said that the song features lyrics that relate to one of his family members becoming a vegetarian prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"They were horrified by what was happening internationally and they lost their taste for meat," he said. "It wasn't even necessarily an overt protest; it was a physical reaction."

Vampire Weekend have been steadily gaining notoriety since their formation in 2006 but have truly emerged on the indie music scene with their 2008 self-titled release. 'Holiday,' taken from the 2010 album 'Contra,' follows 'Giving Up the Gun' as the second released single from the record.

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