"Giving Up The Gun" for the Glory Days

The song I chose was "Giving Up The Gun" by Vampire Weekend from the album Contra. The song's title is a reference to a history book called "Giving Up The Gun", about an isolationist period of Japanese history where Japan closed off trade, expelled foreigners, stopped using guns and reverted back to the sword. The song itself is not really about Japan, but uses this historical example to illustrate the theme of how people often attempt to duplicate the glory of their past, but the results usually do not go as planned.

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

These lines, repeated throughout the song as the chorus, tie each set of lyrics back to the central idea of trying to duplicate the glory of one's past. The line "Your sword's grown old and rusty" is a metaphor for someone whose glory days have long past. The lyrics "locked up like a trophy" glorify the past, leading the song's main character to try to "give up the gun" a metaphor for forsaking his or her current way of living and trying to emulate the past. This theme is applied to certain real-world situations throughout the song:

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 

These lines apply the central theme to the idea of a musician who refuses to adapt his or her style to a modern or more accepted style (perhaps something more relatable for a band to write about). These lines portray this action negatively, however: "But in the years that passed/Since I saw you last/You haven't moved an inch". This line is a metaphor which suggests that by not adapting to changing times, the musician has become stale. This reveals the conflict between the need to be true to oneself and the need to adapt to survive.