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The band’s multi-instrumentalist and producer, Rostam Batmanglij, wrote “Young Lion” about a real-life June 2009 encounter that lyricist Ezra Koenig had “with an older rasta at Dunkin Donuts”, a random stranger who stopped him while he was walking to the Brooklyn studio during the final weeks of recording "Contra" and said to him: “You take your time, young lion.”
There is an infamous 1967 photo shoot of Jim Morrison of this name.
Coincidentally, the Columbia University mascot is the Lions. All four members of Vampy Weeks went there, and the band was founded there.
Coincidentally, also, Ezra Koenig mentioned Rap Genius at a March 2010 New York Public Library “Young Lions” event with the writer John Wray. He said he preferred the original name, which was Rap Exegesis. The Young Lions are a fundraising group for the library and catnip to the kinds of people who are characters in Vampire Weekend songs.
Not coincidentally, Young Lions are discussed in the Tanakh (Jeremiah 2:11-15):
“Hath a nation changed its gods, which yet are no gods? But My people hath changed its glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye exceeding amazed, saith the LORD. For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Is Israel a servant? Is he a home-born slave? Why is he become a prey? The young lions have roared upon him, and let their voice resound; and they have made his land desolate, his cities are laid waste, without inhabitant."
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