"Giving Up the Gun" is the third single from Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend is an American indie rock band from New York City that formed in 2006 and signed to XL Recordings. The Band has four members: Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio. The band released its first album Vampire Weekend in 2008, which produced the singles "Mansard...

's second album Contra

Contra (album)

Contra is the second album by American indie rock band Vampire Weekend, released in January 2010 on XL Recordings. It debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 200...

. The song was originally performed by L'Homme Run, a comedy rap duo originally consisting of vocalist Ezra Koenig

Ezra Koenig

Ezra Koenig is the lead singer and one of the guitarists of New York-based indie rock band Vampire Weekend.-Background:...

. The video was released February 19, 2010 Koenig got the idea for the song from a history 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 Malloys

The Malloys is the working name of music video and film directors and brothers Emmett Malloy and Brendan Malloy. They are signed to HSI Productions.- Videography :*"Holiday" by Vampire Weekend...

. The video intercuts between members of Vampire Weekend performing at an indoor tennis tournament officiated by RZA

RZA

Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA , is an American Grammy-winning music producer, multi-instrumentalist, author, emcee, and occasional actor, director, and screenwriter. A prominent figure in Hip Hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has produced almost...

 and a female tennis player (Jenny Murray, the goth girl in the "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

"Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" is the fourth single by indie rock band, Vampire Weekend, released 18 August 2008. The song was rated 67th best song of 2007 by Rolling Stone magazine.-Tracklist:Digital Download :...

" video) competing in the tournament. They featured Cale Quo's Whitetennisballs.com Brand (Cale Quo/Roberts Brokaw LLC) 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

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

, an Amazonian woman, two men wearing white car racing gear (who resemble Daft Punk

Daft Punk

Daft Punk are an electronic music duo consisting of French musicians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter . Daft Punk reached significant popularity in the late 1990s house movement in France and met with continued success in the years following, combining elements of house with synthpop...

), Joe Jonas

Joe Jonas

Joseph Adam "Joe" Jonas is a Pop American singer, musician, actor, and dancer. He is a member of the Jonas Brothers, a pop-rock band made up of him and his two brothers, Nick and Kevin...

 and Jake Gyllenhaal

Jake Gyllenhaal

Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...

. As she advances to the final match, it is revealed her last opponent is herself

Doppelgänger

In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...

 and has trouble matching up until some advice from her coach, Lil Jon

Lil Jon

Jonathan Mortimer Smith , better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, music producer, entrepreneur, and occasional disc jockey who was a member of the group Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz. Lil Jon formed the group in 1997, and the group released several albums between then and 2004...

. She ends the match with her hardest serve

Serve (tennis)

A serve in tennis is a shot to start a point. A player begins a serve by tossing the ball into the air and hitting it into the diagonally opposite backside box without being stopped by the net. The ball can only touch the net on a return and will be considered good if it falls on the opposite side...

 causing 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

Boombox

Boombox is a colloquial expression for a portable cassette or CD player. Other terms known are ghetto blaster, jambox, or radio-cassette. It is a device capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music , usually at relatively high volume...

 that starts playing the band's song "Holiday

Holiday (Vampire Weekend song)

"Holiday" is Vampire Weekend's third single off their album Contra. The video premiered on MTV.com on May 27, 2010. The song was featured in Christmas-themed television advertisements for Tommy Hilfiger and Honda during the 2010 holiday season....

", the next single off the album.

Chart performance

"Giving Up the Gun" began to receive increasing radio airplay throughout February and March 2010. On March 14, 2010, the single debuted on the UK Indie Chart

UK Indie Chart

The UK Independent Chart or Indie Chart is a chart of the best-selling independent record releases in the UK.- History :In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered...

 at #23. The following week, the single climbed two places to #21. On April 4, 2010, the single climbed a further six places to its current peak of #15. The single also managed to enter the UK Top 200 at #172 that same week.

Chart (2010)	Peak Position
UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...	172
UK Indie Chart UK Indie Chart The UK Independent Chart or Indie Chart is a chart of the best-selling independent record releases in the UK.- History :In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered...	8