Time to Pretend

An earlier version on the 2005 EP runs 4:29. Fridmann produced the single, released on March 3, 2008. VanWyngarden plays vocals, synthesizers, piano and drums, Goldwasser synthesizers and horn samples, per the Song Exploder episode of January 19, 2016. Goldwasser said they wanted the tempo to be the exact tempo of ABBA's "Dancing Queen", and the outro borrows its piano riff as a tribute; NME's write-up of the episode says Fridmann reportedly used a light dimmer to shift the pitch of the squealing synth in the outro, from a single source. VanWyngarden told Inside Bay Area that the keyboard melody was inspired by the dance of the band's pet praying mantis, Kuivila.

Goldwasser told The Independent the song refers to this fantasy, this joke of us being sell-out rock stars, and VanWyngarden told Digital Spy that it is all he can hope for as a lyricist, confusion. Ray Tintori directed the video, which references Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain and Lord of the Flies. It reached 35 in the UK, and again in early 2009 after use in the series Skins, is 3x Platinum in the US, and ranked 3rd among Rolling Stone's songs of 2008 and 2nd among NME's songs of the 2000s. Setlist.fm lists it as their most-played, at 433. Black Country, New Road, Charlie Hickey and Paolo Nutini have covered it, and Sigala and James Arthur sampled it in 2020. We do not know which version our upload is.