Songfacts®:

• Here We Go Magic is an American indie rock band based in Brooklyn, New York. After previously releasing two folk albums under his own name in the mid-2000s, Luke Temple released a self-titled album under the moniker of Here We Go Magic in February 2009 under Western Vinyl. Later in the year Temple expanded the project into a fully fledged band with keyboardist Kristina Lieberson, guitarist Michael Bloch, bass guitarist Jennifer Turner and drummer Peter Hale. The second album Pigeons was recorded surrounded by mountains in Catskills, New York in the fall of 2009 and was released by Secretly Canadian on June 8, 2010.
• "Collector" was the first single released from Pigeons and was rated "Best New Music" by Pitchfork Media on March 18, 2010.
• Temple explained the inspiration for the song in an in interview with the New York City newspaper, Village Voice: "I'm not a collector type but I have always had a touch of envy for those who are - it makes for a more interesting home. It's also weird how people's stuff can define them."
  
  Temple added that musically he was inspired by, "listening to a lot of Neu!" Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother formed the German band after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s. They are recognized as a significant influence on much of the current electronic music scene.
• The song was recorded live without the mistakes being edited out. Temple told Drowned In Sound why: "There are a few overdubs at the end such as vocal harmonies but the version on the album was only the third take of that song. Trying to make something perfect is the most unnatural thing there is. Everything's flawed, one thing moves along to the next and so on. To try to create any kind of music or art that is flawless is just a myth, and one that could never exist. To me, for something to sound natural there has to be some kind of communication going on in real time between people if it is an ensemble based arrangement. There needs to be that intangible connection where by the mistakes can be taken with a pinch of salt because overall, the bigger picture feels good. There are mistakes all over that song in particular, but those are easy sacrifices to make for the good of the recording process and the band in general."
• Jen Turner told CMU about the recording of Pigeons: "In the beginning it was kind of hard - we tried first to record the songs we had already been playing live. That proved to be uninspiring, so we quickly shifted to working on new material. Luke would wake up and put together a loose idea of a song on acoustic guitar. We would all play it together and shape it, and then decide how it was going to be recorded best. Lots of times we'd use the four track as pres and hit the tape really hard with the drums. I love that sound. We had a Toft board and a Tascam 38 1/2" reel-to-reel. The only outboard gear we used was a space echo and the four track! Oh, and something called The Brick, which we used primarily on bass.
  
  I was really proud of how 'Collector' and 'Surprise' came out, they were the first ones that were recorded fully live - I was so nervous! - and I feel like something very special was captured. The guitar amps upstairs in the bathroom and the bedroom, Luke in the downstairs bathroom, Teen [Kristina Lieberson] going direct, me going through The Brick, and Pete just slamming away in the middle of it all. It was like magic - we listened back and I couldn't believe it."
• When Temple was trying to come up with a name for the album, he started throwing around the word "pigeons." The frontman liked how pigeons are everywhere in cities, although no one ever really notices them. "Pigeons are this underrated, underdog-like bird," Temple told Spinner UK. "I think of ourselves as that."