Songfacts®:

• MGMT's Andrew VanWyngarden told Spin Magazine about this 12-minute-long epic track: "It's kind of like eight different songs strung together into one, and the general theme is about surfing in the Arctic Circle by Russia."
• Spin asked VanWyngarden if he's always been an avid surfer. He replied: "When we were making the first record I didn't surf. But for whatever reason, I was dreaming about waves and surfing for about a year straight. So that made it into the lyrics and the imagery of the record. Then about a year ago, when we were recording Congratulations in Malibu, I started surfing. Now I try to do it whenever I can. I'm going to Costa Rica to surf this Sunday. I love it and it's definitely a theme on Congratulations."
• VanWyngarden told Artist Direct the story of the song: "Similar to the other songs on the album, we were writing it, and it started growing and taking shape as a longer song. It wasn't something where we set out from the beginning to write a really long song. It started with a simple chord progression for the first verse, and it kept developing after that. It never felt too long. I think some people are somehow offended by its length, but we wanted it to be a sweep of a song at this walking pace. A lot of the lyrics are about surfing and more cosmic stuff."
• Around the middle of the song, Andrew can be heard singing "I hope I die before I get sold" multiple times, assumably an allusion to The Who lyric "I hope I die before I get old" from the song "My Generation." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Diane - Washington, D.C., VA