Listen: Ezra Koenig’s original ‘Hold Up’ demo.

In case you missed it, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig is listed as a co-writer on Beyoncé’s new song ‘Hold Up’, from her latest album, ‘Lemonade’.

The original demo that he created with Diplo has now been released.

When talking about how he wrote the lines, Ezra said the following: “People get really hung up on who wrote what. In some ways I served as like, the middle ground between the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Beyoncé, but it’s funny to think about — what does writing really mean? Of course I’m like, proud. I think I wrote a good hook, I think I had a good idea to like, riff on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But now when I listen back to the demo, it sounds different because she contextualized the song. She made this great video where she’s like, bashing windows and stuff. When I wrote that, it wasn’t directed at anybody, I was just songwriting. There are Vampire Weekend songs that have deep meaning to me, that are personal, but that one I was kinda songwriting. Like, ‘oh, this is a good hook.’ I wasn’t thinking about anyone in particular, and the idea that those words are now contextualized by this album, that video, by her as a performer and a curator—I like it! I think it has deeper meaning. Of course I feel some sense of ownership over what I did, but it doesn’t feel like my song. She really did bring a different resonance and meaning to it. It’s a very modern way of a song coming together… 99% of the world will hear those words and associate them with Beyoncé now.”

Listen to the ‘Hold Up’ demo below…