“Hudson” is drawn from a poem Ezra Koenig once wrote about Henry Hudson. The Hudson River looms large over New Jersey and Westchester County, New York as the path into the city’s riches. Three out of the four members of the band grew up in these places: Ezra Koenig in northern New Jersey, Chris Tomson in south Jersey, Chris Baio in Westchester. It seems to be influenced strongly by “By The Waters Of Babylon,” a short story.

Later, Ezra Koenig clarified on Twitter that he has not yet read it, at least as of April 1, 2014 (though was he perhaps pranking us, or was a guy with the same name as the commenter pranking us? pretty spooky…)

https://twitter.com/arzE/status/451159043584036864

Since we never talk about drummer Chris Tomson, it’s important to note that he played a huge part in the making of this song. Ezra Koenig said his own preferred vision of the record would be a “Horace Andy meets Radiohead” minor key-driven dark dancehall album, but this is not quite that. It is dark!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z740VKjpfs

Think of this song as the inverse to “A-Punk,” like a dirge about going uptown to make a deal with the devil. You could see it as a song about New York gentrification and ethnic assimilation, or a song about signing a record deal and being depressed about it, or a song about being betrayed by an ex-lover, or a character sketch about Henry Hudson in the modern world along the lines of Dave Longstreth’s imperialist explorers in postmodern America motif through Dirty Projectors' The Getty Address.