This is one of the first music videos to feature some sort of story.
You know, a plot instead of (a) the lead singer emoting into the microphone while (b) the rest of the band pretends to play their instruments for the 45th time until (c) the director finally calls it good.
Because this is a piece of epic music history, 12 years from now, somebody will write their doctoral thesis on it. If you are that person, please research whether the female lead’s hairdo was an accidental homage to Princess Diana or totally on purpose. Kthxbai.
My freshman year of college, I had an 8 a.m. class on Fridays called “Concepts of the Self.”
I shouldn’t have to tell you this is prime time for a hangover, and if I do, well you’re a better person than me.
Anyway, my professor was always going on and on about the subconscious mind and I’ll never forget this video he showed us, called Do you Dream in Color? by Bill Nelson. Go on and give it a gander.
That’s crazy, right? Like the dude with the jello-legs and the saxophone, what’s he trying to accomplish?
Images from this video will randomly float through my head, and I’ve got to give my boy Bill props here. He isn’t telling a story through direct means, he is using wild imagery to convey a feeling. I don’t know what the heck is going on, but I feel like I’m in a dream.
I’m sort of obsessed with Lady Gaga (and actually wore a real hair-bow out once), and I get frustrated when people complain about her videos. Her Marry the Night video is a perfect example of imagery based out of emotion. It’s like the video Guy posted by Elle Goulding — you can’t take your eyes away because the video enhances the full song experience.
I have heard this song on the radios, and over the Series of Tubes through some kind of Pandora magic, though Pandora is missing her Box for some reason.
HOWEVER: The point is, this song by Elle the Goulding is interesting plus the video is craaazy.
Which is good.
Because the last thing the world needs is another boring music video where (a) the band rocks out on stage while playing their guitars and such, because that has NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE, or (b) the singer pretends to sing while doing a choreographed dance number with 592 backup dancers and 17 costume changes.
I give Elle the Goulding bonus points for trying something different.
Now, I enjoy dissecting the lyrics of insane music videos, such as ICE, ICE BABY — but once and a great while, there’s a music video that comes out of nowhere, like a burly mountain man stomping through town with a giant axe on his shoulder and a hankering for Insane Amounts of Flapjacks — and this is one such video that surprised and amused me.
Also, it has no lyrics to dissect at all, unless I speak bird. Which I don’t. If you can translate, go for it.
Also-also: This would be a perfect song for some kind of spaghetti Western starring Clint Eastwood, though I mean the younger version of about 30 years ago, before he starting picking fights with empty chairs.
This is a simple little song with a simple little video that still manages to ROCK THE HOUSE.
Also, I don’t really hear much of a difference between the Ho! and the Hey! parts, but hey, that’s artistic license and such.
Also-also: There’s something of a trend of Mumford and Son types, musicians wearing suspenders while playing folksy rock that involves (a) a banjo, (b) a bass and (c) harmonicas or whatever.
This is a good thing, though it will certainly snowball into some kind of trend where record executives start signing up folks bands with accordians instead of amplifiers faster than an aspiring writer can tell you about their YA series that is NOT inspired — they swear — by Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, because they have a school of witches, not wizards, and the zombies show up on page 392.
Also-cubed: As for the controversy over whether The Lumineers (original band name: The Night Lights) are singing “You’re my sweetheart” or “You’re my sweet home” — the answer is, “sweet heart.”
Here’s the video. Watch it. DO IT NOW, because YouTube / the Google needs your clicks and money or whatever before their stock starts doing the Facebook nosedive.
For word nerds around the world, the lyrics:
(Ho!) I’ve been trying to do it right
(Hey!) I’ve been living a lonely life
(Ho!) I’ve been sleeping here instead
(Hey!)I’ve been sleeping in my bed,
(Ho!) sleeping in my bed (Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Ho!) So show me family
(Hey!) Or the blood that I would bleed
(Ho!) I don’t know where I belong
(Hey!) I don’t know where I went wrong
(Ho!) But I can write a song
(Hey!)
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweet
(Ho!)
(Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Hey!)
(Ho!) I don’t think you’re right for him
(Hey!) Leave the world it might have been
(Ho!) Took a bus to china town
(Hey!) I’ll be standing on canal
(Ho!) And bowery (hey!)
(Ho!) She’d be standing next to me (hey!)
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
And love, we need it now
Let’s hope for some
Cause oh, we’re bleeding out
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
A band I’ve never heard of with an interesting song and great camera work.
Not too shabby, Passion Pit — not to shabby at all.
For all you word nerds, here are the lyrics:
All these kind of places
Make it seems like it’s been ages
Tomorrow some new building will scrape the sky
I love this country dearly
I can feel the ladder clearly
But I never thought I’d be alone to try
Once I was outside Penn station
Selling red and white carnations
We were still alone
My wife and I
Before we marry, save my money
Brought my dear wife over
Now I work to bring family state side
But off the boat they stayed a while and
Scattered across the coast
Once a year I’ll see them for a week or so at most
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Practice isn’t perfect
But the market cuts the loss
I remind myself that times could be much worse
My wife won’t ask me questions
There’s not so much to ask
And she’ll never flaunt around an empty purse
Once my mother-in-law came
Just to stay a couple nights
And decided she would stay the rest of her life
I watch my little children
Play some board game in the kitchen
And I sit and pray they never feel my strife
But then my partner called to say the pension funds were gone
He made some bad investments
Now the accounts are overdrawn
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, 0h-oh-oh
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Honey it’s your son I think I borrowed just too much
We had taxes we had bills
We had a lifestyle to front
And tonight I swear I’ll come home
And we’ll make love like we’re young
And tomorrow you’ll cook dinner
For the neighbors and their kids
We could rip apart those socialists
and all their damn taxes
You’ll see I am no criminal
I’m down on both bad knees
I’m just too much a coward
to admit when I’m in need
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, 0h-oh-oh
I take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Maybe, just maybe, somebody saw FROM YESTERDAY by 30 Seconds to Mars and said hey, we can’t afford to fly a crew to China and hire 500 extras to make a mini-movie masterpiece. But we do know two dudes who just started taking kendo.
Lyrics for TOO CLOSE:
You know I’m not one to break promises
I don’t want to hurt you but I need to breathe
At the end of it all you’re still my best friend
But there’s something inside that I need to release
Which way is right, which way is wrong
How do I say that I need to move on?
You know we have is separate way
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
You gave me more that I can return
Yet there’s so much that you deserve
Nothing to say, nothing to do
I’ve nothing to give
I must leave without you
You know we have to separate
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
So I’ll be on my way
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing that I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
So I’ll be on my way, so I’ll be on my way
So, I usually find great music videos and go at them with a literary scalpel, like a first-year biology student going after his first frog — or I take insane music videos and make fun of them.
Each method is equally rewarding.
HOWEVER: Sometimes, a random music video pops up that is not one of the pure forms. It’s not insane, insipid or inscrutable. Nor is it beautiful in the standard way.
Every once and a while, something pops up that is both insane AND great.
Like this piece from South Korea, which also proves the point that attitude trumps all. The singer isn’t conventionally good looking. He’s short and out of shape. But oh, he’s got swagger, and it makes him far more charming than a boy-band member with perfect abs who tries very, very hard not to get a hair out of place while he croons.
Typically, I interpret the lyrics of videos. Not this time. Just watch and enjoy.
"In my insomniacal Twitter meanderings I find the miracle of @speechwriterguy. Follow him. He makes energetic sense about words. And life."
@CharlesCrawford / Oxford area, England / Former British Ambassador turned speechwriter, writer, mediator, trainer, blogger. Founder member of ADRg Ambassadors LLP
"Informative, funny, blunt & quirky, @speechwriterguy 's blog is a must if you really give a damn about language & communication."
@DavidWeedmark / Ottawa, Canada / Acclaimed poet & novelist with a penchant for dark roast coffee; passionately curious.
