2. Narrative
This song tells a story perhaps about himself talking about a girl and how he can't live
without her. He is present in the video floating in a lake and is surrounded by pretty girls
doing synchronised swimming around him.
The whole song is dedicated to her and how he wants her back and how she is the good
in him, this links to the video as he is in a lake just floating and at the start he comes up
from the water which suggests he has left a dark place to sing this song in hope she
comes back, he also can't move alone and towards the end of the song the swimming
girls are the people who help him to shore, this shows he is weak without this girl he is
singing about.
When the lyric ‘Hands upon my chest’ is sung we see a woman's hand swim underneath
the lake and continue swimming away which shows there is no woman's hand upon his
chest and he is alone, we are then introduced to the swimming girls. Also as it is
underwater we see the hand but then it fades away which shows her disappearing from
her life.
When the chorus starts saying ‘oh, wont you breathe life into these dead lungs’ the girls
appear which is a symbol for what can save him; his girl.
3. Narrative
When the lyrics ‘take my silence as a warning’ appear he is not lying down anymore it
is just his head popping out and he is moving, which suggests he has realised he
needs to give her space in hope she misses him and wants him back, this shows his
realisation allowing him to move and carry on with life. He is looking around and the
water becomes more wavey, however at the end of this passage he is back to lying
down which connotes he just isn’t strong enough to carry on, this is at the end of the
song when the swimming girls actually carry him to shore in hope he can restore his
life.
The girls are beautiful and are often smiling and are what rescue him at the end which
makes girls look superior and in control and powerful. This is used as Jack Garratt
believes in equal rights and stereotypically girls fall for boys more and catch more
feelings and he is reversing the roles to be equal
4. Camera angles
We frequently see Garrat from a high angle and are looking down on him
which makes us seem sorry for him as he looks like he is in danger, there are
also a lot of close ups which put the focus on him, this is because he is
selling the song to the audience.
We are often looking down on him or on his level which lets us relate to him
as we might have been through the same sort of feeling as him in a
relationship.
Toward the end portion of the song the camera zooms out really far which
shows the distance between him and his partner and also isolates us from
him which shows he needs time and space to heal.
5. Editing
At the end of the song we see this, lots of circles made up of the 6 girls
swimming, this would have been added in post production and the empty
circles can represent other aspects of his life which are empty due to his
broken relationship with this girl.
The cuts are every 1-2 bars, not as fast as other songs at the start which sets
the scene, as the girls come and the chorus kicks in the cuts become more
frequent to keep us interested and shows us the disorientation of his life.
90% of the video features lip synching
6. Voyeurism
The video is not voyeuristic however we are hearing a
personal story about a break up. Also we do see the
girls legs quite a lot which could be considered
voyeuristic.
