The Come to Daddy video by Aphex Twin features surreal, disturbing imagery that fits the experimental electronic music. It begins by showing an old woman walking her dog past a pile of garbage. Her dog finds a television and is shocked by a distorted image of Aphex Twin that says "I want your soul". This introduces the song's lyrics. Later, the woman encounters a group of strange children with Aphex Twin's face who terrorize people while the television repeats the lyrics. At the end, a creature emerges from the television with Aphex Twin's face, blurring the lines between human and machine. Through its unsettling narrative, editing, and emphasis on mechanical reproduction, the video allows the experimental music to remain the

1. The Come to Daddy video distinctly breaches the performance video trend. While Come
to Daddy does contain lyrics, they are minimal, and the short phrases that make up the
lyrics are repeated multiple times. Also, while the song is separated into a number of
sections, many of these sections are lyric-free, and are composed entirely of dense
textures of drum break beats, which is a common characteristic. Of the sections that
contain vocals, each is focused on a certain phrase, of which there are only two: “I want
your soul, I will eat your soul”, and “come to daddy”. Aside from the bass lines, the other
musical material is electronic and heavily processed. These patterns are so complex that
they leave little question that this piece was ever intended to be performed in any
traditional manor. The piece is an electronic piece constructed from repetitive musical
motives, and the instrumentation is made up of sampled drums, synthesized bass, and
various other electronic instruments. Chris Cunningham’s vision for the Come to Daddy
video fits the complementation model, and the video is enhanced by this relationship. The
visuals, while not entirely consistent with the music, represent a wonderfully distorted
narrative of an already twisted song in the medium of a music video.
The fact that audio-visual synchronization is important in the Come to Daddy video is
established right from the beginning by the camera’s motion through what seems to be a
tunnel. As we exit the tunnel, we see the housing complex for the first time, directly in
sync with a sound that is vaguely reminiscent of a spaceship. The video places the viewer
in a surreal, off-colour world where evil lurks around every corner. That evil is embodied
in its many different forms throughout. In the beginning of the video, we find ourselves
outside a dirty and barren housing estate. The first character that we see is that of an old
woman walking her dog with a long shot in an already established location. Where it then
cuts away to bright lights and flickering in the title sequence. As the woman comes upon
a pile of garbage, which is seen through a point of view shot and various close ups of her
dog sniffing it. As she waits for her dog to examine a small TV, we get the impression
that she is being watched. This effect is achieved through the use of a shot-reverse-shot
sequence, and subtle motion in the shadows at the edge of the screen. A shadowy figure
that partially blocks the left edge of the screen might have gone entirely unnoticed if not
for the visual synchronization of the shadow with the introduction of a new sound in the
audio track. This draws our attention to the framing of the shot.
Forcing the viewer to notice the camera movement subconsciously. We then cut to a close
up of what appears to be a child’s feet this is due to the small feet, but also the way the
socks are worn (rolled down) an the edge of dress bring back recollections of girls school
uniform, this was constructed to connote a child was watching her. After sniffing at the
TV screen for a bit and then choosing to pee on the old lady instead, the dog is shocked
by the TV screen which is seen through the pull focus, and begins an attempt to attack it
viciously with a muffled echo of the dogs barking, only to be held back by the
surprisingly strong old women. A distorted image of Richard D. James appears on the
screen, and his lip-synced, “I want your soul”, ends the introductory section of the video.
This introduction of Come to Daddy, was specifically designed for the music video as
when it is compared with the disc recording, the song begins only after the distorted
image of Richard D. James’s first appearance in the TV which is seen throughout the first
minute and sixteen seconds.

2. Throughout the majority of this section, the accent structure alignments between various
acoustic and visual events draw attention either to the visual editing or to the framing and
motion of the camera, but not to the content of the image. While the woman clearly says
something to her dog about thirty seconds into the video, we don’t hear what she says. It
becomes clear that even though we are in the presence of the soundtrack, we are also in
the centre of a diegetic silence. Near the end of the introduction, our attention is draw to
the bolt of electricity that shocks the old lady’s dog. Accompanying this is the first sound
which could possibly be considered diegetic. Whether the sound is actually diegetic or
not isn’t entirely clear. The bolt of electricity is followed by the dog barking at the TV
set, this section is intended as a bridge between the diegetic silence of the introduction
section, and what is to come—the image of James in the TV set speaking the lyrics of the
song, “I want your soul”. Up until this point, because the audio-visual synchronization is
based around nondiegetic visual material, we are obliged to consider this to that of a
similar medium of a film and the music that garnishes it.
It the cuts back and forth repeatedly almost as reaction a reaction shot to the old women
frightened and that of the distorted TV effect repeatedly conversing ‘I want your soul.’
she turn the corner to find a group of little girls with the face’s of Richard D. James,
lurking around the bend. Which then run mischievously, scraping what appears to be a
baton across railings, this is seen with various camera movement such as; tracking shots,
and close ups to show their wild antics as well as their freaky abnormal faces and facial
expressions. As they continue running it cuts to a tracking shot which goes into the TV
which is speed up to continue the fast pace. Then in to a shot reverse shot of the children
arriving at Richard D. James in the TV screen. Where they look at it with joy as it
repeatedly say’s ‘come to daddy’ more and more vigorously, as they pick up the
television screen and continue running with it, as if they are possessed by the music, as
they continue running in outrage.
During this section, the 180-degree rule is broken repeatedly so we have almost no idea
from which perspective we are viewing the action. This allows for a momentary
distortion of our perception that goes unnoticed without careful attention when the old
woman first notices the group of evil-looking children, wearing dresses, all with Richard
D. James’ smiling face, she backs up in fear. They run past her to pick up the TV. From
previous clues, their trip to pick up the TV should be a short one, but it involves a lengthy
run through an alleyway that in fact did not previously exist.
As it reverts back to repeating ‘I want your soul’ and ‘I will eat your soul’ is show very
cleverly though not only a tracking shot to show the children but thought the framing to
make it appear that the child’s head and that the head of the screen completes one another
in order to make it seem that the words are in fact from the child mouth, to add to this
distortion the camera would have been hand held which is evident through the tracking
and canted angles.
They continue plundering people they come across causing mayhem, and fear, which is
seen through shot reverse shots of the man chased into his car. He continues to scream
more fearfully as it cuts to the TV lengthening the word ’soul’ as if it literally sucking out

3. his soul, where it cuts to a mid shot of the car and the lights flashing on as if to say the act
has been done. Where we then surprisingly get a break in continuity from both the music
and the action to various slow-motion shots of two of the children holding hands and
skipping, with a slightly muffled gentle child’s sound track, till the hand break up and the
camera goes into the darkness, where soundtrack pick up again this time with the children
throwing garbage around, and even fighting one another until the TV drops. It then cuts
to a rear shot of the TV on the floor with the two children that were previous skipping
standing there with bright lights flashing from the TV on them, the composition of the
two girls in scene resemble the twins standing in the corridor from the film ’The Shining’
(1980). The creature comes out of the television screen, and lours the children to him
again this human like un-proportional creature has the face of Richard D. James. I believe
that the concept of this video was based around the idea of re production, which has been
alliterated throughout from the repetition of the lyrics, to the reproductions of Richard D.
James who we never see fully throughout the video. The flickers of the copy machine
from the title sequence is the first clue of the importance of mechanical procreation; this
is also displayed through the mise en scene, due to the repetition of the flats, in the way
they are constricted as each floor is the same as the previous but also amount created side
by side. But these, along with the static of the thrown-out TV, make it accomplishable for
the video to bear glitching material throughout, synced with the music, without us being
as inquisitive as to why the video be so glitchy. We see his face in the TV, on each of the
little people, and at the end of the video, on the abnormal creature, who has came forth
from the TV set, blurring the line between human and machine.
In Come to Daddy, the narrative, camera movement, editing, mise en scene and the
melodic theme of mechanical reproduction all produce a perpetual interplay that allows
the music to take the foreground without any of the narrative-frustrating devices being
simply functional in that sense. Were the video to have been produced in a conventional
narrative form, the music would have fallen into the background as it would in any
traditional Hollywood style film. Given the importance and necessary predominance of
the music in a music video, both from an artistic and a commercialising standpoint, it is
essential to assure that the narrative not to dominate. Cunningham manages to engage a
narrative and then frustrate that narrative through the use of abstract and associational
imagery and editing. He also managed to place a video on TV that counteracts the MTV
“disposable image” by producing an underlying theme of art and/or humanity “designed
for reproducibility”. The complex interplay of these components, and the fantastic Aphex
Twin music, all contribute to the artistic success of the Come to Daddy music video as a
promotional tool.