Another entry about videos

They just premiered the new Massive Attack video for their forthcoming single "Live With Me" on Channel 4. Now I don't know a great deal about the song, who the guest vocalist is (actually, somebody *did* tell me, but I've forgotten and I'm too tired to try to remember!), I don't really know what the song is about, but the video was so beautiful that I'm sitting here quite stunned by it.

At one point, the music video was used to tell the story being told in the song - Or to convey the message the song is trying to make. Massive Attack are reknowned for making videos that force us to think deeper, videos that are both innovative and meaningful. One of my favourite songs of all time is Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy" and I'll always remember the video of Shara Nelson (vocalist for the song) walking through the streets of LA (?) with it being just one single long shot instead of lots of different shots edited together. It really brought home the sense of when someone leaves you, life is one long painful trip where even walking down the streets, you don't get a break..

"Teardrop" featured an unborn foetus still in the womb, but the foetus was miming along to the song. This video cause a lot of controversy because the Daily Mail and Express readers thought it was disgusting how they used such a thing in a video (hello? it wasn't real!). But when you watch the video with the song, you realise that such a thing as a singing foetus is really a celebration of life.

The lyrics to "Live with me" are quite haunting too.. Something about how they've been thinking of someone.. But the video - WOW! It features a young woman going back to her flat with a bag of groceries. Typical young woman. Bright, young, twentysomething in a business suit and heels. That is until you see her at home. At soon as she gets in, she immediately starts to down a can of lager and then preoceeds to drink a whole bottle of vodka. It's then just her downing bottle after bottle of vodka until she's sitting along at the kitchen table which is filled with empty vodka bottles. She then decides to go out. She's staggering through town until she eventually finds a bench to curl up onto and sleep. Whilst asleep, she dreams that she's falling down further and further until eventually, she wakes up and realises she was dreaming and she really is asleep on a bench somewhere.

What particularly impressed me was the symbolism of it all.. How her alcoholism was like her stumbling down a never ending flight of stairs that just round and round and round and round.. The song is beautiful too, really hertfelt.

I am quite stunned by how great the video is. Really, I am. It was so powerful in terms of it's meaning and symbolism... wow!