Lately I’ve been Googling some song lyrics, clicking on the YouTube video that I am pleasantly surprised is the first result, then returning to one of my 743980214 browser tabs. Whenever I do stick around, to me, in 2015, YouTubeVEVO feels like how 80′s kids describe MTV coming on air for the first time. All of my radio stars live in Rdio, Spotify, SoundCloud, Pandora, and Songza; so I almost never see an Official Music Video. When I do, I’m shocked or delighted or disgusted by what these artists have done with MY songs. I know that’s like George RR Martin wrote the script for HBO’s Game of Thrones and I can’t believe how much “they” missed the mark.
Anyway, to be honest I was searching for Cut Copy’s song with the same name, but once this started I couldn’t pull my eyes away. I don’t actually care for this song, but it’s one of the best videos I’ve seen in awhile. Alexis Taylor (lead vocalist and video’s protagonist) is smart and creative* and I couldn’t wait to see where he (all of them) was going.
YouTube commenter(!!) Jee Charns describes it better than I could have.
Genius. His girlfriend leaves. First he grieves. Then he looks back on himself and and gets angry because he didn't do anything about it. Then he looks back on himself again and accepts what has happened and does whatever it takes to get his girl back. At each stage he's chasing his future self who is one step closer to solving the emotional problem. And once he sees the past version of himself who was upset or angry he avoids them.
I see it as about the learning process of heartbreak and how we get through it. There's no way to change the way you feel. Just have to run towards solving the problem.
*I was lucky enough to see Alexis Taylor perform alongside David Byrne et al as part of Atomic Bomb!, the ephemeral supergroup dedicated to the music of William Onyeabor, the obscurely legendary Nigerian funk musician no one can find. If someone landing here out of mutual interest has a recording of Alexis singing “Good Name” at the Greek, please send it my way. It was memorable.













