Everything that kills me… makes me feel alive~ OneRepublic
Love, love LOVE this song! Every time I hear it, I smile. Upbeat, great lyrics, slick music production. So what about the video? Frankly, I’m not sure.
Filmed in New Orleans in the second oldest church in the country, the band performs in a basement while overhead a Christian revival meeting is going on. The two scenes are cut together in quick bites and interspersed with an alligator roaming around. The video culminates in someone from the revivalist meeting falling through the floorboards down to where the band are.
An intersection of belief sytems, perhaps? Music News says: Lyrics “losing sleep dreaming about the things that I could be,” resonate in the duality of danger being ever present and looking for a safe haven to heal yourself. The lost alligator roams the halls of the deteriorated church basement far from its’ swamp home and the ever present unknown.
Lost in translation is the phrase that comes to mind when I watch it. I feel like the meaning is an elusive vision, hovering just outside my cornersight. But then maybe I’m just looking for something that’s not there in the first place!
To be fair, part of my ambivalence towards the video is because the music incites a wholly different set of images for me – far removed from church basements and bible-singing congregations. But this was the vision the band and British producer James Lees (British aesthetic, colour, frames, blah di blah…) shared, so I’m on board with that and I still totally LOVE the song.
The Video
The making of the video!
