https://youtu.be/WAifgn2Cvo8?si=uFE1ldhLWm4liW9k – video link.
The video takes a hybrid approach. There are aspects of storytelling to the video, but on the most part is Sam (the artist) performing to the camera.
The opening edit shows Sam standing alone in the middle of a clearly working-class street, straight away showing to the audience that he is an average guy, with an understanding of where people come from. The scene then cuts to an image of a mother holding her son on the coast, looking out to see. The child could easily be a younger Sam, suggesting that the video is him looking back on his life and how he got to where he is now. The video rotates slightly around the pair, highlighting them as significant to the story. The looking to the sea gives connotations that they are looking into the future, hoping for a brighter one.
The shot with Sam stood in the middle of the crowd, facing the opposite way to everyone else signifies that he feels different to the other people around him. He has a melancholic expression on his face, showing that he feels isolated and lost. He doesn’t relate to the people around him. This could also connotate that he is still looking towards his past, and he feels like everybody else (who are facing forward) are moving towards the future, leaving him behind.
This ideology is emphasized by the people laying in the sand, letting the water wash over them. They seem to represent the old Sam that he is reminiscing on, getting washed away but never completely leaving the shore.
The sequence shots of the different people seemingly at a party could highlight the environment he is surrounded in, which is holding him back from progressing forward. The attraction to the party scene and alcohol still keeps him reluctant from moving forward. He is stuck between his past and his future, not knowing where to move.
The video ends with Sam still on the same street, the camera rotating, leaving it to the imagination of the future he is going to take and signifying the difficulties young people with working class backgrounds face due to the cultures they have been raised around and that people still try to persuade them to take as they grow older.
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