I really like this song, it's upbeat and the kind of song you could dance to but at the same time it's gentle and sort of romantic.
I like the strings, I like violins, viola's, cello's and instruments like that.
I also think the music video is pretty cool so I thought I should try analyse it.
Is Clean Bandit a band? or more like a musical group? I'm going to alternate between the two.
As soon as the video starts it's clearly set in japan, there isn't any establishing shots to set the scene but they use shots of a koi pond and they use Asian characters (which I presume is Japanese) as typography.
Th lyrics mention the city of Kyoto located on Honshu island, japan.
Japan seems like the most likely location.
The first scene shows a young Japanese woman waking up in her bed who is greeted by a ginger tabby.
Her bed covers have an usual pattern.
This pattern features a lot in this video and it also features on a the groups album art.
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I have no idea what the point of the symbol is but there is 4 shapes and 4 band member's so I guess the shapes represent the people but I don't really know.
The woman starts her day by playing the track on her phone/MP3 player and lip syncing the lyrics, The shapes appear as 3D paper shapesin the bottom right and as drawings in her diary.
At this point in the video the shapes are pretty subtle, they aren't the main focus of the scenes and if you weren't looking for them you might not notice them.
The young woman gets ready to leave whilst the cat and an older man (presumably her dad) sit and watch TV.
The woman still lip syncing rides her moped, she drives past a van with the image of a white mans face, she seems slightly confused by it, he is a member of the quartet.
The fact she seems confused would indicate that the group is personal to her and she wouldn't expect to see their image in public, in the next shot the image is that of a bowl of noodles so that would imply she is hallucinating.
She is now at a fish market, she goes to purchase a fish from an Asian women, in the next shot she is being served by the woman of the group.
Aside from the fact the cashier completely changed person the new woman is white and blonde, in this community she would be an ethnic minority and so she would seem really out of place.
The young Japanese woman looks concerned, this is the first time she has seen a member of the band in the flesh, their presence is becoming more obvious.
She get's back on her moped and rides it to work at a restaurant, the lyrics that play at this point are:
"If you gave me a chance I would take it
It's a shot in the dark but I'll make it"
these lyrics suggest a struggle of some sort, weather it's about relationships, careers, emotional ect is almost irrelevant. (although along with the rest of the lyrics it would suggest it's a relationship.)
Everyone can relate to a struggle, the girl in the video looks like she could be saving for something.
She is serving some grumpy businessmen sitting at the bar, when she looks away and then back to the men they are smiling, laughing and dancing at the bar.
The shapes are seen on a plate of food:
The shapes are becoming more obvious, the shapes are the main focus of the shot.
The young woman notices one of the members of Clean Bandit sitting at the bar with the business men.
There is an odd sequence where the blonde woman and the Japaneses woman are wearing school uniform, holding hands and spinning in the street.
She wakes up to reveal she was dreaming, I think this shows how much the group have started influencing her, if you dream about something it's usually because something is bothering you.
If you dream about celebrities or your favourite band it's supposedly because you are unsatisfied with your life and dream about people who you think lead more satisfying lives.
This could link to the theory that she is working hard to save up and she feels unsatisfied with how her life is shaping up.
Despite having woken up for a weird dream about the woman from Clean bandit the band is still very much a part of her life, it's not clear whether the whole video up until that point was also a dream but either way the band is still on her mind.
Inside the house her father and cat are seen watching the weather on the TV, a man from the group is the weather man. The presence of the band is a lot more obvious then it was to begin with and the woman isn't reacting to the man on the TV and neither is her dad.
I think her dad can't see the band so it's as if she were hallucinating, the way the group effects the woman is personal so her dad doesn't see it, she doesn't react to it possibly because she is aware of the effect they have on her.
In a way it is like joining a "fandom", on the internet there is always a group of people who really enjoy every book, TV show, Film, video game or whatever you can imagine.
Kind of like the girls who are big Justin Beiber or Onedirection fans, being a fan almost becomes their lives.
I think this girl has effectively became a big Clean Bandit fan, at first she didn't realise how much she liked the them, like the interest was unconscious or something and then she started thinking about them more and more.
She goes back to the fish market, as a man cuts into a big chunk of fish the shapes are seen.
The shapes are not the focus of the shot but they are much more obvious, unlike before they are out of place and natural looking, until know they have either been in the back ground or like the food shapes where relevant to working at the restaurant, these shapes are bright and in the middle of a lump of fish.
You wouldn't find bright coloured shapes in a fish, clearly.
The woman picks out a fish, she looks relaxed.
I think she is trying to not think about the band, it's not the main focus of the shot so she isn't trying to think consciously about it.
However she can't stop thinking about it and it still has a big effect on her.
She then sees a man playing the violin on the back of some sort of vehicle, the woman stares in shock at the violinist. She can't escape the band.
she leaves the fish market on her moped but then the band appear behind her also riding mopeds, she is aware of them because she looks back at them.
When she gets home she lays on her bed exhausted when she finally gets up off her bed she finds herself in front of a stage where the band is performing.
A crowd appears in the next shot and she is lifted by the audience toward the stage.
She then runs away out of the venue and through the streets, she likes the band and most likely wants to see them live but they are taking over her life.
She see's a street performer playing the keyboard but when she looks into his eyes she can see the shapes.
I think this could be a metaphor of not being able to think of any thing but the group and can draw comparisons to them from other things.
Because the man is playing a keyboard it is connected to the group because they also perform ad play instruments.
The fact she can see the symbol in his eyes worry her, she see's her love of the band as an issue.
When the symbols were featured before they were very subtle, she wasn't really aware of them or saw them as an issue, they then became more and more obvious and it scares her.
The best way for me to describe how I think this girl feels by referring to her as a Clean Bandit fan, she learnt she liked them, she then realised she may have started liking them to much, her admiration started effecting her life (I.E she wasn't concentrating at work), and she's now trying to escape.
The woman runs through the streets at night, 3 shots of the woman running through streets are used to show the change in time.
She is seen running in the dark, during sun rise and in the sunlight, this would imply a lot of time has past and that she is far from home and has to travel a long distance.
She arrives at a train station in a bust city centre, she gets on the train.
The woman from Clean Bandit emerges through the door from another carriage and the people on the train break into dance and the woman passes out.
There is a short scene of people from Clean Bandit and people from earlier points in the video are dancing on a beach, I presume this a dream sequence of the woman having just passed out.
I'm not sure why they are on a beach if I'm honest, maybe it's because beaches are associated with holidays and fun so it could be a metaphor for escapism which could fit the on going theme, but I'm not overly sure why so many people are present and I don't understand why they are dancing.
If anyone has a better explanation I would love to hear it.
The woman is then seen in a hospital bed mouthing the lyrics, her body twists and turns in the bed.
This could imply either some sort of mental issue or discomfort, because she is signing that would imply that her poor health is due to the song.
Her father sits by her, he looks as if he is smirking which is a little unsettling.
Her father removes his face which is revealed to be a mask worn by a member of Clean Bandit, he smiles as the the shapes close in on his face like so:
I really don't understand what happened at the end of the video.
What does it mean? Does this mean her father really this man along? And why was he smiling?
Did he intend for this to happen to the girl?
If this video is about how obsessive fans can become and how badly it effects does that then mean that artists like it when that happens? I would like to think that isn't the message of the video.
Could the moral of the story be that you shouldn't let your self get distracted from things you should be doing? Or maybe it means that you should have some escapism sometimes, but you should know when to stop?
I don't really know what the video is trying to say, I would say the message of the song is about maintaining relationships and working hard to improve ones standard of living.
The lyrics:
"We're a thousand miles from comfort, we have traveled land and sea
But as long as you are with me, there's no place I rather be"
Would suggest that both people have worked really to be where they are today, but even then they are still miles away from where they saw them selves. However the person is happy because they are with the person they love, even if they aren't where they wanted to be yet.
The lyrics:
We staked out on a mission to find our inner peace
Make it everlasting so nothing's incomplete
It's easy being with you, sacred simplicity
As long as we're together, there's no place I rather be
The person would like to feel complete, they would like to be in a position where they no longer have anything to worry about but being with the person they love is enough to keep them happy.
It seems that without the person they love they would no longer be happy, so in away that person makes them feel complete even though they may not be where they wanted to be yet.
I would say both the song and the video have a theme about hard work and chasing dreams.
The voice in the song is working toward a goal and so is the woman in the video however the voice is content and doesn't mind that she has achieved what she set out to achieve yet, she is in love and she thinks that she can still achieve her dreams one day.
The woman in the video doesn't seem so content, I get the feeling that she is fed up with her life and so she uses music to escape.
She probably wants to earn more money and move out of her dad's house and she probably feels like she isn't getting any where or it's taking too long.
Her escapism is distracting her from her daily duties and it's effecting her work, she knows it's bad and that she should be working hard to reach her goals but she can't help feeling bored and unenthusiastic.
In the end she becomes ill and probably doesn't achieve her dreams.
I think the moral of both the video and the song ( excluding the theme of love ) is to work hard and chase your dreams, don't feel too disheartened if you haven't achieved them yet or it takes a while because you'll regret not trying. And also try to enjoy yourself along the way.
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