A song and a video

“Ba ba black rainbow sheep, have you any wool?” (altered to fit in with UK primary schools’ politically correct code of conduct) doesn’t strike me as the usual starting point of inspiration for a 30 year old Belgian musician…but then I heard the song ‘Somebody I Used To Know’ by Gotye featuring the crushingly captivating Kiwi songstress Kimbra, and realised that maybe children’s rhymes are actually as good a place as any to start!

I have to write about this song and video, simply because I like it. A LOT. Mayhaps it’s the semi naked people featured (one of whom is actually a girl – and me being a boy likes them sort of people!), but I happen to think it’s more the combination of the painstakingly-long but simple-to-shoot-and-always-intriguing video style and the emotion evident behind the lyrics…

In ‘Somebody I Used To Know’, the fresh faced 30 year old Gotye has penned a powerfully personal outpouring of how it feels to be discarded by that **** of an ex (anyone who’s ever been rejected or dumped should be able to at least appreciate the emotions, if not resonate with where they come from), but it’s the delivery that really makes the song stand out for me…particularly on the part of Kimbra. Her screams into the turned cheek of her unflinching lover acts as a manifestation of the frustration and futility felt by the spurned and the forgotten…the ditched and the derelict…the needy and the neglected…and then as the colour washes from her back, we see two old-lovers become separated into their different worlds – ‘his’ and ‘hers’. And then they carry on much as before. Only…different. And then we click off the YouTube video and carry on with that email we were sending. These things always carry on.

So there it is, no grand conclusions or prophetic epiphanies (apologies for any disappointments), but just a few thoughts from me about a song and video that I like.

And that’s it – just a thought…