Against Me! has had a hot streak of startling and beautiful lyric videos lately; this one is for Black Me Out from Transgender Dysphoria Blues. Everything about it is perfect, from the font choice to the sharp angles of the cut-outs to the quick cuts to shots of Against Me! playing the song. It’s a roar of defiance combined with a bloody and toe-curling lantern slide show, and I love it.
All y’all know how much I love a good lyric video. This one, for Running to the Sea by Röyksopp featuring Susanne Sundfør, is particularly clever and lovely. And the song is pretty great, too.
I always like a good lyrics video. This one, for Cover Girl, from Crack Crack Heart Attack by Wood Shampoo, gets points for interesting font choices and incorporation of outside quotes. And I learned something watching it, which is that apparently both Steven Tyler and Dolly Parton have come out with memorable lines about how it’s expensive to look cheap.
And for Tuesday, the lyric video for Heartbeat Slowing Down, the most recent single from The All-American Rejects‘ fourth record Kids In the Street.
I like this video because I have a weakness for lyric videos, but also because of the way the lyrics are presented: hand-written by Tyson Ritter himself. I’m particularly fond of the shot of him writing out one verse on torn hotel note-paper, and the way the camera lingers on the tense curve of his fingers.
The lyrics also appear written on torn scraps of paper, large posters, pillowcases, arms of other members of All-American Rejects, and other surfaces, which is a simple but clear visual metaphor supporting the “messy breakups” theme of the song.
Heartbreak isn’t tidy. Sometimes it gets on other people. Sometimes there are rageful things you wish you could font size +7 at people, because maybe if you write it large enough, they’ll finally hear you. Sometimes you there are things you font size +7 at yourself, in hopes perhaps this time you’ll learn.
