Digital Media Review 2

            The music video that I have decided to do a narrative analysis on is, “Simple Song”, by The Shins. This music video told a powerful and interesting story about a family. A man had passed away, and he left a video for his family that said he had decided that since all of his children hated him, he was not going to give any of the deed to the house. He hid the deed in the house and whoever found it, got to keep the deed.

            As the music video continues to play you see old footage of when the children of this man were younger, at their birthday parties, which appeared like he forced them to celebrate all together, because the cakes say “Happy Belated Birthday” on them. In all of the videos the children are competing for various activities or presents, and they all look miserable. While the father is grinning ear to ear at what he has turned the children into.

            From my understanding of the music video, the father must have been a very competitive man, and that was something he forced on his children. Him forcing that upon them caused them to not only resent him, but also their siblings. It made for a very dysfunctional family. As the video flashes back between past and present you see the siblings fighting and running through the house, just like they did when they were kids. At the end of the music video, you see a younger member of the family finds the deed to house, and one of the siblings pushed her out of the way and grabbed the deed. They all lay on the floor reading the deed, and it says that he was only kidding he had sold the land and the house was being demolished, because the house held nothing but bad memories for them.

            I think that this was sort of the father’s way of apologizing to them, for giving them the childhood that they had, and for making them resent him. I found it interesting that when the house was being demolished, they left the father’s body in the house, and they ran out. As they are running out of the house you see all of the siblings smiling and hugging one another. To me, it seemed like they were almost relieved that the house was being demolished, it was like they were finally able to start over. All of the bad memories that they had as children were demolished in the house. Over all, I think that this music video told a very good story, and the lyrics went very well with the story. For me, I think that the best part of a music video is the story that they are trying to tell behind the lyrics. I think that the story is the most important part of the music, because that is ultimately what the artist is trying to get you to see or feel.