Lyric Analysis

Lyric Analysis

In order for the audience to get a better understanding of the song, we decided to make our music video conform to Goodwin's theory by showing a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. Below is a image showing the work we created as a group during class highlighting where the different scenes will take place within our music video. This is effective as it helped us decided what scene we could do that correlated with the lyrics engaging the audience.  

The first narrative scene we are going to show is the scene where the female is going through a box of photos of her and her ex boyfriend. This will be shown when the artist sings 'Someone told me I should take' to imply the character retrospectively looking back on the memories of the relationship. This is also effective as it introduces the characters to the audience allowing them to build up a relationship with them. This further enables the audience to relate to their role within the narrative and get a better understanding of the song.

When the lyrics say 'You have won' the narrative will show the female and male couple playing a game of cards. This is effective as it connotes that they 'played' each other and that the won as they are not longer together. Through various camera shots such as close ups and mid shots, certain playing cards are going to be used to symbolize the characters. For example the male will lay a Queen of hearts whereas the female will lay and King of hearts. This represents the characters as a couple whilst reflecting on the fact that they work against each other to win. 

We are going to show further evidence of a relationship between the lyrics and visuals as when the lyrics say 'And my heart is broken' the narrative is going to show the female finding her old heart shaped necklace in the box. This will then follow with a flashback informing the audience that it was a gift from her ex boyfriend in which he is shown placing the necklace on her. This will therefore highlight the significance of the iconography whilst emphasizing the feelings of loss and hurt. 

'falling out of love is hard' is going to be played parallel to a happy narrative scene. As a group we decided we could show the couple messing around and having fun in a shop. Through the use of iconography such as a trolley we are going to show the male pushing the female around laughing. This is effective as it shows the audience that they were happy once and loved each other. This will form a contrast to the later narrative where the couple will be shown to fall out of love with each other. Numerous happy narrative scenes are going to be shown throughout the video, one of them being the couple in a photo booth. The male and female will be scene wearing silly iconography items such as big glasses or a hat. This will further promote the personalities of the character portraying them to be fun and happy. This enables the audience to relate to the characters and see the contrast in the relationship to when they were happy and how they grew to dislike each other.

When the lyrics say 'All we had is gone now' a narrative scene will be used to show the couple arguing. The characters will be seen sitting in a car in which they begin to argue and the female storms out the car. The lyrics enable the audience to understand that the relationship has come to an end and that there is nothing left to save. The lyrics 'Impossible' are going to be played continuously through both the narrative and performance to reflect on the idea that it is impossible to love someone who betrays you. The narrative to our music video will suggest the female betrayed her boyfriend by cheating on him even though it will not be clearly shown within the narrative. We decided to do this as we felt it would be effective in showing the tension between the characters and keeping the audience engaged by guessing throughout the video.

A further narrative scene will be shown where the cards are built into a tower in which they are set of fire and crumble into piece. This is going to be shown when the lyrics say 'Empty promises will wear' symbolizing that the relationship has fallen apart. The connotations of the fire will highlight the artist's feelings of anger and pain caused from the relationship allowing the audience to sympathize with him.

Through completing a lyric analysis it has given me a better understanding of the variety of scene we want to film for the music video and what camera shots will be needed to make it seem effective. It also helped us as a group to get a better idea of where we would like the different scenes to be placed throughout. Through showing a relationship between the lyrics and the narrative, I feel as though the audience will be able to relate to the emotions felt by the characters and get a more depth understanding of meaning of the song.