The Victim. The Witness. The Mother. The Coroner. The Elder Man. The Priest. In this life, everyone has a part to play.
Odds are that you had zero intention of tweeting something like, “I’m not crying, you’re crying!” today.
Odds are that you will, anyway.
In February those Las Vegas favorite sons, Imagine Dragons, tacked the single “Next To Me” onto 2017’s Evolve album. As ID songs go, it’s a beauty in its simplicity and structure, let alone lyrical openness: it’s a bit of a love-curveball in how uniquely relationship-intimate a song it is. Probably more so than ID fans are used to. “I wrote this song about the strains of the relationships in my own life and the beauty of enduring love.” says frontman Dan Reynolds.
Now for some inexplicable reason, the band decided to elevate the song to punch in the heart/gut-level by hooking up with director Mark Pellington (U2, Pearl Jam) in order to create an extended music video that feels more like a full-bodied, cinematic experience. With character journeys to follow (including Reynolds wife, Aja Volkman, playing his wife) and a narrative that begs contemplation, it is – by far – their heaviest musical visual aid to date.
Reynolds added, “After late night conversations with Mark Pellington about life and his passion behind his vision for the film, we knew we wanted to take the journey with him.”
It’s a little difficult to watch, but that’s probably the point as real life truly is far from pristine and we all tend to fall very short of the ideal. But that’s where love and forgiveness come in.
According to Pellington, “The film is a complex and slightly surreal fable about forgiveness and redemption. It is a story of a man and a projection of one fantasy colliding with the dark realities of fate. It asks, can a person who has made a terrible mistake ever be forgiven by their loved one or even by themselves. It is an ambitious music film, taking the traditional music video and breaking it apart, pushing it into film territory. I wanted to create something new, a narrative piece that was thematically complex and musical and I knew it needed to be longer.”
Feel free to tweet as needed. We won’t judge.
