Music Video Deconstruction 4, Noah and the Whale, 5 Years Time.

Noah and the Whale  are an English Folk band from Twickenham, London who formed in 2006.

The lyrics relate to love, love and love! They interpret the artists view towards life Noah and the Whale sing about how they are in love and in five years’ time it may all change, everything which is perfect shall become different, but one thing shall remain and that is love, love and love.

The song represents happiness all the way through, and it’s about how he really likes a person, and just hopes and dreams that in the future they will be together and happy. The lyrics are very optimistic, even at the end when he admits that maybe none of it will ever happen, it’s like it doesn’t really matter because ‘there’ll be love love love wherever you go’

The artists convey the sense of optimism throughout the song stating that there will always be love, love and love. So despite the artist believing that it will all change in five years’ time maybe moving away and losing contact the love shall still always be there.

The lyrics in reality relate barely anything towards the music video, they are not particularly important to the visual forms and narratives in the video.

The lyrics of the song are not portrayed in the music video except with childlike themes relating to the lyrics “fun, fun fun” where the band members are dressed up as young children smiling and having fun playing with balloons.

You would not be able to sense the meaning of the song without actually hearing the song this is because the video is very random and "indie" with lots of shots of the band playing instruments.

The narrative is very abstract, there is no set storyline throughout the video although there is a set theme this relates to the 80’s of flickering colour productions this represents that it was the past. The lyrics of the girl in the song are also sung in a monologue style representing separation. The narrative of the video is based on a girl and a boy growing apart, this is represented by balloons flying away together at the end, these balloons symbolize that all though they are flying away they are flying away together, this suggests that although they are separating a small part of them will always be together, like the artists states in the lyrics about there always being “love, love and love”.

The costume ideas show the artist is quirky and different with jumpsuits and bold colours which would have been expected to be present twenty years ago.The costumes which are used in the music video do not relate strongly to lyrics or themes in anyway.The costumes represent who the actors are though, for instance the band members are dressed in jumpsuits whereas the two people who relate to the narrative are dressed in casual clothes. The band members are dressed in jumpsuits to represent that they are in a way providing the soundtrack to the life of the two actors.

The music video features the band performing in a bar, and dancing/playing in the park. During the video, Laura Marling who provides backing vocals for the group is seen playing a tin whistle and also giving the camera the two-fingers. The video was directed by James Copeman. The style of the video echoes the style of a Wes Anderson film, using the same typefont the director typically uses in his films, and the themes of the video relate to love separation and a few references to alcohol, stating that in order to have a good time they needed alcohol.


The camera used gives a old fuzzy picture on screen, representing a love from a while ago.
From 0.56secs - 1m41secs, the video gives repeated shots and a sense of stop motion. The video is very simple but each shot is edited to be shown on screen with the time of the beat to the song or the lyrics.