The song which we chose for the major music video task is "Carousel" by Melanie Martinez. We took a spin from the first idea, and chose a completely different style song, going for a more mysterious, dark, and enigmatic vibe, rather than the indie, more chill vibe that we were planning on in the beginning. We chose to change our plan because while scrolling YouTube for inspiration, we stumbled across this song, and were immediately brought back to a nostalgic time when we were younger and used to listen to this song. We resonate with this song, and feel like we could do an interesting combination of different settings, filming both indoors, and outdoors. As a first step, we decided to look deeper into the lyrics and meaning of the song, as well as try and fully understand, and reach similar conclusions on how we want our video to look as well as the feeling we want to transmit through it.
"Carousel" is written by American recording artist Melanie Martinez. The song was featured on her debut EP, Dollhouse(2014). It was released on September 1, 2014. The song is labeled as indie pop, with a unique sounding, creepy carnivalesque melodic tune.
The song is about a love which "goes around in circles", and about chasing after someone that she can never truly reach. In an interview with Billboard, Melanie said:
"Carousel is about my feeling in love with someone and being stuck on the same ride and trying to grab them but I never reach them."
The lyrics highlight what is felt when a person’s love is unrequited. The song mainly refers to a one-sided love affair, where one person feels like they can never truly reach the other. Melanie seems to be frustrated as she realises she is unable to move forward in the relationship. It resembles two points on opposing sides of a rotating circle. The song portrays the pain of loving someone so deeply to the point that one feels trapped, yet it is impossible to get their attention no matter how hard you try. Melanie uses a carousel to bring more significance to this kind of love that goes round in chase without end.
We want to create a video which offers a simpler, more abstract version of the story, having one main character, and having them play the "seducer", luring the cameraperson into their spell, and stringing them along. We want the main character to be walking around, making the cameraperson follow them through different locations in an enticing manner.
Here are the lyrics:
Round and round like a horse on a carousel, we go,
Will I catch up to love? I could never tell, I know,
Chasing after you is like a fairytale, but I,
Feel like I'm glued on tight to this carousel
Come, come one, come all,
You must be this tall
To ride this ride at the carnival
Oh, come, take my hand
And run through playland
So high, too high at the carnival
And it's all fun and games,
'Til somebody falls in love,
But you've already bought a ticket,
And there's no turning back now
Round and round like a horse on a carousel, we go,
Will I catch up to love? I could never tell, I know,
Chasing after you is like a fairytale, but I,
Feel like I'm glued on tight to this carousel
This horse is too slow,
We're always this close,
Almost, almost, we're a freakshow
Right, right when I'm near,
It's like you disappear,
Where'd you go? Mr. Houdini, you're a freakshow.
And it's all fun and games,
'Til somebody falls in love,
But you've already bought a ticket,
And there's no turning back now
Round and round like a horse on a carousel, we go,
Will I catch up to love? I could never tell, I know,
Chasing after you is like a fairytale, but I,
Feel like I'm glued on tight to this carousel
Why did you steal my cotton candy heart?
You threw it in this damn coin slot,
And now I'm stuck, I'm stuck,
Riding, riding, riding
Round and round like a horse on a carousel, we go,
Will I catch up to love? I could never tell, I know,
Chasing after you is like a fairytale, but I,
Feel like I'm glued on tight to this carousel
We're not sure yet if we want to use the entire song, but we're currently leaning towards cutting out a verse or a repetition of the chorus to shorten it a bit, as the entire song is about 4 minutes long, which may be a bit too lengthy. We want to film either when it's rainy, or just cloudy, as we feel like it will better emanate the mysterious feeling which we want to encapsulate.
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