Australian singer-songwriter Sia released a new music video for her song, “Big Girls Cry”, from the 2014 album 1000 Forms of Fear.
As with the videos for the catchy-yet-dark pop song “Chandelier” and the controversial “Elastic Heart”, this latest music video finds the songstress teaming up with 12 year-old dancer Maddie Ziegler, once again, to bring the story to life through an emotive interpretive dance.
“Big Girls Cry” opens with an out of focus shot centred on Ziegler, who is standing in front of an inky black backdrop. Then, the shot comes into focus as the song picks up tempo. Unlike the previous collaborations between Sia and Ziegler, the camera work on “Big Girls Cry” stays largely focused on Ziegler’s expressive facial and hand movements to tell the story, and take the audience through a range of emotions. However, part of the way through the video, Ziegler’s blonde-bobbed character is accosted from behind by a set of red nail polished hands. But, her attacker’s identity is never revealed in the remainder of the Sia and Daniel Askill-directed video.
With “Big Girls Cry”, once again, Sia demonstrates that her strength as a songwriter lies in her ability to craft catchy easy to sing lyrics. The first verse of the song sets up the story of a “tough girl” that is “in the fast line” and has “no time for love, no time for hate”, drama, or games. After a day at work, she comes home to an empty apartment, checks her phone, but has no calls or messages from friends with plans for the evening. So, she orders take out, and tries to keep herself occupied by watching something on pay-per-view television.
The chorus of “Big Girls Cry” is not only catchy, but it is extremely relatable. She’s just come out of a heart-breaking situation, and the reality of her lonely life is upsetting, but Sia reveals that this cry is cleansing, as it “wash[es] away all the things” someone has taken from her. At some point in life, we’ve all probably had a cleansing makeup ruining cry, following heartbreak.
In the song’s second verse, the listeners find out that the woman has made it to the top of her career, but it isn’t without a cost. While, she has success, she’s extremely lonely, and – from the sounds of it – blacks out to numb her emotional pain and feelings of isolation. Despite her own feelings, she continues to pour someone “a glass of champagne”, and in the end she still finds that she “wake[s] up alone”, when the song’s final chorus ends.
Check it out, below.
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