Kevin Morby has released a music video for the song “OMG Rock and Roll” from the album Oh My God, out Apr 26, 2019. The video artfully lacks plot, featuring images of trash cans, fires, emojis, an animated rendition of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and vinyl records being destroyed in an industrial blender. The video ends with five characters, from infant to geriatric, staring at a blank screen, as the words “Oh my God, oh my Lord” resound in a choir-like harmony.
The song begins true to the rock and roll elements of the title but fades to a chromatic tone as it progresses, taking listeners on a sensory journey in less than three minutes. The lyrics remain simple, expressing a desire to overcome the tragedy of modern life and be carried on in a religious episode, as he sings, “Oh my lord come carry me home.” Morby compares life to when the locusts come, an allusion to the biblical exodus and mass migration of immigrants.
Morby expresses his views of the song accordingly:
“It’s meant to be playful, despite the morbid subject matter, and sing sonic praise to rock n roll as a religious experience. More than anything – it’s [a song] about gun violence in America. Sutherland Springs, Vegas, Parkland…the list gets longer each year, filled with more cities, more innocent victims and yet nothings fundamentally changed. It’s a sad, scary and ultimately incredibly frustrating affair. We’ve all made peace with the fact that every time we leave the house we could be senselessly murdered at the hands of someone who should never have been given that power. The song is meant to mirror a public tragedy with its hard pan to the choir almost two minutes in. It’s rolling along, living it’s best life, when suddenly, with a gasp, reality has been turned upside down and all there’s left to do is pray to god you don’t die.”
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