Moby Depicts Modern Social Issues in New Animated Video for “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad”

Moby released a new music video for a re-imagined version of “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad” featuring vocals from Apollo Jane. It’s one of the songs off of Moby’s new album Reprise, which came out on May 28 through Deutsche Grammophon. 

The new version of “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad” is a little more orchestral and a little more soulful, thanks to Jane taking over Moby’s vocal part, but the original already had both of those qualities to a certain extent. It first came out on Moby’s 1999 classic Play with electronic drums and a sad yet danceable piano part. The re-recording has live drums imitating the original’s downtempo beat, and more cinematic piano, matching the new string arrangement.

In the new video, Moby re-focuses the song to largely be about animal rights. It pays homage to the original video by using the same characters and intro scene, with a kid and a dog riding a wheelbarrow from the moon to Earth. Moby points out that he created the kid character in the ‘80s, called ‘The Little Idiot’ in reference to Le Petit Prince. From there, The Little Idiot and the dog watch as people fight over toilet paper and protest in the streets, and illustrator/director Steve Cutts breaks the fourth wall by trying to resolve the problems he draws. He puts out fires, replants forests and frees a lot of caged and poached animals. 

While the original video had already touched on Moby’s wish for peace, it had been more about loneliness. Now, when the sampled vocals sing “Please open doors,” it’s about freeing animals rather than encouraging people to let others into their lives.

Moby commented on Cutts’ video, “In the course of my life and career I’ve made hundreds of music videos. But this might be my favorite of all of the videos I’ve made. As you’ll see, the amazing Steve Cutts and I have revisited the original ‘Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad’ video. I hope you love it as much as I do.”

Reprise is an album that entirely consists of re-imagined versions of Moby’s biggest hits, many of which are from Play. Other artists featured on the record besides Apollo Jane include Gregory Porter, Amythyst Kiah, Jim James, Mindy Jones, Víkingur Ólafsson, Kris Kristofferson, Mark Lanegan, Nataly Dawn, Alice Skye, Luna Li, Skylar Grey and Darlingside.

Photo credit: Brett Padelford