Girl Band has shared a new music video for their song, “Paul.”
This video provides fans of the band with the first taste of the sounds that will be on their upcoming debut album, Holding Hands With Jamie, which will be released on September 25th, 2015, on Rough Trade via NPR, according to a press release.
The music video for “Paul” finds the members of Girl Band teaming up director Bob Gallagher, again. He had previously worked with the band on the video for their cover of Blawan’s “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?,” which was posted to Youtube on February 19th, 2015.
“Paul” continues the theme of uncomfortable juxtaposition that Girl Band started in the Blawan cover video. In this latest effort, there are the things that we associate with children’s television programming – namely, colorful images, along with a feeling of innocence and timelessness – on the one hand; and, on the other there is a depiction of the man behind a beloved childhood television character mentally coming apart from unhappiness and stress. Then, viewers see this man spiraling into drug and alcohol use as a means of temporary escape, and having a complete meltdown one day on set.
Where did the inspiration for this video come from? And, was the video’s concept based on actual events that may have happened on set during a recognizable popular children’s television show, since several characters seem familiar?
In that very same press release, Gallagher explained his inspiration for “Paul,” and its origin stemmed from a documentary about a certain big, yellow well-known and beloved Sesame Street character.
”While I was researching I watched a documentary about Big Bird and there’s a line in where Carol Spinney says that a woman was complimenting his performance but that she couldn’t see that inside the costume he was crying. It’s quite tragic. I think everyone has experiences of having to put on an outward expression, and feeling trapped so Paul’s costume is a visual extension of that,” Gallagher said.
“He’s inside the suit, at a distance from everybody around him, but wearing this absurd smile that’s totally false to what’s going on inside.”
Check out the video for “Paul,” below.