012 // a change of heart

i just had a change of heart

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello. You are listening to episode 12 of Television of Your Mouth, a 1975 podcast. And this week we are talking about the music video for one of my top all-time favorite songs from the band, A Change of Heart. And it also happens to be one of my favorite music videos by them too. I don't have anything else to say, really, so let's get right into it, shall we? The single for a change of heart was released on February 22nd, 2016, with the music video being released a couple months later on April 21st, 2016. A Change of Heart was actually the fifth single off I Like It When You See Sleep. Like I mentioned in the last episode, they jumbled the music video releases so they didn't match up exactly with the single release order. While somebody else was released as a single before Change of Heart, the A Change of Heart music video came out first. Got it? Okay. My favorite director of 1975 music videos, Tim Mattia, is back in the director's seat for this video. And we are back to classic black and white for this one. It's a stark change for the I Like It When You Sleep era because up until this point in our I Like It When You Sleep music video timeline, everything has been very loud, very neon and pink. And I can only hypothesize the reasons for doing this for a change of heart. First, the creative direction for this video was clowns. And not a creepy red-nosed circus type clown, but Pierrot clowns, which origins go back to the 17th century, France and Italy. The origins and the and the way the Pierrot clown has evolved are actually pretty perfect for the world of the 1975. Unlike comical clowns we usually see in America, Pierrot clowns are portrayed as the sad clown, often pining for love and affection. And while the Pierrot clown started as a Joker, it evolved into an avatar for the disenfranchised. So naturally using black and white instead of color seems appropriate. Modernists turned him into a silent, alienated observer of the human condition and the world around him. Think early Charlie Chaplin films. In the postmodern era, one of Maddie's favorite words to use, he was a representation of the everyman, to quote David Bowie. Bowie used the Pyrrho motif a few times in his career as a way to comment on the loneliness of fame. He once said in an interview, quote, I'm Pierot, I'm everyman. So knowing the long history of the Pyrrhot clown and melancholia, black and white, I think, was more appropriate than neon ping, don't you think? Also, black and white harks back to the 1975's beginnings and the style of the self-titled era, which I think is perfect for the song A Change of Heart, because there are many callbacks to past 1975 songs, including You Used to Have a Face Straight Out of a Magazine from Robbers. I quote On the Road like a Twat. The band's name came from a note scribbled in an old copy of On the Road that Maddie had. This is how it starts from Sex, which they took from LCD sound system, and Never Found Love in the City, referencing, of course, the song The City. And this isn't a callback, but this song has one of the most, if not the most, cutting lyrics Maddie has ever written. And it's not the now you just look like anyone line. For me, it's finding a girl who is equally pretty won't be hard. Not only does he think you're nothing special physically, but he's saying he's smooth enough to get someone else and someone else that's hotter. Maddie has said a change of heart isn't about anyone in particular. But here is a clip from 2016 of Maddie talking to an ME about how the lyrics to A Change of Heart got him into a little bit of trouble.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Talking to Paul Buchanan about this, right? The guy from the Blue Nile, because I'm obsessed with him, and then he heard that we were obsessed, and we met up and we've spoken about music before he's a fucking legend. Um people just assume that every single line is a is a deeply a lot of it is a lot of those things are just ideas. Like change of art, for example. I got a phone call off my ex-girlfriend just going fucking nuts, saying like, how dare you say those kind of things? And she just basically joined the dots. She'd just taken that and thought, well that means that and that means that. And if you've got those subtext of like a relationship, you're gonna do that. And I kind of have to be a bit like, it's not even really about you. Sorry. Sorry. And it wasn't cheating, but we haven't been together for a year, and I wrote it about someone else. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

I mean, I can't blame the ex. If I was in her position, I probably would have done the same thing. Maddie wrote the visual for the A Change of Heart music video. It all came from his brain. Here's a clip of Maddie talking to BBC Radio 1 in 2019 about how freeing it was to do this video as a clown.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Clowns are a bit of a motif. I think it's about like performance and I think it's about like safety that I have not felt more comfortable in my life than making the change of heart video when I was like in a costume because you lose that self-awareness because you don't feel like yourself. You know, so it's I get a real freedom in kind of the idea of character. I try to be so sincere in my work, I can't do that and then go out and kind of have that removed sense of things. So I only get to play characters at certain times, so music videos is where it happens. So I really actually enjoy them.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Can I make a request for the next era? Can Maddie make it extremely stupidly clear whether he is playing a character or not? Like if things are a bit or actually real, like make it so dummy clear that that's the case. The music video takes place at a carnival, and I wish I knew where. I don't trust Google Gemini when it says an abandoned carnival with no source to back it up. Don't trust AI blind kids, okay? Also, I've seen abandoned carnivals, and this doesn't look like it at all. This is actually the first music video in the I Like It When You Sleeve era to just have Maddie and not the rest of the guys. It's just Maddie and another clown played by Katie Collins, which I believe they got her back for the I'm in love with you music video, but I can't confirm that for sure. Maddie arrives at the carnival alone and begins dancing alone when the other clown arrives around the 47-second mark. And naturally they start to dance in sync. It's perfect. They are cosmically connected. Maddie gives her a flower and they have a great time on the bumper cars. Maddie can catch popcorn in his mouth flawlessly. And I love the choreography in this video. Shout out to the choreographer. I wish I knew your name. The choreography, it's so innocent and sweet, and it just works perfectly. And then, folks, it all starts to fall apart at the 2-minute 27-second mark. Maddie actually can't catch popcorn flawlessly in his mouth, and he's an asshole at bumper cars. He points the gun at her from the carnival game, which I think is a callback to the robber video robbers video. That pretty flower, that was actually a trick flower that splashes water in her face. And at the 3 minute 40 second mark, she leaves him alone. When he meets her on the bench at the end of the video, she wants nothing to do with him. It starts to rain. He offers to share an umbrella, but she takes it for herself and leaves, leaving Maddie alone on a bench under a rain cloud. Rewatching this back, it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Bojack Horseman, which is quote, When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. That's what the first part of this music video is for me. It's the rose-colored glasses view when in reality those bits weren't cute. They were actually kind of mean and annoying. Fellow 1975 fan Amanda said her favorite thing about the A Change of Heart video is Maddie owning up that he is a clown, and this is indeed his circus and monkeys. Agree. I mean, I'm a member of the 1975 circus, have been for years. And did you spot the poetries in the streets in French on the burger stand at the beginning? That was one of Instagram user Paula Smala 2018's favorite things about this video. I think that's the first sighting of it we've had since the robbers video. And I think it's time they bring it bring it back. Now more than ever, we need art to be accessible and not just exclusive to the elite and people who can afford it. I love this video. I love it all. It's a top three 1975 music video for me. It's self-aware, it's tragic, it's good storytelling. It's the 1975. Episodes are written and produced by me, Britt. You can follow the podcast on Instagram at TelevisionOfYourMouth. I hope you enjoyed. And see you next time.