Backup Dancers From Hell: One Republic - “Good Life”

We start out with shots of some drab place out in the country, maybe an old farm, with rotting fences and a whole bunch of nothing. Quick glimpse of lead singer Ryan Tedder rudely looking away from us and playing an imaginary drum set while gazing at overgrown, abandoned fields where still nothing is going on, although at one time I’m sure these fields were witness to banjo-playing and hillbillies with little regard for the family tree of their sex partners.

Ryan discovers a section of fence and seems to find it fascinating. This is all innocent and fun at first, but as the video plays out, we keep seeing him near that fence, and we begin to question his motives.

The other band members start joining in, playing their instruments and such. Ryan says a short prayer, pats on his belly and chest a bit, because he’s got the music in him, and then he starts to whistle, his facial expression that of an angelic choirboy. This is a lie, of course, because you can’t be in a successful band in this country and still be capable of both purity and whistling.

Hold up, something’s going on. The camera pulls back a little bit, and we can see that someone is holding up a board with the video of the band playing on it. Oh, so we’re going with technical gimmickry here. That’s nice, because I was already a little tired of Ryan playing a Jewish Cowboy in Amish country. Then the person holding the board changes, to a woman with magenta hair who seems intent on chewing the upper right corner of the board. She’s probably evil. Or at least hungry.

And that’s our theme for a while, with a variety of people and backgrounds holding up this board so we can watch the band jam over yonder in the leftover set from Places in the Heart. Then the camera zooms back in so the band scenes fill the screen again, and we watch while Ryan poses near fences and tree stumps while wailing the song, never once losing his odd hat or the firm belief that we actually want to look at that hat.

And here come the hands once more, with the Holding People changing at a quicker pace. This, of course, causes us to pay more attention to the outer rim and the flashing colors than the actual band, so I’m not sure this was a well-thought-out artistic decision. (I do catch enough of the main action to realize that Ryan has a fondness for standing on the edge of a broken bridge that leads nowhere. I’m sure he can get a song out of the experience.)

Full-screen jam scenes again, with the band now camped-out in the middle of a dirt road. They seem to be having a good time and feel safe, but I’m here to tell ya, having been raised in the country, some 15-year-old hopped up on homemade hooch is going to come barreling along that dirt road sooner or later, swerving recklessly in a windowless pickup, and will not see your asses until it’s too late. Word.

And we’re back to people holding the board, only now they are passing it around to one another in a twisted version of Hot Potato. Just when I’m thinking we really need to move on from that concept, they switch to three separate people holding three separate boards at the same time. This totally changes everything and I am on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what they do next.

But then they go back to just one holder at a time, and I am emotionally devastated. They start letting us see more of the Holding People, zooming in and out, with some of the actors taking desperate measures to appear totally charming and possibly land a TV series. (Hey, it takes less effort than that to get on some shows, like Dancing with the Stars and Fox News.)

We go back to full-screen and now the band is walking single-file through the fields, with most of them looking off to the right, possibly in fear. (See? I told you that pickup would show up sooner or later, with them getting forced off the road in a dusty whirl of rusted metal and manure fertilizer, having to leave their instruments behind for the locals to pick up and use in some ongoing feud about bovine ownership and grazing rights.)

And here we go again with the Holding People, and they’ve added some shots where four holders appear at the same time, but the luster on this technical extravaganza is quickly fading. It would be fine if Ryan and the gang were actually doing something inspiring in those fields, but how many times can Ryan walk by that same stretch of broke-down fence and that one guy who looks like he stole Bob Dylan’s hair?

I pick up the phone, intent on calling the video producers and suggesting an alternate take (Godzilla suddenly shows up in the field, or maybe one of the Holders takes the board hostage and refuses to give it back unless cherry limeades arrive as ransom, something like that), but they refuse to immediately take my call and I am placed on hold.

Meanwhile, the video plays on, with more of the same. They do seem to be spending a little more time on giving the Holders some character (hey, is that Joan Jett lying on that green lawn, and Hugo from Lost posing as a homeless biker?), which gives us a little variety, but they’re all just holding this damn board. I never thought I would say this, but I’m actually ready for a totally unnecessary line dance.

Wait, the band is back on that dirt road, so I guess they didn’t learn anything from the backwoods hit-and-run. Ryan is holding a tambourine during this part, and making odd hand gestures that possibly indicate he has lost a contact lens. This is interrupted by a Holder with such vibrantly-orange nail polish that I actually feel my corneas melting.

And basically, that’s how the rest of the video goes. People hold things, Ryan keeps showing up on that bridge to nowhere, and shots of the instrument-less band doing the single-file marching thing like The Brady Bunch headed toward that cave with the idol and the annoying revelation that Bobby and Cindy live to be in the next episode.

We go to full-screen for the final image, with Ryan whistling and then wandering along next to his new love, the voiceless but apparently highly-alluring stretch of rotting fence. It’s nice that he’s found someone, but does he really understand the splinter angle?


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Backup Dancers From Hell: One Republic - “Secrets”

We start off with a woman in a trench-coat thing rudely jaywalking across a suspiciously un-busy city street in some downtown area. It’s either very overcast or very smoggy, so the rest of the population might be inside their homes, trying to breathe. The woman gets to the other side of the street and touches her hair sadly, which causes the screen to go black. (That’s some powerful hair.)

Cut to One Republic performing in some big room where the walls are composed of giant dirty sheets, so we can understand that everybody’s kind of moody today. Quick shots of the lead singer, then the other band members playing their instruments. These people are clearly not happy.

Back to the woman, who has arrived at a cute little restaurant with tables outside. No one else is there, so she’s either really early or the food is terrible. She and her trench-coat take a seat and wait to see if anybody actually shows up to take her order.

Back to the band, with everybody still looking morose and the lead singer refusing to look at the camera. (What has he done that he’s so embarrassed about? Did it involve farm animals and/or outfits with lots of shiny buckles and a strategic bits of clothing removed?)

Back to the restaurant with Unnamed Woman (let’s call her Greta) sitting at her table. A serving wench finally wanders up, holding out a menu, and Greta does an odd Wiccan hand movement to indicate her desires, which includes the wench removing the empty glass on the other side of the table. The wench snatches the glass and then runs off to neglect other patrons.

We have the band performing again, and now the lead singer has discovered that if he hides behind the giant, billowing dirty curtain, we can see him in silhouette. The first time he does this, he looks oddly pregnant, so there might be a lot more going on here than we realize. The drummer doesn’t care, and continues to bang out the beat.

The restaurant again, with Greta being served both a glass of champagne and what looks like a gin and tonic, so she’s either a speed drinker or an alcoholic. She doesn’t seem very inspired about the double beverages, so there might not be any way we can stop her from a downward spiral into endless depression. This happens when you wear trench-coats and jaywalk.

More of the band singing the song, even though the lead singer still refuses to face the camera. More shots of Greta being dissatisfied. Oh wait. A few tables behind Greta, we can see the lead singer with his hand covering an empty glass. Perhaps he doesn’t want to drink, knowing that Greta is keeping the bartender busy with her double-fisted consumption.

This goes on for a while, with Greta at one table and the lead singer at another, neither of them having any fun and looking very distraught about pointless things that we don’t understand. Then the lead singer disappears, probably because the rest of the band is getting a little irritated that he ran out in the middle of a slow-jam session.

Whoops, he’s back at the restaurant, proving that he has special magical abilities and putting a whole different spin on things. Then he’s with the band again, so I’m thinking maybe I should just ride this out and quit trying to think of witty things to say until the lead singer decides where he really wants to be.

So we go into this long montage of various scenes, with Greta sad at her table, the lead singer alternating between shadow play with the band and toying with Greta at the restaurant, and Greta diddling with her napkin, doing some sort of linen origami. (It’s probably not necessary that I should mention that none of this is making any sense.)

Oh look, now Greta is fed up with whatever, and is stomping away from her table. (It doesn’t appear that she left a tip, so in support of food servers everywhere we must hate her even if she’s pretty.) Greta heads out into the streets of this unnamed city, and during her stroll she passes the lead singer. Neither of them appear to notice each other, even though we know they are intimately connected in some mystical way, so it’s not clear if they have amnesia or if this is one of those spy movies where bitter people do torturous things to each other in the name of international justice and then pretend that they didn’t really do anything.

Quick shot of the lead singer standing near a lamppost and singing, still avoiding the camera even though we’ve already seen his entire face and could easily pick him out in a police lineup. In the distance, we can see Greta trying to cross a street against the light and narrowly avoiding death from an impatient black car. That girl needs to pay attention or she’s never going to be happy. Or alive.

More montage, with Greta still stomping about the city and angry about the developments in her life, and the lead singer unable to stay in one place, transporting between the quickly-getting-boring jam session in the room with the stupid window treatments and various locations on the city streets where he watches Greta in her forlorn quest to walk herself to death. (If she can’t figure out by now that she’s being stalked, then she deserves to wear drab clothing and not have satisfactory dining experiences at trendy but deserted restaurants.)

Suddenly, Greta turns a corner and is heading down an alley. There’s no one around, so she’s not in any immediate danger, but she decides that this is not her career path and she turns back around. (She’s really flighty, this girl.) The lead singer watches her go, but still does nothing, because the script clearly says that he should remain aloof but watchful.

Wait, we’re back at the restaurant, and some guy we don’t know is fiddling with Greta’s origami napkin. He’s also pawing her unfinished glass of champagne. (Some people really don’t understand the concept of person space. Granted, she left without tipping anybody, but still, you don’t mess with other people’ things, even in unnamed cities where the sun never shines and the citizens don’t pay enough attention to detail.)

Well, there goes Greta jaywalking again, then she re-enters the restaurant and spies the new man playing with her props. She pauses and considers her next move. The lead singer wanders up and whispers something into her ear, words that appear to be the line “all my secrets away” from the song. Greta understands this whispered warning much more than we do, and she turns away, leaving the restaurant and probably planning to jaywalk again, because she’s too busy avoiding confrontational situations to pay attention to pedestrian regulations.

The song ends with New Man still piddling around with the napkin, the lead singer wandering off to who knows where, and Greta once again stomping the city streets, possibly smiling at her latest decision, but it’s really unclear. The final shot is of a pigeon taking flight.

No idea.

So the moral of the story is…. be indecisive about the men in your life and where you want to eat, and eventually you can fly. Got it.

　

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