Vid: "God Says Nothing Back"
Music by the Wallflowers
Vidder Morgan Dawn
Go here to request a password and to get the vid. Go! I'll wait. Then come back here and watch me flail and squee.
A couple of things you need to know before we get down to the fun stuff. I've seen/known about this vid for a couple of months and have been sitting on this one and another one by Killa (which has not been released yet) for all that time, unable to shriek and flail or burble happily in public about them. I had two Wallflowers songs that I really wanted to see SPN vidded to and Morgna Dawn and Killa stepped up and made me one happy little fangirl/vid groupie.
Two things you need to know about me if you are going to read my squee:
1.) I am, at heart, a Sam girl. I actually prefer anything that has Sam and Dean together (even over and above Sam alone), but in the arc of the SPN story, Sam's torn loyalties, his journey, his growth, his obstinacy and maturing are what cranks my shaft. His recent loss and his fears interest me, personally, more than other aspects of the show, so when we were talking about this vid, that was in my brain -- but my actual input beyond some vague concepts was pretty much nil. That
2.) I love metaphors. I've said that before in talking about vids but it's worth repeating -- because one of the things that Vidders (my favorite vidders ) do, is work visual metaphors of the media source against the lyrical line of the song. My ability to pick out "visual" metaphor is sorely lacking -- I know them when I see them, but I don't see them on my own. That vidders can do that, I think, is one of the things that separates a vid "artist" from people who have a skill for laying visuals against tracks of music. I can do that much -- but I can't tell a story outside of the visual and music line on my own, or not easily.
So, all that aside. One of the reasons I truly adore this vid (and this song) is the four narrative voices that are pretty clearly defined in the lyrics; God, Time, Love, and Death, and trying to place those respondents to the narrator in and of itself would be difficult. This is not a happy vid and whether you view it as slash or not is kind of beside the point.
The very first clip in this vid made me shriek the first time I saw it. There's a drum down beat, very sudden, and Sam gets broadsided by a demon, knocked down and tumbled over...which pretty much sets the tone for the whole vid, even before the first note of the lyric line or the first word is sung. I love that.
The lyrics themselves are one huge long metaphor everything from the ravens in the first stanza to the last one where the narrator asks for the graves to be opened and the bodies to be allowed to talk.
POV in vids, like POV in text stories is really important (to me!), maybe even more so in vids because there are no handy analogs to the "he said/she said" tags we get to use in text. The prime narrator in this vid is Sam, but there's a referred POV (or subject) that changes from stanza to stanza, a kind of omnipotent overview that isn't Sam, that almost feels like a third person reference. And the POV does shift, at the end of each stanza, from Sam to whoever it is he talks about -- Mary becomes God, John becomes Time, Dean becomes Love, and Jessica become Death -- all talking to Sam, all pretty much delivering the same message.
This vid, in it's overall tone, is a bit darker than I write, but it works well for me regardless. I don't see Sam's situation as hopeless but in the confines of this vid, it's easy to see why he might and does give into despair, into his much maligned "emo" maudlin states. God did not intervene to save his mother and likely won't intervene to save him or those he loves (and doesn't). Time isn't going to heal this or fix this, if anything, the lifetime crusade Sam's been on (willing or unwilling) shows no signs of resolution. Love won't fix it, repair it -- for all that it might make it temporarily bearable, and even death holds no peace and likely no answers.
Through all of this MD has chosen clips that illustrate not necessarily the literal impact of the lyrics but the meaning behind it. One of the areas that really kind of killed me (after repeated viewings ) was in the last stanza, "I'm buried under leaves blood red and gold" wherein we see Sam and Jessica, and there's Jessica with her gold hair and bright red ribbon, and the weight of her death is burying Sam all through the first season. The moment itself is light-hearted and affectionate, a point in the series where we see Sam settled in his new life, happy, in love…he's got nothing but a bright future in front of him. It comes late in the song but it's even more poignant for that. And it's a literal thwap to the lyric but it's not just literal, yeah we have gold and red, but we also have, at that point in the vid, the awareness that Jessica is already dead and her death threatens to drag Sam into the grave as well. It's done in such a way that it's like peeling back the multiple layers on a hidden prize…you peel back and peel back and in the end, there's nothing in all that wrapping but a bitter truth. It's lovely.
There's also a lovely use of effects under the "Back in the snow - Making angel wings" where there's a shift and blur in the clip, a ghostly imaging of Dean smiling because I don't think anyone would argue that Dean isn't Sam's own guardian angel, and we think of making snow angels as a thing children do, joyous and ignorant of the cold, for sheer glee. Dean is really the only link to Sam's innocence, an aborted innocence -- and a reminder that even Angels (or God) can't protect Sam from the pain to come, not even an Angel as dedicated as Dean. And again, the end phrasing "Love says nothing back but I told you so" is kind of that double edged sword. Dean loves Sam like no one else. It's still not enough, and it echoes Dean's common admonition that they are not normal, that they can't expect to have what other people have. Not even love.
At the end of that stanza, MD also introduces a clip outside of source, for the blood hitting the water; I love that use, I love the imagery of blood hitting the water and slowly dissipating. It's eerie and chilling. And later she introduces both fire and the kind of twin, last grasp for some kind of hope: A dove emerging from the fire and statue of the virgin Mary that also escapes the flames. I love that there's some hope left there even if Sam can't see it.
I probably should talk more about clip choice or technical aspects except I really don't feel qualified. The clips chosen worked for me almost universally, they told me a story I was able to follow, a narrative that's both dependent on and yet still outside the actual lyrics, without undermining or really changing the context of the source clips. There's a lot of quick movement, a lot of layered meaning in the meta of the vid. There's a sparing use of special effects (which really works for me -- I prefer to see the vidder's skill rather than the bells and whistles on the editing software.)
As an illustration for Sam's struggles and journeys, this vid is just a wonderful thing. I think you should watch it and then tell
Enjoy!
Lyrics:
THE WALLFLOWERS LYRICS
"God Says Nothing Back"
Seems like the world's gone underground
No gods or heroes
Dare to go down
Tear drops from a hole in heaven come
Overhead like ravens
Dropping down like bombs
Through the mornings silver frosted glow
God says nothing back
But I told you so
I told you so
God bless the void
Of my daydreams
Back in the snow
Making angel wings
Slow motion dancing lights have gone
Sail beneath the burning yellow sun
I'm calling out to the deep ends of my bones
Time says nothing back
But I told you so
I told you so
Still waters rising in my mind
Black and deep
Smoke behind my eyes
Last night I could not sleep at all
I hallucinated that you were in my arms
To be in your heart
I failed my own
Love says nothing back
But I told you so
I told you so
I'm still here
And climbing every rung
If someone saw something
Now Someone speak up
Back over the rotted bridge I cross
Open up these graves
Let these bodies talk
I'm buried under leaves blood red and gold
Death says nothing back
But I told you so
I told you so...
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