Shearwater – “You As You Were”

Shearwater’s first video from their new album, Animal Joy, represents everything you would expect from such a focused, unique, and beautiful band.  “You As You Were” was directed by Alix Lambert and features animalistic costumes created by Nicholas Kahn.  Its gorgeous cinematography employs shots of sunsets, woods, bleeding trees, and the band members traipsing around in naturalistic settings, wearing huge animal costumes, reminiscent of Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are.  The video makes a direct link between wild animals and humans themselves, as in several shots Meiburg and bassist Kimberly Burke remove their animal regalia to reveal the human beneath.  These potentially metaphorical acts hint at the thin veneer that separates what we consider “wild” animals and our animal selves.  In imagery and in lyrics, as Meiburg ends each verse with a parallel, “through the rest of your life,” “an animal life pulls, surging away,” and “where you recover your life,” the song entwines the life of humans and animals.  As Meiburg emphatically concludes the song, repeating, “I am leaving the life,” we are unsure whether this may be the animalistic nature of his human self or the human nature of his animal self, but the question is provocative either way.  The video is a beautiful conceptual component to a brilliant song.