The Verve Video Analysis - Bitter Sweet Symphony

I have chosen to analyse Bitter Sweet Symphony by the Verve as my Verve video analysis.
Bitter Sweet Symphony is the 1st single on The Verve's third album, Urban Hymns and it reached number 2 on the UK Singles chart. The full version of the song is 5:57 minutes long and is of the alternative/britpop genre similarly to bands like Oasis and Pulp. The song also in a similar way makes use of violins to give it a unique sound. These qualities will make it a good analysis to conduct for research regarding my chosen song. The video is in a pseudo-performance style as the lead singer is shown singing as he walks along a street but the rest of the band is not shown.

 

The video begins with a camera panning to follow the Richard Ashcroft (the lead singer) as he walks onto a busy street. The unique sound of the violins fade in on the 3rd second eventually drowning out the ambient street sounds that could be heard before. This highlights how the character is thinking and how he becomes almost oblivious to the world around him as the song continues.

He stops and turns to face the camera as it pans up to show his face. The camera moves slowly backwards as he pauses and looks towards it as if deep in thought.

Eventually, Ashcroft begins to move forwards, following the camera. The rest of the song continues as he walks along the street throughout which, he is shown to be completely uncaring and almost oblivious to his surroundings. Almost immediately as he crosses a road where he doesn't look, he is almost run over but he shows no reaction.

 

He continues to walk down the street and doesn't move from his path regardless of who or what is in his way. The lyrics were clearly used directly when the video was being created, the third line of the first verse is ''I'll Take You Down The Only Road I've Ever Been Down''.

This is represented by the road he walks down and along with ''It's A Bitter Sweet Symphony, This Life'' clearly set the theme for the whole video in the eyes of the director and the video reflects that in the singer's nature and actions.

 

The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony on MUZU.TV.