Okay so welcome to my tedtalk. A lot of us have tried to come up with explanations of the videos and the album in general ever since it was released, so here comes my idea. So if this has been said before I’m sorry!
In my opinion Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is a mental institution. Does this sound far fetched? Yes. Do I have an explanation for it? Yes.
Starting from the videos, I’m going to analyse Four out Five.
We see that Alex appears to have two versions of himself, one that has his beard and everything, the other one being clean shaved and having his hair slicked back. So in this universe, Alex could potentially have Dissociative Personality Disorder (aka multiple personality disorder / D.I.D). So from here on we are going to name his shaven persona Mark and his beard persona Alex. Now Proof for that is that in TBHC, the only person to pick up the phone is shaved Alex, and when he picks up, he answers as Mark.
The Four out of Five video starts with Alex playing the piano, but he gets up and leaves, looking quite disturbed as soon as the red light / weird sounds start echoing from the other room. This couls he a sign that Mark is taking up control of the body. At a VERY quick flash, we see Mark walking towards the light, the opposite direction that Alex followed.
In the two videos there is a heavy TV symbolism. The way I take it, the TV symbolises the way the alternative personalities view the world when they are not in control of the body. Here we see Alex and Nick, who is later proven to be a personality as well.
Now if we pay attention to the lyrics at that moment, we hear Alex say “dressed up in silver and white” which could very much be a symbolism for the trademark white uniform they used to put on psychopaths (we’ve all seen it in movies). Continuing with the lyrics, we hear:
“Take it easy for a little while, come and stay with us, it’s such an easy flight,”
This could literally be the slogan of the Mental Institution. Seeing as it’s called “Tranquility” (a usual word play for asylums, something involving a word related to peace and calmness of the mind), it would be likely that they would use it to attract patients.
Moving on, we see the employees of TBHC, who are dressed in red uniforms. This doesn’t resemble to the clothes a hotel employee would wear, so it could literally be a nurse’s outfit.
The next scene is filmed in the subway, where we see Mark walking hurriedly behind a red dressed employee. Perhaps this is a sign that Mark is trying to hide the fact that it’s him out, and not the real personality of the body (Alex). This happens right after he is seen qalking down thw stairs near the main room of TBHC, which we will later learn that is the place where the different personalities gather.
Alex watches, through the TV again, Mark walk down the tube, which could symbolise an exit, the persona coming out and taking full control. Alex is yet again shut in the brain and his alternative personality breaking free.
Now in the D.I.D. theory, a person creates alternative personalities after experiencing some sort of trauma. It is obvious from the lyrics: “I don’t wanna be nice and you know that” and from their clothes (Alex wears white and Mark wears black, a classic symbolism referred to good and evil), that Mark is a mean persona that Alex created to defend himself because he is sensitive and possibly weak.
Finally the red light starts bleeping again and the camera moves towards it, instead of away from it. Then, the door with the TBHC key opens up and reveals Mark standing inside. The personalities have switched again, it’s Alex in control of the body and Mark shut inside the brain. He’s later seen playing with Matt, Jamie and Nick.
A common point of D.I.D. is that there is a place in the brain where all the personalities gather, and they all have faces and different characters. This part of the brain appears to be the TBHC main hall, where Mark and the band plays music. So it’s proven that they’re all different egos of Alex, observed by the TBHC employees who are seen filming them with great curiosity. At the same time that Mark and the others play, we see Alex leaving the buildinh from some cryptic path, which means he’s trying to go unnoticed. He doesn’t use the main exit like he did before.
In the last bits of the video, we see Alex / Mark (the scene is dark) get into a car and drive away.
Now for a bit of a historical throwback, as we transcend into the TBHC videoclip.
Back in the early 60s / late 70s, mental institutions in America started closing down. President Reigan stated that the tax payers ended up paying a total of 400-500 million dollars a year to keep them running. In fact, an institution in California had reached a total of 22,000 patients.
We already know that TBHC is set in the 70s (cue to the lyric: Maybe I was a little too wild in the 70s) and it’s possibly set in California, since Alex is tight with the place.
All these indicate that the Tranquility institution closed down in the TBHC videoclip and now Alex is seen free, on the outside world. However, it’s not Alex that we see, but Mark, since we get many scenes of him being clean shaved and taken care of. The difference between TBHC and Four out of Five is that when the red alarm echoes, we see Mark standing there, albeit a bit shocked (he’s seen sitting on the floor, in a daze). It shows that he has become the dominant personality and even though Alex strikes to come back out, he remains Marks. We have no sight of Matt, Jamie and Nick, further proof of how dominant Mark’s personality has become.
The only real glimpses of Alex we get in this are in the start and the end of the video, which further shows that he’s trying to gain control. However, the TV makes its appearance again, showing that someone is watching him through it.
An interesting point about the TBHC videoclip is the difference in Mark’s clothing. He is seen wearing white and lighter clothes, but he keeps his hair and clean shaved face. Later on we see him photographing horses, a parallel to the For out of Five videoclip, where Alex takes pictures of horses as well. In Four out of Five, Alex seems patient and enthusiastic in his photography hobbie, but in TBHC, he gives up rather soon and walks away in annoyance. This indicates that Mark is trying to pass as Alex, to stel his identity.
There is another idea of mine, that clean shaved Alex is possibly yet another persona, who is probably to be revealed next, but I’m not sure. Feel free to add your own thoughts to this post.
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