share ur bonus interesting night music video findings/rambles/analysis NOW!!!!!!!!!!!(please and also thank u:])
HIII JAGGY o/ honestly I could probably ramble about Night forever so... :} works out for me!
a lot of this are going to be things I've already mentioned on this blog, but they're pretty scrambled around so I might just make this a big post for all of it... consider this a 'nearly beat for beat Night analysis plus some other things and details' masterpost. not much of a lyrical analysis though because I'm not good at it lol. (also putting this all under the cut. thumbs up)
so, for starters... well, I'm not starting off with Night! nope! we're starting off with Spring and a Storm (now imagine a big arrow pointing towards me that says 'person that can't stop mentioning SaaS/StaaS at any given opportunity')
and the reason I'm bringing up Spring and a Storm first is due to the ending lines, which lead up to Night:
now, I'm aware that Spring and a Storm was the very first Tally Hall cover that Chonny made, and thus was made waaay before there was an overarching story planned for it. but ☝️ I do think CJ placing it right before Night in the final album (and assigning it to Soul, of all three... four? of them) is immensely relevant. in SaaS we get shown Soul's outright optimism/idealism despite his circumstances, and, while this is my own interpretation (which could very well be wrong!), I do think these lines are meant to be directed towards Heart and Mind specifically
and, this has never been confirmed since once again, this cover was made way before there was a story, but the final lines do sound an awful lot like Heart and Mind, don't they?
personally I think this is why CJ placed SaaS right before Night – it truly is the perfect lead-up to it. Heart and Mind singing the final lines almost feels like a call and response to Soul's beginning lines. they tried to sing once, about spring and a storm...
but we know how it goes.
[here's where I actually talk about Night lol]
now Night... it honestly may be my favorite CCCC MV out of all of them. I said so in that other post, but there's so much detail in every single scene. you can really tell that just about everything was planned out.
the MV itself starts off with Soul/potentially Whole arriving at the scene. it's interesting, actually – if we assume the silhouette is the same silhouette as the one that's in the latter half of Night, then that's definitely Whole, which would make sense as we properly see Heart, Mind and Soul arriving to the scene later. yet, all his lines are transcribed as Soul's, so... eh? I'll leave that in the air
I do interpret this beginning section as Soul guiding Heart into harmonizing with Mind. Heart's line, 'open the window, look out and see me' fades into Mind's voice, at this point, when he sings 'slow, I am coming a long way to be' the environment turns into a bright white.
I like both of these shots a lot. here we see that Mind and Heart are already feeling their respective pains (headache and heartache). but another detail is that Mind's holding up his left hand while Heart is holding up his right – which correspond to Soul's own nail color (black on the left, white on the right)
as Soul sings 'such as I am mother's only son', we see what seems to be an ultrasound scan overlaid on top of Soul / Whole. honestly, it's so hard to see that I'm still not 99% sure that's what it is even with the brightness turned up + more contrast, but I don't really know what else it could be. it's only present through this specific line too.
(this is such a typical 'blink and you miss it' CCCC detail that I can't help but love it. there's a few more like these scattered throughout some of the other MVs and each one makes me go like WHAT!!! HUH!!!)
now comes another detail that's honestly so hard to see in the video itself, but it feels really really important, and that is the fact that Heart does not have a blindfold on in this scene
(Ever is the light on.) [Is the light on ever meant to run?]
right after we see a door starting to open, in a bright environment. afterwards we see Heart puts on his blindfold
we go back to the shot with the door, except the environment is now dark. the door keeps opening, revealing Mind at the other side. worth mentioning that the only bright spot on the screen is right where Mind appears
[Cold, but I’m outside and waiting to see] (a glow in the snow, coming closer to me.)
this whole imagery with the door is important, due to both the incoming lines and another reason I'll bring up later, so remember this detail. after the chorus, we get a section with only Soul.
{Better when the light comes in the night-time, opening the door. Hoping to be right, it’s open every night, so what’cha waiting for?}
Soul is inviting Heart and Mind to harmonize, guiding them and giving them the space to connect with eachother. however. as we saw, they don't want to see eye to eye with eachother. or rather, they can't – not at this point of the cycle, at least. there's a tension there that's still unresolved, made evident by Heart's avoidance of Mind
and then comes the tines line:
I've explained in my other post what I think the line means, so I won't repeat it here. (also because I'm lazy lol). but I do think this shot itself is interesting. we see Soul alone throughout this entire verse, only going back to Heart and Mind during this line. and they're both clearly in pain; Mind with his constant headache and Heart with his chest pain. they're also not looking at eachother, with a clear split between them, Mind's environment being brighter and Heart's environment being darker. it's clear they're not on equal grounds here
here we get the second chorus again, but there's a clear difference. Heart and Soul start this line off singing together, but at the very end it's just Soul singing
{I want to see your) eyes, looking back and out through mine.}
here, Soul takes a pause right before the last word, there's a just barely audible sigh, and then sings 'mine,' alone. to me, this is the moment that Soul realizes that this isn't going to be possible, at least not in the state that things are in.
(Something is real.) {Maybe not.} {(Something is gone.)} (Something is here.) [Only thought.] {(What do you want?)}
I won't say much about these lyrics, as they're admittedly hard to parse for me as to what they mean exactly. (though it does feel like this is the point where Soul's given up on his initial task). I do think that it's notable how this is the only instance I can think of where Soul directly talks towards only Mind.
the continuing line is this:
{([Everything else will fade away.])}
as this line plays, we see Soul, Heart, Mind*, and we see Whole, and then… the video reverses, and keeps reversing up until the point where the door is closed again, Heart puts on the blindfold.
to me, what this means is that all of the progress made through the song, the attempt made by the three to see eachother's point of view, to harmonize, is now undone. they're now back at square one.
*one little detail about this part is that both Soul and Heart are looking downwards, while Mind is looking straight-ahead at the camera... which could mean nothing /ref
as the final chorus plays, there's a different, darker static filter over their shared screen. they're all singing together until the very end, where only Soul remains singing. the lyrics change too, from 'looking back and out through mine', to 'looking back and into mine'
... and then we fade into Ruler of Everything. *stock sfx of children cheering*
considering how both Spring and a Storm and Ruler of Everything were covered before there was a story planned, the fact that CJ chose Night to bridge them together works perfectly IMO. we go from 'some semblance of peace' to 'an attempt an harmony' to 'nevermind shit has hit the fan'
I could in theory talk about Light as well, but I don't have a whole lot to say about it compared to Night, as it doesn't have as many minute details that Night does (none that I've noticed, at least). I imagine it's due to the lyrics being far more straight forward to the CCCC lore, since Night is more of a 'faithful' cover compared to Light (which was very much intentional, IIRC)
so yeah. that's my Night analysis, kind of 👍 I didn't proof-read this post as much as I did the other so I may edit this post later if I notice a glaring issue later on or want to reword anything or something. little carbonation and I'll see you next time, later /ref
