American rock group the Goo Goo Dolls have debuted a music video in support of their latest single "Notbroken". The song is the second single taken from the band's ninth studio album "Something for the Rest of Us." The new video is the closest thing to an anti-war anthem that frontman Johnny Rzeznik and company will probably ever write. While the Buffalo-based band has never shied away from social issues, they tend to focus their songs on more personal and intimate stories, and "Notbroken" is a perfect example of that songwriting.Rzeznik isn't one for hitting listeners over the head with anthem. "Notbroken," based on correspondence between Rzeznik and the wife of a solider in Iraq, is about a wife writing a letter to her husband who is at war. He fears that she will no longer love him because of his physical and emotional changes while in battle. The song indicates that the woman will always love her husband, regardless of the war's effect on him. Rzeznik says. "I wanted to speak for her, to write a love letter to tell him to come home." Heavy stuff, but accessible. The song starts with the lightness of acoustic strumming, then crashes into an epic swirl of Who-like guitars.
In an interview, Rzeznik described the Goo Goo Dolls inspiration behind the song: "Most of the material on the record seems to be addressing the kind of the angst and uncertainty of the times that we're living in, but on an emotional level. "Notbroken" is one particular song on the album, inspired by Rzeznik's encounter with a fan. "I met a woman in a meet and greet and talked to her for about two or three minutes where she slipped me a note which told me this story about how her husband. He was injured - paralyzed - and he doesn't want to come home. He wants to stay in the hospital. He's ashamed of himself. He feels like he's less. And she just wants to let him know that he's still everything that she ever wanted. I don't know, it just kind of came out. It's kind of like I was writing a love letter to him on her behalf."
Creatively, its a little bit predictable, but I guess its the sort of music that makes their fans happy with their form of acoustic intro, happy guitars, some tambourine and some sort of touching chorus. "Notbroken" is probably the most emotional track of the album. The thing their best at doing is sounding like they wrote a song just for the you, or they're talking directly to you and this is the perfect example of it. "Notbroken" tugs at your heart a little bit. The video gives this difficult story in an interesting manner. Shot to look similar to the old silhouette iPod commercials, we see both the wife and her husband's life play out on screen, with an ending that should leave you feeling a bit closer to both. Take a look at how Rzeznik and his bandmates visualize their single about a wife's letter to her husband who is at war.
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