Hit big with her piano-driven "A Thousand Miles" back in 2002, and the last few years seem to have been transitional for her music and career, Vanessa Carlton is back and dropped a little indie-homemade video for her latest single "Hear The Bells," the second official single and third overall taken from her fourth studio album, "Rabbits on the Run," and it was also the title track for her 2011's four-track holiday EP, which isn't exactly the next episode in Carlton's tale of musical growth, but it still gives us something of significant substance to chew over."Hear the Bells" is the story of a person navigating their recovery, and making many stops along the way, angry winter walks through the city, meditating in a church cemetery, floating on the sea with lots of wine in you in Costa Rica, finding a Chinese witchdoctor, until you realize the remedy was pretty much there all along. Though I still float on seas and I boil my Chinese herbs every morning." The song is driven by a pulsating, almost temperamental piano riff, and Carlton herself sounds like she's in the middle of a séance as she insists in a sordidly deadpan tone. Her vague Victorian musings about death, witchdoctors, and stomachaches are pulled into their definitive form.
The 31-year-old songbird spoke about the track: "Hear the Bells" is about clarity, enlightenment. It is song map about the journey of someone who is seeking out a remedy. But remedies lie within us. That is powerful and true but not always obvious. I hope the song is a reminder. In society, the sound of bells marks an important moment in time, whether from a church tower or a wind chime in a garden, it is always a sort of mystical alarm." It does not sound anything like I've heard from her before. She has a total old school Kristen Hirsch vibe.
In the airy, blurry visuals, Carlton showcases a timeline of past rare never seen before footage of her ballet history as she reminisce on life. She explains: "This visual clip is my favorite video I've ever done thus far. Re-teaming with Jake Davis and his team was fluid and an inspired experience. It was filmed in my house in New York City, the place where I wrote the song. Doing a video for this song was Jake's idea and I'm really happy he pushed me to do it. It's a reveal of my history woven in with the story of a reclusive woman based on 'Little Edie of Grey Gardens,' an eccentric and wonderful lady who rarely left her house. I believe we are our own fortune tellers."
0 comments