Music Analysis - Seth Lakeman - Hearts and Minds

At the start of this video, we are greeted by shots of roads, signs and streetlights to obviously show that someone is driving down the motorway quite late at night travelling somewhere. We see choppy shots of all the places they go past, this is shown in a low ambient light to reflect that its crossed from late at night to early hours of the morning. It’s the artist and his band travelling across the country to gigs and various places to play his music. Quickly we change to a small glimpse of someone writing in a book full of pictures. We then see inside this book as all the drawings become animated and start moving. It’s a diary/a storybook of all the places Seth has played at and gives a little insight into his home and friends. We go from the ‘Seth’s kitchen’ in writing to us being shown the kitchen and him playing in it. The video itself has no real, deep meaning, its just a fun, happy, good time type of video, showing the audience, the bands journey from place to place, and give us a peek of the general day for the artist as if it were a homemade video. A clever spin that this video takes it shows a bit art and animation, giving it that ‘child feel’ to it, showing the drawings of certain places like the artists home and his specific friends, and the streets and towns he busks in. It’s telling us a story. It then shows these places and people in real life taking these drawings and animations and bringing them to life. We see the band and crew setting up stages or places that they are playing in rural areas and we get close ups of the violins and guitars they are playing to show the realness from the drawings in the book. They in places like Dartmoor and busk in places such as outside pubs and in docks just in front of fishing boat. The lighting here is higher ambient but this is because it is in the daylight. These places that he goes to, are in his hometown or near it in Dartmoor, so they try to establish a home feel to it. You get a real sense of this seeing the shots of people welcoming him into there homes, sharing tea and chatting with him and his crew. When he travels through the town, you can see the locals recognise him and talk to him and watch him play, you get the feel of how such a humble town that is and how everyone gets along with each other. The audience gets shown more connotations of the town and all the specific traits that the town has such as pubs (labelled Seth’s local), fishing boats, bed and breakfasts, bakery’s, while also being introduced to more of his crew his little book, such as his guitarist and his brother who also plays with him. Its like a little travel log showing all the things they do, shots of the landscape and trees to show the places they go past and everyone in the car admiring the scenery. We then go to the ‘busking in Bristol’ scene where we see the band arriving in Bristol getting there instruments out and start playing in the streets, he then starts to sing parts of the backing track while playing in the town centre with his friends to we can really see his performance. In this part they really start to get to grips with the song and sing and play in time with the song to also show them playing the actual song, we see a close up of Seth playing his violin strumming the parts where it does on the song. We also see the strumming of the guitar together with the song. You can see close up shots of people taking pictures of the event and also local people walking past and admiring the playing, and stopping and having a little listen and seeing there smiling faces. A local shakes hands with Seth to express how much he likes the song. This is to show his interaction with his fans and listeners and to show that he is humbled by their positive praises. This links in with the next few shots we see and we see him being solely interactive with his fans, talking, taking pictures with them and just having a good time. We see another travelling shot, I’ve noticed how we know when it switches to another scene, another performance, when we see shots of landscapes going past the camera, as if they are travelling in a car, but not actually seeing them travelling, this particular shot will always tell me that we are going to see a different performance. They are playing in a pub sitting around a table and everything is low ambient lighting, it being late into this evening probably is the reason why. We see a lot of close ups on them playing but this gives a real life aspect on it. The audience is shown a switch back to the book again highlighting the various places they’ve travelled to including where they are such as ‘Royal Oak’. The book is very colourful as if an artist has drawn out this people and figures, it also highlights in there what people do in these towns and what life’s like for them, we can see two people drinking at a restaurant table and then a shot back to the band. We see a drawn out building of a music venue called the ‘Komedia’ implying that we are about to go in there. The audience are shown the various crown members waiting outside and shown the classic music connotations of lights, big speakers and lines of people waiting for the venue. This switches back to the real life performance. We’re shown the band setting up and rehearsing before they perform, all the lighting in the room, is only given by stage lights. This is Seth’s last performance of the video and it is in front of a crowd. We can see views from the band to the audience, and the audience to the band, seeing everyone’s view of the gig and what each one can see. It cuts to the dressing room where everyone is getting ready and we’re shown shots of people doing various things like drinking water and looking at the camera. It shows they are all having a good time showing that they are doing what they love and that is playing music. This is before they all stroll down the stairs and onto the stage. The video fades out with the band and Seth, walking onto the stage into the bright lights and smoke greeting the crowd, about to perform, sort of taking a backwards spin on a typical video which would usually start with a band coming onto a stage, and the audience seeing them perform to the crowd.

The video doesn’t so much have all the connotations of a typical folk video such as a story behind something or the clothes that they were (they are wearing general everyday clothes) but it takes an alternative way, by just showing the band touring, travelling and performing, but not having any real deep, meaningful story or plot. It shows the band having a good time, and showing the audience the day-to-day life of the artist and the rest of his crew interacting with the public and still playing music. It does however have the typical instruments such as an acoustic guitar, a banjo and a violin. The scenes are filmed in rural landscapes, and areas near the coast, which does still give you that folk feeling to the song and video.