MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 1

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - If I Had A Gun…

Thought Beats - 'Seeing' the sound

This music video goes against the grain of voice theory created by Roland Barthes. The theory states that the singing voice is the most important thing within music itself. Therefore, within a music video the lead singer or vocalist will tend to get the most screen time in terms of editing and be the central focus of the music video itself. However, Noel features in the video only briefly in some shots. In terms of mode of address, the song can be seen as a story, and the artist (Noel Gallagher) the storyteller. The song tells the story of what these characters in the video are feeling making it a two communication device as Noel tells the story and we 'the audience' listen.

Narrative & Performance



The genre of the video is narrative. It is centred on a wedding ceremony with Noel acting as the priest. During the ceremony a cowboy on a horse arrives and dives into a swimming pool and the bride (Peyton List) follows him and they ride off into the sunset on the horse. The Video allows us to interpret our own ideas of what is being told and who is saying and thinking the lyrics of the song. Noel Gallagher is acting as both narrator & participant in the video, this helps to increase the authenticity. It allows the audience to believe that it is real. The video is entirely narrative as it has no lip syncing of the lyrics and amplifies the story of the video.

Relation of visuals to the song



In this music video there is an amplifying relationship between the lyrics and the visuals on screen. The visuals really tell the story of the the song as they complement the lyrics in terms of narrative. The video illustrates the lyrics 'Give you back a dream, and show you now what might have been' through the use of mid-shots of wedding gifts and a cake with a newly wed topper showing 'what might have been' if she goes through with the wedding. Another illustration of the lyrics is 'My eyes have always followed you around the room' as the editing cuts back and forth between the bride and cowboy as they look at each other as they begin to walk closer to one another.
The video also contradicts the same lyric as the camera pans across as the groom looks away from the bride to a bridesmaid indicating that he has been unfaithful to her and creating a contrast between the bride and groom. When the video cuts to the medium close-ups of the bridesmaids and groomsmen it illustrates the lyric 'You're the only God i'll ever need' as it suggests that all the people at the wedding are irrelevant in their life.

Technical Aspects



The relationship between the bride and groom is shown through the use over the shoulder shots conveying this sense of detachment from one another. The bride and cowboy dive into the pool to embrace one another in a two-shot. colour of the shot is blue, this colour represents trust, loyalty, and truth as this conveys the relationship between these two characters.
In terms of mise-en-scene, the setting of the video is California giving the video a western feel with the character of the cowboy and the child at the start also dressed as a cowboy. At the end of the video Noels character pulls up in a pickup truck outside a diner in the American desert these are conventions of a road movie.
At 3:27 are the two women and the "Soulsucker" video camera from the "AKA... What a Life!" music video that will be recurring motif's throughout as this video appears to be part of a three video story start with "If I Had a Gun" then "The Death of You and Me" and ending with "AKA... What a Life!" as all the videos begin where the other one finished.