Music The start of the song starts off with quite a slow and calming rhythm, and

then gets quicker and more into the rhythm, during the middle of the song, this is where the beat is at its fastest the audience will be to be waiting for the ‘drop’ where it then calms back down with the single main beat of the drum.

Genre/mise en scene The clothing of the main character is all black making him look mysterious

and makes the audience feel as though something bad may happen or he may be bad. Whereas the other people who have the black eyes seem to be wearing ordinary clothing or work clothes such as the maids, making it seem weirder as its just ordinary people who have the black eyes, The genre of this music is rock/indie rock which the stereo type for rock is that’s its dark colours, and people going crazy on a stage with a Mohawk, however I think that this song and video goes against this a bit because it has a story to the video and isn’t set in a stage location, but merges with the stereotype with the dark colours.

What it’s about? The music video focuses on a man (played by lead singer Daniel Smith) who

is running away from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii ("Great clouds roll over the hills, bringing darkness from above") once he sees people with black eyes he realises the ash from the volcano has caught up with him.

Camera/editing The start of the video shows us a establishing shot of the lead singer standing on top of a wall where he looks tiny compared to the building he’s on showing his vulnerability, it then goes into a close up of his face showing the recognition of the band, many establishing shots are used to show the location of the scene which is quite dark and empty. In the middle of the video a hand held camera is used to ‘chase’ the character through different locations showing he is in danger. The last shot a close up of the characters face replicating the one at the start but he has the same black eyes everyone else during the video had. As the location changed quite a lot it meant it had to have rapid editing to fit in with the pace of the song

Lyrics I was left to my own devices

Many days fell away with nothing to show

And the walls kept tumbling downIn the city that we loveGreat clouds roll over the hillsBringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes,Does it almost feel likeNothing changed at all?And if you close your eyes,Does it almost feel likeYou've been here before?How am I gonna be an optimist about this?How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

We were caught up and lost in all of our vicesIn your pose as the dust settles around us

And the walls kept tumbling downIn the city that we loveGreat clouds roll over the hillsBringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes,Does it almost feel likeNothing changed at all?And if you close your eyes,Does it almost feel likeYou've been here before?How am I gonna be an optimist about this?How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

Oh where do we begin?The rubble or our sins?Oh where do we begin?The rubble or our sins?

And the walls kept tumbling downIn the city that we loveGreat clouds roll over the hillsBringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes,Does it almost feel likeNothing changed at all?And if you close your eyes,Does it almost feel likeYou've been here before?How am I gonna be an optimist about this?How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

The main interpretation from this song is mostly about the volcano which wiped out Pompeii, also the fact that our worlds falling apart due to our own faults and in peoples life there is always problems and difficulties yet when we ‘close our eyes’ we realise that and stop thinking about the problem ourselves we see how we haven’t really changed our attitudes to make things better, and keep making the same mistake again and again ‘we’ve been here before’