Does anyone else ever imagine the video treatment for a song when they listen to it? Because I do this all the time, and I was really happy when 'Glory and Gore' was announced as the next single, because I feel like the music video that I imagined in my head would be perfect for the actual video.
Of course, that would never happen. Unless Ella and I are like-minded.
Anyway, we all know that Lorde is incredibly intelligent. Part of why Royals (and Team for that matter) have been so successful is because of how profound they are as songs. Comparing the lavish lives of pop stars and rappers we listen to her actual, suburban, middle-class, teenage life. And the amount of times I've heard "throw my hands up in the air" in a song is ridiculous. The fact that a 17 year old girl finally called the industry out on it is genius.
So, with that in mind, I think the music video for 'Glory and Gore' needs to be just as profound as the song itself. The only problem is, the way I imagined it would probably be too controversial for MTV.
Lorde - Glory and Gore (my music video treatment)
The song hasn't started yet. It starts with Ella sitting outside at an outdoor table of a regular American high school. She's reading a book, and wearing an all-black outfit. Something like a trench-coat or something similar to this outfit.
She sees someone walking from the carpark towards the school. He's dressed similarly to her. "Gothic" clothes that others deem weird/loserish. Maybe she's friends with him or maybe she recognises him from one of her classes, but she's polite, nice and friendly, so she smiles and waves at him.
He mouths "get out" to her and a look of horror comes over her face as she realises what's going on and notices the rifles in the bags he's carrying towards the school. Suddenly, the noise of all the students with her outside cuts out. As soon as she notices what's going on, you hear this:
Ella gets up out of her seat and runs towards the gunman making his way towards the school. She tries fighting him off with her forearms, tears in her eyes. You see her mouthing "PLEASE! PLEASE! STOP! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS! STOP! DON'T DO THIS!" However you can't hear her saying it, and you can't hear her pushing him, or trying to argue with him. You can only hear the ringing war noise. But you notices she's causing a scene, and from a high-angle long-shot, you see all the other students who are outside notice what's going on and have enough time to get up and run away.
The gunman pushes Lorde to the ground and makes his way into the school. Lorde's face is covered in tears as she lies on the grass in front of the school. The ringing noise stops and she closes her eyes.
"Glory and Gore" starts playing.
Lorde gets to her feet. She's singing, but not to the camera. She's staring at the school with looks of anger and confusion on her face. She frowns, hearing something behind her and turns around (all while still singing the song). There are cop cars, and SWAT cars (maybe) which is understandable.
But then beyond them, in the car park of the school, is a media frenzy. Beyond that there are panicked parents, crying. But the media circus is a joke. There are maybe 15-20 news vans, each with a beautiful reporter standing in front of them, with the police and the school in the backgrounds.
Lorde is looking around at the horror, all while singing. She is disgusted at how the media can be doing this, in front of panicked, scared, nervous, grieving families, as well as dedicated police officers trying to do their jobs and solve the problem. Lorde's face conveys different emotions as she looks at the 3 different parties, empathy and sadness for the crying families/students who are out of the school, approval and concern as she looks the the policemen, SWAT team and heroes trying to minimise the horror of the situation and then disgust as she looks at the news crews who are trying to capitalise on this tragedy (as it happens) for ratings. All while singing about how 'Glory and Gore' go hand in hand, and that's why those news teams are making headlines.
Lorde runs to the sporting ground and picks up a baseball bat. She runs back to the front of the school and starts using the bat to break the windows of the news vans (as the chorus of 'Glory and Gore' starts). She rips the microphones off the reporters and Smashes them when they're on the ground. She smashes a big news camera. She begs with the media to stop. "PLEASE! STOP!" In the same way that she pleaded with the gunman.
(Away from the school) there would also be a large group of people standing in front of a shop window, watching a TV display. On every TV (maybe like 15 of them) on display in the shop window, every single one of them is showing live coverage of the shooting. Lorde shatters that window and one of the TVs with her baseball bat.
Back at the school, she hitches a ride in the back of one of the news crew vans back to the news studio, still singing in the back of the van. Angry and sad.
The lights are dark in the news studio. They're about to go live. The down-lights come on to reveal the cheesy smiles of the anchors (similar to Caesar Flickerman, the host of The Hunger Games)
They crease their eyebrows in expresses of concern as they begin to report on the shooting in detail. Lorde (obviously) still singing 'Glory and Gore' while she watches on the floor of the studio with all the cameraman.
They begin reporting on the shooting in far too much detail.
Then (with Lorde still singing the song) a subtitle at the bottom of the news anchors reads "WE CAN NOW REVEAL THE IDENTITY OF THE SHOOTER!"
This is the one thing that psychologists and experts insist the media needs to stop doing in order for these shootings to stop. Apparently it makes the problem so much worse, because it's given the shooters what they want: eternal fame and notoriety in history as "villains" or "anti-heroes." They become 'famous" in their own right.
Lorde goes nuts. This is at the final chorus of the song, as it all builds up. She starts screaming "NO!" And runs on screen, trying to block the anchors from revealing the information she doesn't want the world to know. She starts bashing the news desk, the cameras and the studio with her baseball bat, all while singing 'Glory and Gore.'
The song is really building up, so it can cut away to all different scenes of her bashing stuff with her baseball bat in anger and frustration. But also maybe running into a family's living room and cutting their TV cable with scissors, and their TV goes out, so they can no longer watch the coverage of the shooting. Because the viewers of these incidents are complicit too. It's both the news anchors AND the viewers who are giving "glory" to the "gore."
The song finally stops with Lorde finishing bashing everything in the studio.
She's on her knees, in front of a TV somewhere, watching the same pair of news anchors on screen, with the title "Lorde's controversial new music video: Does it promote violence?" on the bottom of the screen. The female news anchor asks the male news anchor, "does pop star Lorde's new music video promote violence and mass shootings?"
And with tears in her eyes, kneeing on the ground, Ella looks directly into the camera and says, "No. You do."
THE END
Ok...SO, this video would probably never, ever get approved because it would be too controversial. But I feel Ella is too smart and has too much of an opinion and too much to say, to not do something meaningful. She's here for a reason. She's smart and has so much to say about society.
If you've come this far, and read my video treatment for 'Glory and Gore' then I STRONGLY encourage you watch these 2 short videos of what inspired the idea for the video.
The first (and most important one) is forensic psychiatrist Dr Park Dietz talking about why the media exacerbates these mass-shootings by turning them into huge stories and turning the shooters into celebrities:
The second is Marilyn Manson's interview from Bowling for Colombine. A fascinating interview, I'm sure, that Ella has definitely seen:
I saw her live a few days ago at Lollapalooza in Brazil, me and the whole audience were blown away (she sang for 40K people that night), the show was televisioned in a popular TV Channel here, people seemed to love her. Everybody was talking about her.
Top Female Artist
Top New Artist
Top Hot 100 Artist
Top Digital Songs Artist
Top Radio Songs Artist
Top Rock Artist
Top Rock Album
Top Hot 100 Song
Top Digital Song
Top Radio Song
Top Streaming Song (Audio)
Top Rock Song
Everybody was talking about her.
