Music Video Analysis - The Bird and the Worm - The Used

The Bird and the Worm music video by The Used is one of my all time favourite music videos. In all music videos you have the three aspects of video: Performance, narrative and concept. I find it is a very rare thing to find a decent music video that effetively has all three. The Bird and the Worm is exactly that, a combination of the three aspects to create a piece to be marvelled at in the end. The themes within the video are the idea's of paranoia. Having the most powerful enemy in your life is the darker person lying inside one's self and the conflict within your own mind. Another interesting concept idea of the bird and the worm is that it is part of the cycle of life. Whereas when the bird is alive and strong it preys on the worm, but when it is weak and finally dies, the worm eats the bird. There is a switching of the dominant species within this cycle. Both could be linked to the lighter and darker aspects of one's psyche, represented by the singer in this video having his lighter side with blonde hair and his darker side with black hair.

The video begins looking through an eye hole in a door. This invention in itself is so one can spy on what is going on outside the door, to view who is outside. The music does not play for the first scene. The band are walking through a crowd of people signing autographs. A dark figure in a hood approaches the singer. The singer turns to face him and the figure slashes him across the wrist drawing blood. The singer rushes past the crowd into the apartment and just as he's shut the door, we have a close up shot of his wrist and see the blood drain back into his skin as if it never happened. This is the idea of paranoia and fear really coming forth. The music begins from his entrance into his apartment. The performance aspect of the video takes place in a fictional room (I imagine would be in his head with his paranoid thoughts). As the vocals come in it flicks to a sideways medium close up of the singers head as he begins singing. He is in this fictional room. As we flick back to the narrative/concept side of the video we see him sit down on the sofa with his hood up, obviously shocked, scared and very unstable. We see this with the way he looks around while stroking at his hair, giving him a timid look.

We get a decent look at the fictional performance room in the next scene. It has a very dark and damp, horror genre appearance. The shadows of dead trees cover the walls and the ceiling. Lighting is minimal and dark, coming from behind and to the sides of the band giving the place a very eerie look. This could relate to his imagination and his mental well being. He is not healthy, there is something wrong about him. There is a real sense that the character the singer is portraying, is cearly suffering trying to hold on to his sanity. The lights glow brighter and then darker, really accentuating the tree's shadowing of the room, enforcing the eeriness of the place. Flashing lights add to the effect creating a harsh environmental atmosphere. This whole section of the video is the first chorus.

As the next verse follows we go back again to the dank apartment room, also rather dreary, drab and dull, to see the singer peering out through the eye hole in the door. We see for the first time the figure of the personified "worm". He moves unnaturally around the corridor outside the room. We cannot see his face. The camera flashes to an extreme close up of an eye staring directly into the camera. After this the singer approaches a mirror and looks at himself. After pulling down his hood we see that they are not the same people. One is his lighter version with blonde hair, one his darker version with black hair. After holding their hands to the mirror connecting one another, the black haired version tries to pull the blonde haired version through the mirror. A kind of tug of war ensues. This gives the impression of a loss of sanity and a battle within the singer's own mind, trying to keep control of himself in his own crazy world. Some of the glass falls on the floor but takes the form of water. Within we can see the singer's face. This could be a common fear for people with severe paranoia, to fear reflections and even that they can see others watching them in droplets of water, like eyes etc. This happens while frequently flicking back to the performance horror room with increasing flashes and shot switching. This is a similar scene to one a few seconds later in which both versions of the singer are wearing two of the same coat, connected at the tail, trying to pull in opposite directions, trying to win control.

At the breakdown of the song we briefly see the singer get dragged INTO the sofa, into a whole new world of water. He is fully submerged within the apparent lake within his sofa as the song starts building to the second part of the breakdown. Into the apartment now without the singer in it, the other band members walk in and there seems to be a distortion of gravity within the room. They are leaning against the ceiling, bouncing things of the walls and climbing around trying to gain balance. In the room approaches a man with a feathery head dress hanging off him. This seems to be a possible version of the "bird" character. We see flashes of a "worm" character in the water world the singer is in, but only silhouettes. This gives him a very creepy atmospheric presence. At the start of the second part of the breakdown, distinct by its sudden build up and climax, the music takes a heavy turn. Through this heavy turn, we see the worm in darkness, illuminated by sudden flashes as he crawls towards the camera and flailing around on the floor. This is quite a horrific scene as far as music videos go and almost twisted. We see his face only a few times, his mouth seems to be covered with some sort of scaly cover. Almost as if he can't talk, he can't express himself, he is alone and totally out of his mind. Through sporadic camera shots from long shots, mid shots and close ups to enhance the atmosphere of horror, he crawls with eyeless sockets as we see flashes of the singer trying to escape his watery prison in the sofa. As he emerges, the darker version grabs him and forces him back under. A truly tortourous experience.

As the breakdown ends, we get a close up of the singer in the performance room singing towards the camera. His hand actions and facial expressions really deliver the concept that he is going crazy. For this section only the lyrics are heard with a small accompanyment from small minor instruments (not played by the immediate band in their performance room). This creates a creepy build-up to the final chorus. During this final chorus, the flashes are at the most they've been in the duration of the video, the band members are acting more aggressive, flailing with guitars, smashing away at drums and the singer leaping around with crazed abandon. The singer in the narrative/concept part of the video is dragged out the sofa and laid on the ground by the "bird" character and given successful mouth to mouth resussitation. The "bird" effectively saves him. As he regains conciousness, the "bird" is gone. After sitting up on the sofa, now intact, the "bird" character returns, offering the singer a metal tray with what appears to be a chicken on it (or at least some form of bird). This brings up the idea that when the bird is dead, when left to decay the worm will have it's feed (the idea that sometimes you are on top, sometimes you are at the bottom, and of the cycle of life).

The finale see's the band in their performance room performing more aggressively than even the breakdown, all members screaming into their microphones, hammering hard on their instruments, with flashes, going berzerk and quick cuts over to the worm still crawling around in his dark dank place. The narrative character of the singer looks through the eye hole in the door one final time to see the worm crawling about in the corridor once more. With a flash to a mid close shot of the worm beckoning him outside. The singer runs to the corner of the room behind the door and hides from the band members who come in afterwards looking for him (I imagine after him running through the crowd to get to his room at the beginning of the video to see what was wrong with their friend's sudden strange behaviour). They don't see him and leave. The idea that the whole music video has taken place in the singer's mind during the duration the time it took his friends to walk from one side of the corridor to the other really plays on your mind. It gives you a taste of the insanity this music video offers. The last shot is an extreme close up of the worm eye flickering about as the eye hole is shut for the last time.