'Bedshaped' by Keane

Right, the song's not my favourite but the video is. Its use of stop-motion and animation is beatiful, and arguably implies that Keane put as much thought, effort and artistry into the creation of their music as an animator does with a plasticine model, an idea imperative to sustaining the image they attempt to put forward of themselves as independent artists - although, ironically, the fact that the band are only ever represented in the video through drawings of themselves suggests the idea that they are somewhat manufactured themselves.


Bedshaped is, according to the band, a song about feeling left behind by a former friend or lover and the hope that in the distant future they will be reunited. This sentiment is well conveyed by the lonely, tramp like plasticine figure who seems daunted by the grim, urban environment he inhabits and whose only friend seems to be a kindly cat. The tramp figure himself is visually grotesque, perhaps reflecting the idea of a person becoming literally 'bedshaped' through illness and age.

The stop-motion animation has an urban-gothic aesthetic to it (resemblant of Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride at times) and the band appear as graffiti-esque animations within the walls of the tramp's world along with the lyrics of the song. As the band sing to him from the buildings and walls, the tramp seems to find his only solace from the construct of the city itself, including his resourceful cat friend, as opposed to the people who occupy it.

The lyrics and the band finally break out of the walls in the 'white light' of the song and the tramp finds himself within a white room surrounded by 3D renderings of the lyrics (that he himself has been reading and writing) and the bandmembers who are now drawn in a rougher, more energetic style. The implication is that he has either died or that the city itself has saved him.


I think I enjoy the video because it's just very aesthetically pleasing and it complements the sentiment of the song well, if not its exact meaning. I believe however that the representation of the song here was much less important than the representation of Keane as artists rather than a pop act. Whether it succeeds or not is, of course, debateable.