Girl Band

"Paul" (video)

BY Alex HudsonPublished Aug 6, 2015

The Irish men of Girl Band have an album called Holding Hands with Jamie due out on September 25 through Rough Trade, and they have just given the track "Paul" its own video.

The clip is a glimpse into the real life of a man who wears a goofy pig suit on a children's television show. It's a happy-looking suit, but there's a lot more to the man's personal life than his happy costume would imply. Adding to the emotional complexity is the fact that the pig's happy dances are soundtracked by the frightening, seven-minute noise rock song, and the whole thing grows increasingly dark as it goes on.

Director Bob Gallagher explained the video with the following statement:

The idea came about from shooting an audition tape for my friend Kate for a kids TV show job. She'd curse if a take didn't work out, which in the context I thought was hilarious. I've often watched kids TV with my goddaughters, and every time I do I can't help but wonder what it's like for the actors behind the scenes. What the dynamics are like? There's such a sheen on those shows of happiness that I thought it would be interesting to look at the flip side of that with a character who is full of self loathing but has to literally wear a big grin on his face. While I was researching I watched a documentary about Big Bird and there's a line in where he Carol Spinney says that a woman was complimenting his performance but that she couldn't see that inside the costume he was crying. It's quite tragic. I think everyone has experiences of having to put on an outward expression and feeling trapped, so Paul's costume is a visual extension of that. He's inside the suit, at a distance from everybody around him, but wearing this absurd smile that's totally false to what's going on inside.

Watch the clip below.

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