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Music

Here's Charles Cave from White Lies' Video for "Your Song on the Radio"

What happens when the song that's supposed to soothe ends up wounding you?

Last November we called up Charles Cave, one third of elegantly gloomy London rockers White Lies, to find out what he'd been up to and if his first solo single, "Reason to Drive" meant—sob!—no more White Lies. You can read the definitive answer on that burning question here and listen to said single, but in the meantime we're premiering the video for his next tune: "Your Song on the Radio." It's a break up song for sure, one that hangs suspended in that magical mellow magic era of the 80s—heart on the sleeve forlorn like The Cars classic "Drive." Also a wonderful reminder hof how a song can transport you, and with one melodic lilt remind you of a time or a place or a lover.

Here's what Cave had to say about the video itself: "Using public domain (or just stealing!) archive footage has become the 'go-to' for many artists in my position who, aware of the need to marry their music with visuals, don't have the resources to re-stage Apocalypse Now on The Thames. I was really cautious when selecting images to use, so as to try my best to say away from meaningless Instagram-filter looking debris.

"I wanted to make a patchwork that was fairly slow paced, and actually try to weave some kind of story out of it. In the song there's a lot of talk of travel and making journeys so it made sense to use lots of 'moving' tableaus like the water, the transportation etc. I guess at the heart of the song, is the feeling that the person who's telling the story feels exposed after their relationship has ended, they feel attacked by this nostalgic song being played on the radio all the time as it's as if the world is mocking the break-up. So, to very abstractly get that across, I also used some images of intense natural scenes of water and fire and lightning to try and create a hostile backdrop to it all. BUT THEN AGAIN AT THE END OF THE DAY IT'S JUST SOME NICE PICTURES SET TO A GOOD OLD BIT OF ROCK AND ROLL."

Ha. Well put Mr. Cave, well put.

Get "Your Song on the Radio" here.