Exclusive Video Premiere: ‘Fly,’ Meadowlark

If you could only use three words to describe Meadowlark’s latest single “Fly,” they would be melodic, entrancing, and honest. As half of the duo, Kate McGill, coos, “Dig your toes in the sand / Can you feel the beat / of your heart as it slows down / Won’t you fly with me?” the accompanying soft bass line, slow tempo piano, and muted percussion draw the listener into a cocoon, away from the rest of the world. All you can do is listen and contemplate the song’s heartfelt emotional evocations. The video for the track, which we are pleased to premiere below, only deepens its spiritual nature through a man dancing with his brows furrowed deep in thought.

“The song is about the hardships of growing up and this video depicts the crueler side of that, a decay of bad decisions that are often passed off as reckless behavior when we’re younger,” McGill says. “In this case, it’s drug abuse.”

Shot over the course of one day in Bristol with an anamorphic cinema lens, the wide-angled video trails the protagonist (played by Ed Warner) as he slowly becomes more and more estranged from the world. The opening aerial view of an apartment complex gives way to Warner’s introspection and eventual jump from a balcony, interspersed with snippets of McGill and Daniel Broadley, the cinematographer and other half of Meadowlark. Falling feathers and Warner’s contemporary dance only deepen his heart wrenching, suicidal emotional state. At the end of the video, he lies facedown on the ground with his eyes closed, unmoving.

“During that scene several concerned residents poked their heads out of windows, asking if we needed an ambulance,” Broadley remembers. “You can imagine their shock when Ed stood up.”

The Bristol-based duo wrote “Fly” just after the release of their debut EP, Three Six Five, and it’s taken from their sophomore EP, Dual (released in March). “It was the first thing that spilled out of our heads following that first batch of songs,” McGill continues. “[It] set us on the way to the direction we are now as a band.”

FOR MORE ON MEADOWLARK, VISIT THE BAND’S WEBSITE.