We all love energetic, peppy music that either gets us excited or makes us angry. Sometimes, though, we need a moment to sit back and reflect, confronting some of the difficulties of life.
When we listen to music that is more pensive and profound, it’s easier to do this and it makes the time that much more rewarding, whether it be driving alone at night, lying in bed sick, or just sitting and reading. One artist who’s taken the time to write this sort of music is George Holman, the artist behind Peacock Affect.
Peacock Affect Release Single, Video
Peacock Affect just recently released his newest single, “Spaceship,” and an adjoining music video.
The single starts out with a clean, simple electric guitar, setting the tone for the easy-going, semi-minimalistic instrumentation. There’s a legitimate passion driving the track, though, and the tune has a generally whimsical and bittersweet feel to it. The lyrics “in the hopes that a spaceship / Would take me far, far away,” show the song’s theme of alienation (the title “Spaceship” takes that theme to an almost literal level).
The music video does a great job of showing these themes, cutting between shots of desolate cityscapes and a child playing in a pretend spaceship. The narrator wants to escape back in to that innocent childhood imagination, and revisits his old playhouse.
The last shot shows the narrator in a barren, snow-covered field, wearing his childhood costume, and with the wreckage of the pretend spaceship behind him. It’s a poignant image, implying that escape into child-like imagination, though many seek earnestly for it, is simply unattainable. It’s the subject of many William Blake poems, and a topic artists explore constantly.
As Peacock Affect and many others found out, while other themes and musical styles can be rewarding, there is a great comfort in writing about what hurts. Any knowledgeable psychologist will tell you that confronting fears and resentments is the best way to handle them.
An artist will tell you that it’s the only way to handle them.
Like what you heard here? There’s more.
