Goodwins Music Video Analysis

This song was written and played by the band called Greenday, it was released in 2005 in the album "American Idiot", it got into the top ten in the charts in over nine countries.

The video focuses on a very loving couple. The boyfriend promises never to leave his girlfriend but they later argue when the boyfriend enlists in the United States Army Corp. The boyfriend interprets his actions as a way to show her that he loves her so much that he would put his life on the line to keep her safe; the girlfriend, however, is heartbroken, as he broke his vow to never leave her, and terrified at the thought that he might die in battle. The video then shows the boyfriend in battle in Iraq being ambushed by insurgents. This scene is intercut with scenes of the girlfriend tearfully mourning in a quiet field.

This music video genre is alternative rock, other alternative rock songs include, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nivana, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand and thousands more, click here for the 100 greatest alternative rock songs.

Alternative rocks can be characterised as being different to rock songs, being slightly more punk than rock, it includes heavy guitar and drums, and often music usually influenced by punk, grudge, goth, indie, as well as classic rock, sometimes called Modern Rock.

 It’s not designed specifically to be popular, usually doesn’t include any synthesizers or mixed music, and is usually less “harsh” than what one would classify as Hard Rock.
“When September Ends” can be characterised into this, the song alone, fits into this genre, as it includes heavy use of the guitar  and drums, also it can be seen similar to other alternative songs, like “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand. 

When the band is seen in the video performing, it reveals the genre again. The image below shows the band performing, the background colour adds to the character of the genre, as red is often associated with rock and punk, the dark edges and dimly lit stage also goes with the genre, as its often seen as a dark genre, it also picks out the performers, especially since they are on pedestals.  

But the actual music video, with the boyfriend and girlfriend, also when he is in the army, doesn't seem to demonstrate the genre characteristics, this may be because the heavy music, like the chorus, used with the muted video, makes the audience sympathise and feel the sorrow and pain that both parties must be going through. If you were to look at the video without the music it doesn't seem like it would be associated with a alternative rock music video, this could be due to the fact it is a sad and heart felt video and the fact that this song is quite heavy and loud, wouldn't seem like it would accompany a film like seen in this video. 

The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals are very minor, there aren't many relationships between it, as this song was written about Billie Joe's father (Billie Joe is the lead vocalist, main songwriter, and guitarist), who died of cancer when he was 10, and he writes this song about how hard it was recovering from his fathers death who died on September 10th and he says "Here comes the rain again." This is saying he is crying again, as he's remembering what he has lost and how much his father meant to him. The video however is how the Director Samual Bayer saw it and Billie Joe agreed it would be good to do that, as including his father would be too personal to him, also it gave thousands of people something to relate to during hard times, as this video adds to the American Idiot anti-war sentiment of the U.S. war in Iraq. Due to the sorrow in the song and possible the video that was released with it, changing the mindsets of people when they came to understand the song, it eventually became a tribute song to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and sound bites were added from various news coverages to the song. 

The one connection that can be made to the video and lyrics, which can be seen as quite important is that it`s  a song about losing a person you really loved, there's the connection to the video where the girl loses her boyfriend in war. But in order to understand this connection, you had to understand the reason behind the creation of the song. 

I think this summarises both the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals and the relationship between the music and the video.  

During this music video, there are shots of the band performing seen left, this would mainly be used to sell the music video. The close up shots of Billie Joe (Lead singer) and the arrangement of him on the stage, also note the heavier spot light on him, this reveals to the audience that this song is being lead by him and the song refers to Billie’s life.

There may be a more emphasis on the performers if this was a different song, for example see 21 Guns, but as this song was written about Billie Joe's loss of his father, and his grievances for him, to make it more understandable to the audience Billie may of put it into a video that people could relate to, and in order to do this, Billie had to give up some of the bands "camera time" in order to get this message across. 

Billie Joe’s use of makeup and costume refers to the punk genre, this may give the idea that Green Day try and edge toward the punk genre rather than rock, it also perceives the band as a punk rock band, which some of their songs can be classed as punk rock like Christy Road. The use of make up on Billie Joe and the punk style of fashion in the band, seems to be the only recurring motif in their work. 

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of intertexual references to this music video, again possible because Billie Joe did this song about his dad, and was a song in reaction to his pain that he endured in recovering from his dads death.

Whether this can be seen as a intertexual reference or not, but this song can be seen in rejection to the Iraq war that was occurring at the time of release, as it depicts American forces coming under attack by insurgents, rather than the American Army, for example, freeing an Taliban occupied town. So rather it showing American forces saving everyone’s life and happy faces, it shows American soldiers coming under attack and being injured, portraying the Iraq war as negative and despite years and years of control by the U.S, nothing has changed. (Seen below)