

“Sail” by the band AWOLNATION is a brief music video where visually and lyrically, the main character, the lead singer of the band, Aaron Bruno, is retreating and “sailing” away from some burden that he has had in his life: his ADD. The flashing white light outside of the house, which seems to be coming from some type of UFO, occurs repeatedly throughout the video. There are three different instances where the flashing light/UFO symbolizes, and helps to develop the idea, that the problems in the main character’s life (like his ADD) are completely overwhelming him, so much so that he is literally and figuratively running away from them, fearing that he will not be able to face them without failing.

The first significant instance that the motif of the bright light/UFO is used is between times 1:58 and 2:05. There is a green line that seems to be coming from the object producing the white light, scanning the house, looking for the protagonist. The protagonist frantically hides in a bathtub filled with water to somehow escape from being detected. During this snippet of the video, the lyrics are “Maybe I’m a different breed / Maybe I’m not listening / So blame it on my ADD baby.” The protagonist is analyzing himself and why he is having so many issues. Maybe he is just made different from everyone else, maybe he just isn’t trying to improve himself; common thoughts that someone with a mental condition may have. Because of this, he is willing to almost “drown” himself in order to escape from his life problems, and maybe he is even trying to escape from himself. He is constantly wanting to avoid what he fears at all costs, no matter what the consequences, because that is how heavy his problems are on his shoulders.

Another important usage of the motif occurs at time 2:16, where the protagonist is being dragged out of the house by some force, again, with the bright light flashing on his face. He tightly closes his eyes, not wanting to see what is happening to him in that moment. His face shows a great amount of hopelessness, desperation, and especially fear. The force of his burdens are literally “dragging him down,” and he is becoming increasingly overwhelmed and his problems are, in a way, overpowering him. He wants to avoid his consequences, so much so that he even has thoughts about taking his own life. The protagonist regrets what has happened in his life and how it has affected him. He starts to realize that he can't escape his issues, that at some point, he has to deal with these consequences. 

The last instance of the motif simply ties together the overall meaning of the music video. It occurs between times 3:15 and 3:35, where the protagonist is sitting at the piano, which is slowly but surely moving towards the front door of the house, where the bright light is the most prominent. At this point, as shown by his face and his body language, the character is accepting his fate of being “abducted” by his issues; he is not showing any type of resistance, even though he greatly fears what is going to happen to him. The last few lines of text during this scene were “Sail with me into the dark/ Sail!”, repeated several times during the whole snippet of the video. This statement visually contradicts the scene because the character is “sailing” into the light. The light, to the character, represents his demons, his problems that he is constantly trying to run away from, which is where his “darkness” lies. 

The flashing light/UFO motif which occurs throughout the video represents the main character’s life struggles, and they are constantly trying to control him and reel him in, while he is heavily trying fight them, trying to avoid the inevitable. “Sail” by AWOLNATION is a depiction of how running away from one’s issues in life will not solve anything. The only way to get rid of those burdens is to face them head on, and accepting that they have to be faced. Each instance of the motif show a different step in the process of the main character dealing with his issues. The first instance is the initial running away, the initial fear. The second moment is when the problems are getting extremely hard to deal with, dragging/weighing the main character down. The third instance is the character finally getting better, finally facing, overpowering, and conquering his issues that were causing him so much trauma.

