




Cage The Elephant, an American band from Kentucky that formed in 2006 released their music video for the song, “Cigarette Daydreams,” on September 4, 2014. The lyrics of the song could be interpreted many different ways, but the music video changes the way the song is perceived by its listeners and clarifies the true meaning that the artist is trying to get across to the audience. The music video infers that the song was written like a memory about a girl whom the artist is in love with (his wife plays the role of this girl in the music video). However, the artist cannot fully be in a relationship with the girl because she has had an abusive past and always runs away from herself and her problems. Repeating throughout the video, there is a scene that shows a close up of a caterpillar running over someone’s finger with a black tattoo that reads, “love,” on it, shot in black and white. By closely analyzing this scene, we can see that contrast, motifs, and symbolism are used to help show the audience the true meaning behind the scenes of the video and the song that goes along with it. This is significant because it changes the way people interpret, hear, and feel about the song. 

The contrast in this scene emphasizes the loss of innocence in the main character’s life. As mentioned earlier, the music video is about the trouble and abuse in a girl’s life which makes it hard for her to accept love between her and the artist. This scene is shot in black and white which one of the ways contrast is used. At the beginning of the video, the scenes of the main character as a child are either shot in color, or a light black and white with very low contrast. In these scenes, she appears to be happy and innocent. She is doing things like laughing, and rolling around in the grass giving the audience a sense of freedom and bashfulness.  All the scenes where she is older, her expressions become sad and harsh. These scenes are shot in a heavy black and white with high contrast portraying the feeling of darkness. Not only are the scenes of her adulthood shot in dark black in white, but they are shot in cloudy, gloomy, rainy looking settings. Therefore, the scenes shot in color, or in a light black and white with low contrast stand for times of happiness and innocence, and the scenes shot in dark black and white stand for times of sadness and the loss of innocence. The contrast between light and dark hints towards the viewer of the video that something must have went wrong between her childhood and adulthood making her unhappy like abuse. In this particular scene, since the word love is shot in dark black and white, it helps the audience understand that there is a feeling of melancholy and unease in this girl’s life, making concept of love a hard thing for her to accept. As a child, a person does not have to think about accepting love, it just comes as a natural instinct. Since girl is unable to accept this concept, this scene also helps the audience understand she has lost some of the innocence she had as a child when she was happy.

 One of the most important things for the understanding of this scene is the use of symbolism. Symbolism is used by the caterpillar running across the girl’s finger. Caterpillars are the larva of a butterfly or moth. In other words, caterpillars are creatures that are in the stages of change and are not fully developed. Knowing this, the audience can assume the caterpillar in the video is symbolic for the girl’s stage in life. As discussed previously, in this scene the audience begins to understand that there is pain in her life that makes it hard for her to accept love. For this reason, she is not able to grow into her full potential self. Whether she has trouble accepting love from just the artist of the song, or from herself  is up for debate. Either way, the caterpillar symbolizes the fact that she is having trouble escaping this dark phase in her life. She is the caterpillar.

Another thing that enhances the audience’s understanding of this scene in the music video, is the use of motifs. This scene flashes before the eyes of the music it video more than just once.  As a matter of fact, this particular scene appears in the video 6 times. 3 of those 6 times, the caterpillar running along the girl’s finger is zoomed in on, emphasizing its importance. Every time the caterpillar is shown, two other motifs are flashed before and after it.   In the end of the music video, the girl drives her car into a ditch full of shallow water. In this point of time, it is still dark and cloudy outside with the scene being shot in black and white. She then gets out of the car and opens the trunk. She looks down into her trunk and she stands over another version of herself with tape over her mouth. The version of herself standing outside the car then pours gasoline all over her other self in the trunk while she is crying. Lastly, she drops a match in the trunk and walks away. The scene then turns from black and white to color and she runs into the arms of the lead singer. This scene is stands for starting over new. She burns the version of her old self leaving all the pain from her unstable home and relationships behind. Right at this point of time in the video, the two motifs that are paired with the motif of the caterpillar flash on the screen, but the caterpillar does not appear. This is one of the most important details to the end of the music video. Since the caterpillar does not appear, it clues the audience in on the fact that the girl has finally grown into her potential self and is able to accept love as she runs into the arms of the lead singer after she ends the old version of herself. She is no longer a caterpillar.This motif is crucial to the main idea and resolution of the music video.

In conclusion, the use of color contrasts, motifs, and symbolism in this scene of the music video makes the storyline more clear and helps the audience connect further with the theme and music. It helps enhance the viewer’s understanding and emotions towards message the artist is trying to establish. The use of these three things make it possible for the audience to be able to turn off the sound to the music video, and understand the storyline without analyzing the lyrics. The more the music video, “Cigarette Daydreams,” by Cage The Elephant is watched, the more the audience’s connection to the video grows stronger.


