
Regardless of personal belief or religion, the music video for “Shake Me Down” by Cage the Elephant paints a gripping and emotional story of a man that dies in his sleep and experiences vivid images from his past. The man’s death is not revealed until the end of the video after the viewer has witnessed the intense flashbacks and the journey through the man’s childhood fort which leaves the video begging for personal interpretation. By analyzing the vivid flashbacks, experiences with his wife, father, mother and younger version of himself, and the symbolic image of all of his loved ones lighting lanterns and releasing them to heaven, it is apparent that the true meaning of this video is based on this man’s soul’s journey and struggle to transcend from earth to heaven. 

The first signs of this video representing the journey of this man’s soul from Earth to heaven occur as the video begins with a man waking up next to his wife and running into the woods to find a fort that he built and spent his time in as a child. He is returning to a place of comfort as he goes through the terrifying experience of death, and leaving his house is a sign that the man’s soul is leaving his body as it lies lifeless in the bed, and also that his soul is starting its journey towards the afterlife. When he is in the fort, the dying man is flooded with images and memories from his past as he touches and looks at different objects in the fort with each object sparking a different memory and time in his life. Most of the objects that the man comes into contact with are childhood toys or sports equipment like a football and baseball glove which shows that sports were important to his childhood and his bond with his father and brother. As he crawls further in the fort and stumbles across new objects from his past, the flashbacks and memories start to come from later points in the man’s life. The closer he gets to the end of the fort, the closer he gets to the end of his memories which represents that his soul is slowly approaching heaven. This represents that his soul is approaching heaven because people believe that their life flashes before their eyes when they are dying, and they see all of their fondest memories before transcending into the afterlife, and that is exactly what is happening to the man in the music video as he experiences all these vivid memories while exploring the fort.

Although most of the things that trigger memories for the man are physical and lifeless objects, while pushing deeper through his memories and the fort, he sees a young version of his wife which can be interpreted that this younger version of her is who she was when the man first fell in love with her. Falling in love with his wife is one of the most important and life-changing events he has experienced, and this shows that his soul is remembering the deepest parts of the man’s life as it gets closer to heaven because major moments like falling in love are the most important and impactful to the man’s soul, therefore forming the foundation and deepest parts of his soul. He also sees his father an elderly version of himself sitting on a throne with tattered clothing, but a makeshift crown sits upon his head as he smears war paint on his face. This shows that his father was the king and warrior of his household growing up, and a significant section of his life that his soul needs to reflect on during its journey to heaven. The man’s father being depicted as a warrior and a king must mean that his father fought valiantly to provide for the family, and the crown symbolizes that he was a powerful and authoritative figure that ruled the household. Every little boy idolizes his father, so it speaks volumes to how important his father was to the man since he views him as a king and a warrior even when he is far beyond childhood. This image of the father also supports the argument that the man’s soul is transcending from a terrestrial plane into heaven because when the man sees his father in the fort, his soul is remembering the deepest parts of the man’s life that shaped who he became, and the father shaped the man’s life because his son inspired him to be a warrior and king-like figure just as he was. 

Following the encounter with his father, the man continues to crawl through the fort, and it starts to appear as though he is reaching the exit because the atmosphere of the fort changes when suddenly a flash of light shines down across the man’s face, and then he finds himself in the kitchen of his childhood home watching himself play with his mother as a small boy. The flash of light symbolizes the bright light people claim to see when they are pronounced dead and have a spiritual or heavenly experience. The lyrics, “I’ll keep my eyes fixed on the sun” (Cage The Elephant,) are repeated throughout the song, and this supports that the man’s soul is fixed upon heaven as it makes its journey from his body to the afterlife. In most of the flashbacks, they are shown through the perspective of old home videos, but when the man sees himself playing with his mother as a child, it is a very vivid image, and at times he is even shown in the room with them. The fact that a majority of his memories are portrayed through home videos seems to shine light on the significance of his childhood and family to who he is as a person, and this is why most of his experiences in the fort are recollections of his past. It seems as though the farther the man crawls through this journey to the afterlife, the fonder and more vivid his memories become. With the memories becoming more vivid, it shows that the man’s soul is reaching the fondest and most important parts of the man’s life and coming closer to the end of its path to heaven.

As he reaches the exit of the fort, the man is blinded by a brilliant light and he seems to struggle against an unknown force. His soul is struggling to decide whether it wants to commit to entering heaven, or if it wants to hold on to earthly objects like the people the man loves and the memories they shared. After finally reaching the end of his journey through the fort, the man finds himself in an open field with all the people he valued and loved line up in front of him. This represents that his soul is saying its final goodbye to all the people he valued most. His wife emerges from the crowd of people and embraces him, and then everyone in the field lights a floating lantern and releases it towards the heavens. The camera follows the lanterns up to the sky for a while, and then pans back down to the ground to show that there is no one left in the field. The lantern he lights represents his soul, and all the other lanterns represent the parts of his soul that were made up by the experiences he shared with his loved ones. After its short journey, the man’s soul has finally found its way to heaven, and all of his fondest memories and the things he valued in the people he loved followed him there. 

Through analyzing the memories the man has in the fort, the encounters with images of his loved ones, and the beautiful scene in the field with the floating lanterns, it is clear that this video is meant to represent the man’s soul transcending from Earth into heaven. All the clichés of what happens after death are wrapped into this video and beautifully presented in a way that creates a breath taking journey that makes one ponder what truly takes place after life’s extent on this Earth has expired. It is an amazing story, and shows that death is not always terrifying; the soul’s journey towards heaven can be a magnificent and comforting experience.
