One of a military family’s biggest hopes is that their loved one will return home from service overseas.  In most cases, this does happen, but unfortunately, some families do not find themselves so lucky.  Jason Aldean’s “Tattoos on this Town” music video illustrates to viewers the grief that these unlucky families experience.  By making the red hat in the video a prominent visual motif, Aldean’s video emphasizes to viewers that even though a soldier may be physically gone, they are still present in a multitude of ways.  

The video begins by depicting a story of two high school sweethearts who grew up together in a small town.  The main characters are shown doing everything together from participating in car races with their friends to spending a day by the lake.  In each of these scenes, the red hat is present.  Though viewers may not immediately make a connection between the hat and the memories that the boy and girl share, it becomes quite evident by the end of the video.  The rest of the video follows the love story of the two, beginning with the proposal.  After this, the boy is deployed overseas and leaves behind his pregnant wife.  Unfortunately, the wife one day answers the door to two soldiers who are there to tell her that her husband has passed away.  The video continues through the husband’s funeral, the delivery of their child, and finally, the child, who is wearing the red hat, visiting the very place where his father carved “I love you” in a tree for his mother.  

There are many different groups of people to whom this video could be directed.  For example, it could be directed towards widowed spouses who have lost loved ones overseas.  It could serve to show them that even though they have lost their spouse, they can still find him or her in the child that they shared.  This is evident when the son is pictured wearing his father’s red hat as he visits the carving in the tree, a place sacred to the mother and father.  The video could also be directed towards children who, similar to the child in the video, have lost a parent overseas.  It may show these children that there are still ways that they can get to know their parent who has passed away.  For example, when the boy in the video is pictured wearing the hat, he is going to the same places that his father went, experiencing the same things that his father experienced.  By doing these things and visiting these same places, the child is able to make new memories while knowing that his father did the very same things when he was a child, thus creating an instant connection between the father and the son.

The overall design of this video is not asking viewers to mourn the loss of loved ones with heavy hearts.  The video does not say that mourning is bad, it says that once the initial period of grief is over, the realization that the loved one is not truly gone can set in.  Though this video seems to be tragic and evokes many sad emotions, one of its most important underlying messages is that memories live on forever.  The video at first asks the viewer to feel sorry for the wife and soon-to-be mother, but one of the best things that it does is allow the viewer to later assume that the wife and son’s lives did turn out alright.  The son is about four or five when he appears in the video, and from that, viewers can assume that even years after the death of his father, the son and his mother have found stability in the very same town where his parents grew up.  

Had the video been played without the song to go along with it, the overall message of the video itself would have been quite different.  The song plays a key role in letting viewers know that even though the video is sad, there is still a happy ending for the wife and child who are left behind.  The “tattoos” that are left from the father serve as memories that will last a lifetime for the mother and connections to the past that will help the son learn about his father.  If there was no music accompanying the video, it would simply be a video about high school sweethearts who got married, the husband dying overseas, and the woman grieving with her child about their loss.  For example, from the time when the wife receives the news of her husband’s death until the time when her son is shown for the first time, it is quite easy to assume that she has had a hard life ever since her husband died because all of those scenes are sad.  The song line “we laid a lot of memories down” (Aldean) lightens the overall mood because the viewer is able to see that the memories are what end up helping the wife and child remember their loved one. 

The red hat is one of the things that appears throughout the entire video.  The son wearing it portrays not only the love he has for the father he never met, but also the love that his mother has for his father.  Even though the father has passed away, the mother wants her son to remember his father in any way that he can.  From wearing the red hat around to venturing to the same places that his father went as a child, the son carries on the “tattoos” of his father in many ways.  The line “we let the world know we were here with everything we did” is directly reflected in the scene where the “I love you” is being carved.  The carving is a direct metaphor of the “tattoos” that Aldean sings about.  However, the appearance of the red hat at the end of the video asks the reader to consider if the “tattoos” are more than just physical things.

Jason Aldean’s “Tattoos on this Town” video aims to evoke many different emotions from its viewers.  The love shown between the husband and wife shows happy times while the death of the husband invites the viewer to share the sadness that the wife holds.  The meaning of the title “Tattoos on this Town” becomes evident at the end of the video.  Though the boy passed away, he left many traces of himself in his town.  Among those traces, the red hat, his son, and the “I love you” carving are the most meaningful.  He lives on through his son, who wears the hat with pride.  The hat is a prominent visual motif that not only represents a physical gift passed on, but also every event that happened while the father was wearing it.  The hat carries the “tattoos” of the town that allow for the son and his mother to remember their loved one as a part of their everyday lives. 