First Draft 7 Years

The 7 Years is a song created by Lukas Graham in the 2015. The first time I found it, it was on the second place of the billboard. The song is about the story of the singer, his feeling about the life. With the simple but soundly melody, and the Preforming style which is just like telling story, the song made me added it in my list. And it’s not enough for taking the second place of the bill board. The story and the emotion in the lyrics and the video is the thing that made the song achieve that place. The lyric used the rhetorical methods and the statement of the first person. The video used the color and the consistence to visual aid the whole song.

Throughout the whole story, there is only the singer tells the story. In this part, the lyric uses the rhetorical method as logo. To the whole story and the attitude, there is only the person who has experienced and wrote it, which is the singer himself, knows what exactly they are.

The music starts with a sound of the cineprojector, with a falling burning book on the sky. This book, even pages in it, is a main line that throughout the whole MV. Every scene in the MV is just in black and white. The vocal part starts with the singer sitting in the cinema writing on the book shown at the beginning. The only source of light is the one twinkling from the projector behind the singer. This part shows a lonely and the oppressive scene. With the mild music, the scene all seems to be in a peace. But the shot of the silhouette that like the protagonist wearing the cloth and leaving, the sculpture of a man struggling on the mad horse and the flame burning inside a barrel shows the dysphoria feelings. After these scenes, the vocal starts. The protagonist raised his head and watching at the lens. The angle of the length is just the protagonist looking at the audience to tell his story. Even in the next shots, the characters are always looking at the lens. The lyric tells the stories of the life of 7 years old: the mother told the boy to find friends, the ambitions in the childhood. The lyric of being lonely is just reflecting the lonely scene shown at the beginning of the video. The scene shows the things like skating boarding, scrawling and being with friends.

Next the story comes to eleven years old’s life, it is poor without stable. This story has two parts. In the first part, the protagonist gets some bad habits. This scene is shown by a little boy (represent the childhood protagonist) in front of the singer. He is with the dread and looking at the lens scornful which expresses the feeling of ambitions and pride. In the second part, the father shows up in the lyric. He teaches the protagonist to find a wife when feel lonely. The protagonist wanted to be the man like his father and he doesn’t want the glory but he wants the understanding from the person he really loved. In this part, the shots of the protagonist are not as the same level of the eyes. The protagonist doesn’t even looking at the lens. The protagonist just looking around or heads down just like he is talking to himself. At the end of this part of the music video, the protagonist goes to the cemetery of his father with a letter that he wrote by using the paper from the book shown at the beginning of the video. He burns it.

Then the story came to the age of twenty. The protagonist’s story is known by the world. At that time, he has friends and still had the ambitions. He just wants to chase his goal and never afraid of the failure. He wants to create the miracle. In the video, it shows the sense of the protagonist and his team walking to the stage, and hears the hurrah from the whole theatre. In this part, there is the only time shows the sound besides the vocal, background music and the chineprojector. Also, the camera is at the same height of the protagonist and his teammates and zooming forward with them when they are entering the theater. This can make the audiences feel like they are walking in to the theater with the band and the strong sense of the success comes out. And in the scene at the cemetery, the protagonist burns the letter to his father. This shot leads the whole video into a next stage: the burning paper stage. After this shot, all the papers shown in the video are burning. The burning paper indicates the change in the emotion and the life of the protagonist. The third scene in this part of the music video is the protagonist writing lyrics at the top of the building no matter day and nights. He teared the paper from the lyric out of the book (seem to be failure pieces). He crumples the paper in to a ball and drops it in to the sky. The paper burns when it at the land, just like the protagonist’s life welcomes a splendid time as the flaming paper. In the twenty stage of the video, there are lots of different angles used to express the feeling. In this part of the radio, there are many shots of the protagonist that are backlight. So there always shows a bright background behind the black silhouette of the protagonist. This makes the sight wider. The feeling of the oppressive disappears. The shot to the protagonist also has some difference. In this part, the protagonist still rarely looks at the lens. But compare to the shots in the stage of eleven years old, the protagonist doesn’t to himself any more. He starts to raise his head to the forty five degrees and just like talking to the whole world. In the shot of the protagonist standing in the theatre, the camera is circling around him, and shooting from the ground just like looking up at the protagonist.

After that, the story came to the thirty years old life. The protagonist became famous and traveled around the world. He got a happy family and had children. He told stories to his children and sang songs. He started to have the feeling of being the father. And some of his friend may go away. In the video, it shows the happiness of the time with his band. Then his dad comes up, finally left behind lonely. The angle of the camera comes back to the position of face to face. The protagonist looks to the lens again. In the lyric, the “will” is first used. It indicates protagonist’s expect of the future. This part is not mentioned to much because it tends to play the role of transition and tell some background information for the stage of 60 years old.

Finally, the story comes in to the stage of the sixty. The protagonist’s dad passed away at 61. He thinks of the moment that his letter made his father very happy. He also knew the feeling as the father: need the time with children. He felt the regret about spent with his father too much. In the video, the protagonist threw the book in to the sky, turned around and went away. The book blasted behind him. At this part, the music became strong and added some drums to show the erupting emotion of the protagonist, he had known the things. All the parts shown before showed again in the video. In this part, the protagonist doesn’t look at the lens any more. He starts to shout to the world and even throe the clothes away as if he is mad. This shows a very strong expression of the emotion. The scene of the protagonist shouting to the light source from the darkness can also shows the voice from a deep inside part of the heart. The most detail thing that is easily ignored in this part is that the singer lowered his head. This part is shown at the end of the story of the sixty years old and the end of the shouting part. The contract of the strong emotion and the silent looking down expresses two different attitude but these shots both show the regret about the life.

At the end, the lyric returned to the seven years old. The music backs to the mild style just like it at the beginning of the music. The book falling in the sky without burning and protagonist set in the cinema with friends, then the light of the cineprojector become weaker, finally black. The whole video ends. Everything appears in this part are just like the opening of the whole video. This enforces the consistency of the video. And compare with the beginning of the video, the protagonist not sit alone anymore. Instead, he sits with his friends. This shows an improvement after the whole story.

The video mentions the friends, chasing for dream and father once and once again. These three things are three main lines trough out the story. From the beginning the friends makes you not feel lonely, to they work together, finally they will be away. The dream finally achieved after thousands of failures. The regret to the father appears after being a father and understanding the feeling as a father. The whole music video shows the relevant things to the lyrics, and the book makes the video consistent. The black and white back ground makes the contrast, so the main items can be seen clearly. And the different uses of angles show the changes of the emotions.