Adam’s Song Analysis

By Will Yeates

Song starts and we fade onto a shot of all 3 band members walking up the street looking unhappy/sheepish.

We see a flash then the picture changes to black and white and the band are frozen, looks like a photograph, capturing a memory.

Zoom out we see lots more photos of the band, at concerts etc. also tickets from those concerts. Zooms all the way out we see the band playing. We look at the band they are all at the centre of the image showing us that they are the main focus of the performance side of the video, we can see the commercial exhibition of punk rock through their style of clothes and instruments.

End of the first verse zooms in on one picture and we see what happened around the time the photo was taken, almost like we are reliving those memories. We see a sense of Sven Carlsson’s electronic shaman in the way that we see the photograph then before our eyes it changes to a fully moving memory.

We see a guy getting left by a girl, looks lonely, sat on his own watching everyone else socialize. This is a song about a boy who committed suicide and the events leading up to it, this could be representing the loneliness felt by the boy in the build up to him committing suicide.

Band playing to an empty concert hall, to symbolize that someone is missing. Looking at the editing it is noticeable that the editing is mainly in time with the main beats of the drum this could have been deliberate to make the images we see more significant to us.

Zoom in on another photo of a boy sitting alone looking at the sea, band member cannot see him, boy looks sad, perhaps the band is trying to show us that people feeling suicidal can 1) not be distinguished from anyone else and 2) feel like they are unnoticeable.

Flashes of images from outtakes of the bands lives, other music videos and significant events in the life of the band and their personal lives, could be linked with the idea that when you are close to death your whole life is said to flash in front of your eyes, a further reference to the fact that the boy, Adam who was a big fan of the band, has died.

Last shot we see of the band performing like the first shot freezes and we see that it is another picture on the wall, then when the camera zooms out we can see that the microphones and drums that the band had been using have been left behind but the band have gone, this further suggests that someone important to the band is missing.

In this music video we see Blink 182 playing the role of the Televised Bard provoking the message of the depression and loneliness people facing suicide deal with and that all too often they deal with it alone, while not literally singing about the boy Adam who did kill himself the band used amplification heavily in this video to convey the sense of depression and loneliness Adam felt “16 just held such better days.” However the bands message in this song holds a deeper more hopeful meaning, of the fact there should always be something to live for “tomorrow holds such better days.” this change of the last chorus shows to us the amplified message the band are trying to portray which is suicide never should never be an option and shows us the damage left behind by those who do.