Photo credit: Peter Ash Lee
Japanese Breakfast has shared the video for new single ‘Savage Good Boy’ ahead of the release of new album ‘Jubilee’ on 4 June. The video features The Sopranos actor Michael Imperioli and offers an interpretation of the song’s main theme. Michelle Zauner says: ”Savage Good Boy’ came from a headline I read about billionaires buying bunkers. I was interested in examining that specific type of villainy, and I found myself adopting the perspective of a rich man coaxing a young woman to come live with him underground, attempting to rationalize his almost impossible share of greed and miserliness,” says Zauner. “I knew I wanted the music video to be a pretty literal interpretation of that idea. I wanted to juxtapose images of this post-apocalyptic, industrial bunker with the lightness and extravagance of rococo fashion and set design. Aiming for that balance, my cinematographer, Adam Kolodny, and I were really inspired by Chan Wook Park’s The Handmaiden, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and Sally Potter’s Orlando.’
The song opens with Michelle singing ‘I want to be a man, I want to be a savage big boy, I want to take care of you. When everybody’s gone, I want you to be the one that I come home to, the one that’s up waiting’. These toxic, controlling statements are followed by lines about wealth and a five-year plan that shows the man is in it for the long term – ‘billion-dollar bunker’ and all. The dark subject matter is set against bright and breezy Mitski-esque pop sounds (and an Albert Hammond Jr.-esque solo towards the end of its 2 minutes and 30 seconds) – which works as a reflection of how so much can be hidden behind a facade of charm.
