On July 17th, 2015, Australian psychedelic-rock band Tame Impala had released their third studio album
Currents. Along with a string of music videos of songs off the record, one of them being the first track and the music video in which i'm talking about this time,
Let It Happen.
The video starts out with a man in a suit running into the shot, then cutting to him walking with urgency through an airport, appearing to be late to a flight he needs to catch, while the fast paced drums and synths along with frontman Kevin Parker's singing match up to the protagonist's urgency. Then Kevin singing the hook "
Let it Happen, Let it Happen" which is a phrase that will make sense in the video soon. One thing I noticed in the shot when starts walking through the seating areas, is that an airplane flies behind where his heart is located, symbolism that will also make sense soon. So the video and song continues, now the protagonist slowing down in the seating areas, seeming tired and out of breath, then grasping his chest as he slowly starts falling, then collapses as he's trying to catch is breath. Then the next shot is a POV of him looking around then at the ceiling, then a shot of his face, in pain no doubt. Then the next shots are where it gets more surreal, the protagonist falls through the floor that opens up as he lands on an airplane seat, looking around confused, then finds himself holding a giant wooden alarm clock, then all of a sudden he now finds himself on a bed, holding a smaller realistic version of the clock, the setting it down and shoving his face in water, then taking his head out, failing to catch his breath again, then going to a near table, struggling to get pills, then seeming to have a shock of pain, collapsing again. Back to the POV shot of him looking up at the ceiling, then a flight attendant appears, she looks to be holding him and calling for help, then back to reality, it's really her calling for help in the seating areas. Then there's a close up of him opening his eyes, back on the plane, an attendant hands him a tray with a sandwich and a drink on it, he looks confused due to him still going through this episode. As the song continues the man now looks at the sandwich as it starts singing along to lyrics. After this things get worse, the airplane starts what makes it seem to be about to crash as the wind starts rushing all throughout the plane, and the man is the only one that seems to be panicking, he reaches for his seatbelt and it releases, sending him out into the air in his seat and falling in the sky then he finally takes the belt off separating him from the seat. Then the sky turns dark with a birds eye view of the man with trippy visuals around him. While this is going on, there are cuts to a shot of him getting defibrillated and back to the shot of him to the sky, struggling, and reaching for his heart. Then, he gets defibrillated one time more and then he takes one final breath and one final shot of eyes as his life fleets from them, fading into a shot of the sky and him still falling, but then he starts falling up, then starting to float into the sky, and into a light shining from the clouds, fading into it, which I believe to be symbolism for the heavens.
I always love when music I enjoy has visuals to go along with it, especially when the meanings of both the lyrics and the video coincides. This video is one of them, the cinematography and editing in this music video is in my opinion really cool, and the video itself does make you feel some type of way, and it does evoke the sense of struggle when facing death, as well as letting go and to
Let it Happen.
