“This song is really just about that moment of clarity when you realize that a relationship has run its course and the feeling of alleviation at having finally arrived at some ending place in your own mind.”
-samantha crain
Samantha Crain sang deeply into that hard-won relief during a rough break-up. The vignette depicted in the listener’s mind was that of a woman whose melancholic lightness filtered through her body from regained independence.
For the actual music video, Crain, who also donned the director’s cap, contended with covid restrictions by relying on her indie-artist ingenuity.
“More recently, when I’ve been recording, I try to think of a scene or setting (like a movie) that the song is beginning to sit naturally into…this video is a recreation of the scene I was playing out in my mind while we were finishing up the recording of the song. Of course, the scene in my mind was in South London and this video was shot in a parking lot near my house in Oklahoma.”
-samantha crain
Though her ideal location, sparked in part perhaps from playing across the pond and being signed to London-based label Real Kind Records, fell through, the emotional sentiment struck clearly.
Other than a shot of ‘Malachi’s’ hand, the viewer never glimpsed this boyfriend driving the truck. From the get-go of him surprising her when he pulled up, her face fatigued from him having worn her down for far longer. A soul-sucking vampire incapable of recognizing how pesky he had become, especially given her impending parting blow.
The critically-acclaimed musician leaned into the open window to express how things were going nowhere and she had to leave him. Unwilling to give up, he forced her to hop into the truck where she could get up close and personal. In no uncertain terms, she dispossessed him of any hope for a future ‘we’.
Like a stalker, he compelled her to talk through their deceased relationship further. Back outside and gazing through the windshield of his braked truck, she conveyed that it would be better for both of them. As a subtle indication that this revelation had hit a vulnerable spot, the wiper fluid spurted up to mimic his tears.
Later, when digging her heels in for the last time, his truck repeatedly circled the idle songwriter. This dizzying imagery, captured by cinematographer and editor Rahul Chakraborty, illustrated how the stagnancy of their romance had left her with vertiginous frustration.
For listeners who’ve experienced catharsis due to breaking free from a toxic significant other, watch Crain’s impassioned pleading in, “Malachi, Goodbye”. The most recently released single from her April 9th EP I Guess We Live Here Now.
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