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Music Video Analysis - Locked out of Heaven - Bruno Mars

 


Analysis of Song Meaning

In Bruno Mars' hit song "Locked Out Of Heaven" he professes his love of sex. He starts the song by admitting he has not had much confidence in love and miracles which has prevented him from putting his heart out this can be seen through the lyrics "Never had much faith in love and miracles, never wanna put my heart on the line". The next lyric "Swimming in your water's something spiritual, I'm born again every time you spend the night" suggests that the sexual relations he is having now have change that, the idea of being "born" signify a spiritual rebirth however this is contradicted when paired with the idea of having sex as this isn't a very religious friendly idea. The pre chorus is the repetition of the lyric "'Cause your sex takes me to paradise", this suggests that the relationship is purely for pleasure, however it some how brings him some kind of repentance which can be seen through the lyrics "You bring me to my knees, you make me testify, you can make a sinner change his ways" (Matthew, 2012). Throughout the song he uses juxtapositions like this pairing the idea of religion/spirituality with sexual intercourse, this could've been done in the song to reflect how many people have rejected God and religion and filled the void with other stuff in this case, sex. In the chorus the use of the simile "'Cause you make me feel like I've been locked out of Heaven for too long", this suggests making love to this woman is like being in heaven, before being with her it was as though he was on the outside looking in, this has more links to a spiritual awakening which again have been juxtaposed with the 'sinful' idea of having sex. Within the second verse he uses a play on words in the lyrics "Open up your gates cause I can't wait to see the light" to insinuate that the woman should open her legs (gates) so they can continue having intercourse. In conclusion, the song uses links to religion/spirituality to express how Mars feels about having sex to a woman. 

Analysis of Music Video

The video uses a VHS like editing technique to shoot the footage which is recorded in a performance style with hints of narrative which show the artist having fun with friends or shooting male gaze style footage of women dancing seductively. The shots in the video match the pace of the song, when Mars sings the pre-chorus long, drawn out shots have been used in which the audience is dancing slower and calmer to match the slowed pace whereas when the chorus hits the cuts are faster, the audience is more lively and the use of editing techniques is used to make the footage sort of pulsate with the beat. In some shots as the artist stops singing the verse to shoot "ooh" the footage freezeframes for a second to match the pace of song. The song meets conventions for a pop song, it contains a predictable mis-en-scene which includes people dancing in the crowd and it also includes a lot of props such as alcohol and cigarettes as these are conventional for up-beat pop songs. Another convention of performance videos is to use close ups of the artist singing into a prop mic which are the cross cut with footage of people enjoying the performance, conventionally the footage is cross cut with footage of young pretty females which has been done here. The artist uses some creative editing techniques such as playing a video inside a video, each time the song hits a beat a new video frame appears within the video and as the song goes on the video in the centre expands to the size of the video below it to the beat. In some shots of the women dancing seductively to please the scopophilic gaze of the audience a black background is used to record them in order to make the women stand out making them look more appealing to the audience.



References 

Mars, B., Directed by Duddy, C., Mars, B.,  2012, Locked Out Of Heaven (Online)
Available at - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-fA-gBCkj0
Matthew, 2012. Locked Out Of Heaven (Bruno Mars) (Online)
Available at - https://eternitainment.com/2012/10/30/locked-out-of-heaven-bruno-mars/#more-1142


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