Bleachers – I Wanna Get Better
2014 · Directed by Lena Dunham
152K Likes
Best comments
1.“Is nobody going to question the food choice at the beginning? Like, who eats ketchup on toast?”
More comments
- 2.“'Your ketchup toast is ready.' Not only is that a violation of human health... that's a violation of human decency.”
- 3.“I used to listen to this song when I was heavily addicted to heroin. I'm three years clean and sober, and this song gives me chills. I got better.”
The story
Bleachers is Jack Antonoff's band, and this was the very first single. He calls it his mission statement, because it runs straight through the worst stretch of his life: 9/11, his sister's death in 2002, a cousin killed in the Iraq War in 2003 and a terrifying LSD trip that changed him. Then he and co-writer John Hill strapped all of it to a huge, bright pop-rock chorus. That's the trick. Heavy cargo, windows down.
The video was directed by Lena Dunham, his girlfriend at the time. Antonoff plays a therapist who gets dumped by his girlfriend (Kimiko Glenn) and then heads to the office to listen to everyone else's problems. Retta and Mike Doyle are a couple on the rocks. Rizwan Manji is a wound-up patient derailed by Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. Mary Kay Place is sure her husband is cheating, and the therapist doesn't buy it. Arrow De Wilde is a sullen teenager. The patients lip-sync the song, and a few of them grab instruments and become the band.
It went to number one on US alternative radio, the band's first, and went platinum. A therapist who can't fix himself, surrounded by patients who can't either, all singing the same song. Sounds about right.
