Caroline Polachek – Ocean of Tears
2019 · Directed by Caroline Polachek & Matt Copson
36K Likes
Best comments
1.“Dressed like a pirate, but sounding like a siren luring men to their deaths. I dig it.”
More comments
- 2.“Plank: walked. Timbers: shivered.”
- 3.“I met her on the subway once. She showed me pictures of her cat, named 'Spider' at the time.”
The story
In the spring of 2019 Caroline Polachek rode Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland and came home with a video idea. She'd loved Monet's snow paintings for years, so she smashed the two together: a pirate adventure in pale, frosty, painterly tones. She co-directed it with the artist Matt Copson and shot it at VOCAL in Los Angeles.
She plays a damp, lonely pirate. She scans the horizon through a spyglass. She scrubs the deck. It's a goofy, lovely way to picture what the song is about, which she described as the ache of loving someone far away while doubt rides along the whole time. Critics compared the look to Enya's Orinoco Flow and called it ornate, romantic and surreal. She also joked that she'd love to see someone figure skate to it at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The song came out in July 2019 as the second single from her album Pang, produced with Danny L Harle. It's a big, dramatic ballad with hip-hop bones, and the bass hits near the end land like cannon fire. Fitting, for a pirate.
