Caroline Polachek – Welcome to My Island
2022 · Directed by Caroline Polachek & Matt Copson
82K Likes
Best comments
1.“I don't know why people are having such a hard time with this video. The story is obvious: Caroline meets you in a coffee shop, you drop acid together in a box, then she turns into a manticore, says something that gives you a panic attack and chases you through a construction site trying to explain herself. To make it up to you, she invites you along on her latest museum heist. Whatever was in the jug you stole gives her a severe allergic reaction, so you take her back to your place. Then you turn into a goat, and she throws you into the sea. Very obvious three-act structure, folks. Perfectly straightforward storytelling.”
More comments
- 2.“The construction workers seeing Caroline run through their site at 9 a.m.: 😐”
- 3.“Caroline is always on the move in her videos, but she really hoofed it for this one.”
The story
Caroline Polachek wrote this one with Dan Nigro back in 2018, during the Pang sessions, and it clearly didn't belong there. She said it went through a million versions before it reached maximum brat mode (her words). It ended up as the opening track of Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, and she noticed later that the album title had been hiding inside the song the whole time.
She directed and edited the video with her partner, the artist Matt Copson, and it plays like a fever dream. It opens tight on her face mid-scream. She grabs a coffee from a barista played by Weyes Blood. She fends off a swarm of sperm, gets crammed into a cardboard box and climbs out as some kind of griffin, sprints across a construction site, and spews coffee and blood like lava in front of a volcano. Actual Objects handled the effects.
It dropped in December 2022, two months ahead of the album, and reached number 40 on Billboard's alternative airplay chart. A month later George Daniel and Charli XCX put out a remix, which tells you who was paying attention.
