Grizzly Bear – While You Wait for the Others
2009 · Directed by Sean Pecknold
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Best comments
1.“I think the message of this song is essentially, 'Ya blew it! Now scram!' But I'm frequently wrong in my interpretations, so who knows.”
More comments
- 2.“Directed by Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold's brother, Sean!”
- 3.“For some reason, this song calmed my firstborn down more than any other song. Just played it for my second newborn – exact same thing. The only problem is they get all worked up as soon as the song finishes.”
The story
Grizzly Bear don't show up in their own video, and you won't miss them. Director Sean Pecknold (brother of Fleet Foxes singer Robin Pecknold) built it out of stop-motion and claymation: a man in a fencing mask drifts through a world of animated objects, layered with heavy double exposures. Promonews called the look "stop frame object-expressionism." Pecknold animated it with Britta Johnson, Toby Liebowitz drew the illustrations, and the credits list a four-faced mask built by Jack Strain. Somebody had to make that.
Pecknold named his influences as Jan Švankmajer, Hospital Brut, 1960s magazines and Tintin books. You can see all of it in the retro colors. It plays like a children's book that wandered into an art school basement and never came back out.
The song comes from Veckatimest, the Brooklyn band's third album, and went out as a single on Warp at the end of August 2009. The video followed on September 11. Pitchfork later ranked the song number 334 on its top 500 tracks of the 2000s. And the single's B-side is the same song sung by Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers. Yes, really.
