Modest Mouse – Float On
2004 · Directed by Christopher Mills
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Best comments
1.“Fun fact: this almost became the theme song for The Office!”
More comments
- 2.“I love how the inspiration for this song was just that the lead singer was tired of writing depressing songs and wanted to write a happy one for a change of pace.”
- 3.“A few years back, I lost where I was staying, the girl I was seeing and my job in the span of two days. Got a pack on Craigslist and set off to hitchhike to Colorado. A friend dropped me off on the side of the road out in the boonies, and after the first bend this song came on my headphones. I cried my eyes out, feeling the weight of those years slide off me – and all the potential of a new adventure in front of me.”
The story
Isaac Brock was sick of bad news. Between the Bush years and scientists warning that everything was coming apart, he told The A.V. Club, he just wanted to feel good for a day. So Modest Mouse made something far more upbeat than anything they'd done before, and it led off Good News for People Who Love Bad News. Decades later Brock admitted bandmate Dann Gallucci wrote the strummed part, and said he still feels guilty taking credit for it.
Christopher Mills wrote, directed and animated the video. It all plays out inside a little box carried around by a drifter, and everything in there pops up flat like a two-dimensional pop-up book. The band wears turn-of-the-century clothes, sinks underwater in flotsam suits, and somewhere in there a flock of sheep heads off to slaughter, which is a bold choice for a feel-good song. Mills is known for mashing live action together with 2D and 3D animation.
The song hit number one on Billboard's Modern Rock chart, got a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song (it lost to U2's Vertigo), and has gone five times platinum in the US. Rolling Stone ranked it 39th among the best songs of the 2000s. Turns out a lot of people needed cheering up.
