Bombadil Embrace Bittersweet Memories on ‘Born at 5:00’ – Premiere
Bombadil have a knack for intertwining the silly with the emotional. Filmmaker Chris Bowen takes a similar approach on the band’s new video for “Born at 5:00,” a stripped-down singalong from their recently released fourth album, Metrics of Affection.
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On the track, frontman Daniel Michalak tells a stirring tale of a man’s entire life, through his career and marriage and even death. Bowen sets that story to an eye-popping backdrop: a woman flips through scrapbooks of old family photos (featuring real images of Michalak’s late grandfather) as the bandmembers appear in the backgrounds.
“It was fun to see my grandfather at different ages,” Michalak tells Rolling Stone. “When I was young, I had looked at him as my elderly grandfather, but to see his life played out chonologically in photos, to see him as the same age as I am now, provided a connection with him I’d never had before. This has been very special.”
Bowen was told by Michalak to “pick a song” to direct. “‘Born at 5:00’ just jumped out at me,” he says. “The song was a narrative that ran the course of a life, from birth to death. The lyrics were brief snapshots of that life, and there was so much rich emotion throughout.”
Bombadil’s tour dates and other news are available at the band’s official website.