Textual Analysis: Kings of Leon Beautiful War (uncompleted)

Beautiful War by the American Rock band, Kings of Leon is from the album Mechanical Bull. The band released the Official Video for 'Beautiful War' on November 22, 2013. The song has been described by the Guardian as "a slow-grower about love and fighting," and a "distant cousin of U2's With or Without You". "Beautiful War" was released as a single exclusively in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2013 and June 16, 2014 respectively.

The ‘Beautiful War’ music video is a story that chronicles two men and a woman who go out for a drink at a country bar and the repercussions of jealousy. There are scenes of dancing, fighting brothers, a long walk of shame for an inmate dressed in a black-and-white cowboy outfit and a mechanical bull. It all adds up to a story, and at the end of the clip, the cliched warden character, claps in approval.

The video opens with a shot of the two characters who are romantically involved with each other. This mid shot of the two characters in the car does not complement with any music and acts as an opening to the video like a prologue in a book.

 A close up shot of the character doing chin ups in a jail room, along with this behaviour we come across an instrumental introduction to the song that begins as soon as the scene changes from the previous scene above. The idea of the man doing some sort of exercise creates awareness to his masculinity and hard set of tone, almost frightening persona. This gives the impression that this man is good in combat and the following events will in fact show this man in combat.

We come across a close up of an image taped on a dusty old looking mirror; the picture involves two men and one woman, one of the men obviously being this man. The man picks up the picture to take a closer look at it. A mirror is a reflection of a person, whether it be their true nature or just a simple reflection. This similar concept can be used for this; the mirror having this picture on it could be a reminder or a reflection of the past. During this scene we come across original aspects of the song such as guitars rifts on top of the on-going tune.

These scenes reflect on the past, they are flashbacks of what had happened before the man is where he is now. In terms of music, we are still on the instrumental opening of this son as it does have a very long introduction. But this gives the video a great opportunity to express the bond these three have. There is also chatter over the music which again can be considered a part of the reflection or vivid flashback.