Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
5/31/19
Ms. Boehm
Dodie Clark wrote “Intertwined” based on how her mental state at the time would affect a
relationship. The song tells the story of someone who is struggling with anxiety and depression
and how that could and does bring down the relationship to an obsessive, toxic, unhealthy, and
overall miserable state. This is shown through all three mediums the song has with different
ways it is perceived, all of which having undertones that could be used for different meanings as
dodie herself said the meaning of the song is open for interpretation. These mediums also have
varying amounts of subtlety to exaggeration and play into vast amounts of juxtaposition in
between.
The instrumentation of the song is very barebones, consisting mainly of baritone ukulele,
bass, lead vocals and backing vocals. Instantly this leads into our first instance of juxtaposition,
the musical space. The song itself is very happy and warm sounding with both acoustic
instruments being very front and center in the mix but the backing and lead vocals are mixed
with a very prominent reverb1 making them sound distant and further away. This makes the song
feel a bit off-kilter and tense due to its oddity. The vocals themselves are sung very in a very
pretty, soft manner in the beginning verse but over time gets sharper and more expressive around
the middle to end part as the lyrics become darker and more tense with heavy back up vocals
1
Reverb, short for reverberation, is something used in recorded music to normally convey different
spaces.
conveying a surge of emotion at the climax of the song as well as hitting higher registers. The
instrumental tone doesn't really change very often except for a section in the chorus which uses a
secondary dominant2 to add a bit of dissonance to the chord progression. During this chorus the
song also uses a bit of dynamic tempo to give a feel of tension and movement. The song also
emphasises half cadences3 to keep the tension never ending until the very end of the song where
we get our first perfect authentic cadence to signal finality of the feeling though the song.
The musical tonality is just an enhancer of the real feeling put into the song - the lyrics.
The first verse begins by using more space as talked about before and painting a picture of things
commonly found in a loving relationship. The first four lines are very focused on the physical
and cute parts of a relationship but unbeknownst to the listener begins the gross, body based
imagery used in the latter half of the song. The second part of the verse solidifies the relationship
fine at first with the lines “you and I” but then begins the problematic imagery and tone of these
phrases with “safe from the world”, implying a danger to be hidden from. This danger is clarified
and personified in the chorus to be the character’s anxieties but cut short to “I’m afraid the things
in my brain” which also continues the unnerving bodily word choice. The latter half of the
chorus uses imagery of togetherness and uses the metaphor “laughing away the fear” to show
that the significant other is helping with the problems. All of the first half of the song
foreshadows the rest of what the song is about with subtle and weird turns. All of these lyrics are
sung with a very simple melody and lullaby esque vocal tone.
The second verse starts with a gut punch of a line that really kicks the song into
overdrive4. The first two lines clearly counteract the nice cutesy lyrics the song began with.
2
Secondary dominants are used to make the sound of a key change by using the dominant chord of a
different scale.
3
A cadence ending on a dominant chord, giving no resolution.
4
Not literally, the song keeps at basically the same volume. What i mean is the lyrics are more impactful.
“Numb” and “fine” instantly conveys to the listener that something's wrong, even more so with
the way she sings the lyrics; numb sung very cold and dead sounding and fine sounding very
sharp and dismissive. Dodie says herself that the line, “fine” can be taken as a response in a
conversation. It is very likely the response would be to the question “How are you feeling?” The
sharpness of her voice continues with the following line conveying more problems happening
within herself as well as the relationship. The line shows the real state of the character, lacking a
smile a majority of the time; meaning she isn’t happy. The next three lines continue with the
bodily imagery, breathe being an intimate image but that is juxtaposed by and explicit and
unnerving image and choice of words (“drink all my thoughts”) right before the very climax of
the song. The climax technically consists of one line but has the absolute most emotion of the
entire song. The word “can’t” in the line is hit with a very high note giving the notion of a
scream and the addition of the backup vocals with the following “oh-s” conveying crying out as
the wavering mental stability fails and leaves the character in a broken feeling. The last verse
lays out the meaning of the song in a very backward and juxtaposed way which is very in tune
with the rest of the song. “Intertwined. Free.” : the character is only free with the attachment to
the partener. With the context of the rest of the lyrics this single phrase unleashes imagery of
obsession and unhealthy dependency upon the listener. With all of this displayed for the listener
the chorus is sung once again but this time when its sung it’s understood that the character was
never okay, the façade was broken and the chorus is much more dark. The last word of the song
The music video for the song is the most explicit and exaggerated of the mediums. The
video takes a lot of the feeling and imagery of the song and puts it into literal images, even going
as far as literally showing some of the images the lyrics show. The video starts as the song does:
happy, carefree, warm. The colors are bright and accented, the skies are blue, and everything is
perfect. The video uses barbie to convey a “perfection” to everything. The video wastes no time
with the shock elements though, as once the lyric “skin” is sung it cuts to an image of the naked
barbie doll couple in bed. Just a simple jump cut to show this isn’t exactly the most subtle of
imagery. The images continue showing the parts the lines mention properly painting the scene
told by the lyrics. All of which looking perfect and pretty to the eye but nonetheless jarring. With
the first unnerving line the outside gets darker, changing the visual mood. The first horrifying
image is revealed with the brain line showing a barbie with its head cut open and its brain out.
The video uses imagery like this as well as horrifying images consisting of: the barbie shaving its
head with its faced visibly scratched, the ken doll without a face, the ken doll with pins covering
its head, and the couple literally being intertwined as their body parts are swapped onto the same
body. However all of this is beaten by the images of “blood floods” and both barbie dolls and
their house being burnt down, both shocking the watcher and solidifying the feeling of a poor
situation meaning the relationship even existing in the state it's in.
With all the literal imagery within the music video it gives a little bit of angry undertones
and can change the meaning of some lines in the song. "You create a rarity of my genuine
smiles” could be taken as the partner making the character frown. The image of the character
gritting their teeth in anger with the like “Breathe”, stopping them from bursting and telling
themself to breathe. Although it isn’t the real meaning behind the song, anger can be taken from
it most potently with the violent imagery and the barbie burning everything down in the end of
the video. Nonetheless all three mediums bring an unnerving feeling to the song, cementing it
Works Cited:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaHrWLCUmfc.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bfBcuXOCx4.