Lyla is an indie rock song by the popular Britpop band Oasis, the song does not have a clear meaning, Noel Gallagher (the writer and performer of the song) has stated that the song does not have an official meaning and prefers that the song is “open-minded” as though the audience can have their own interpretation. Many indie rock songs by this band specifically do not have a clear meaning, other songs such as Don’t Look Back in Anger, I Wanna Live in A Dream In My Record Machine and Whatever have all also been referenced by Noel Gallagher as having no real meaning. However the music video of Lyla would indicate a clear narrative to the song although aspects could be interpreted to mean other things. The video begins with a CGI building in black and white ‘kitchen sink’ gritty imagery, the camera pans upwards very quickly as the music begins whilst zooming in towards the building, then shot of the building begins to pan downwards extremely fast almost mimicking a film print as though the video is shouting at towards the audience as though it understands itself as a music video and isn’t trying to be anything different. Eventually a window appears and two people can be seen inside a living room, in the room there is a book shelf where none of the books are level stylising a slightly awkward feel as though something isn’t right about the room. The original window shot revealing the two people is a long shot/POV as it clearly highlights the room and the character’s full body but there is also a clear tree branch above the top of the window as though an actual person is peering in towards the window (subsequently mimicking the audience’s perception). The camera then zooms in and becomes focused on the woman; since the music is still playing at this point it means there is no dialogue whatsoever which means the interactions between character’s can only be shown by body language and general mise-en-scene. From this the man character can be seen waving his hands in an aggressive, angry manner at the woman character, the man character is black and is wearing a tracksuit jacket, this would indicate that the area is most likely working class, this would be added upon by the fact that the building appears to look very much like council flats indicating a working class area. The clothing of the man although typically working class is still very clean with a seemingly gold necklace, this would imply that he has some sort of rich status in the household as the girl character’s clothes is very dirty and her hair is very messy and unhygienic, this would also show a representation of women in this video as clearly the man character has an authority over the woman despite the fact that their age appears similar. As soon as the camera starts zooming in on the girl character it creates the impression that the spotlight is on her and helps create sympathy as the audience have not seen her do anything wrong and yet she is being aggressively shouted at by the man character, there can be seen a few quickly edited shots of the girl characters point of view, this includes another man on the couch which then pans down to an aggressive dog barking directly at her, this would indicate that she is either in severe trouble or the woman is in a way being held captive against her will. All of the video remains black and white still adding to the very gritty, ‘kitchen sink’ appeal. The woman character then glances at the TV screen where Liam Gallagher (Oasis lead singer) can be seen singing the first lines of the song, the dog continues to bark and the girl character is seemingly becoming more and more worried and concerned, she starts touching her hair and grabbing it as though frustrated, frequent back-to-back cut close up shots of the girl character and the dog highlight both of them becoming more reckless, the girl is becoming more worried whilst the dog is getting more aggressive, the man character then pushes the girl character out of the way like he is deeply angry with her, she seems to be almost begging for him to not be angry despite her clear emotion of sadness. As the man character goes into the bathroom there is a shot of the other man in the room (the owner of the dog) sitting down with a knife in his hand, due to the stereotype of working class areas, plus the fact that the main man character went into the bathroom to take out something supplied in the cupboards would imply that there is some sort of relation to drugs, as the main man walks out of the bathroom the camera is focused on the girl characters face and begins to shake replicating her frustrating and unstable emotions, more shots of the dog indicate the dog also becoming even more reckless and aggressive. The girl character then appears to have an emotional breakdown and screams at the other man character with the knife sitting on the couch, waving her arms frantically and starts to kick him out of the flat whilst crying, the shots and editing her is very interesting as it cuts quickly from POV shots which are very blurry and hard to make out (similar to the girl’s conflicting and confusing emotions) and clear shots of her aggressively forcing the men out of the flat. This overall highlights a rebellious attitude, a very popular theme of rock videos, however usually rebellion is celebrated in these types of videos as though they’re proud of what they’re doing with supportive music towards their aim, whilst here this isn’t shown very clearly, due to her unstable and frantic emotions plus the fact that music is fairly uplifting if listened to on its own then it makes the girl’s rebellion not something to be proud of nor disgraced of which is very peculiar for rock music in general. The camera shakes more and more as more close ups of the girl’s face is shown indicating her further anxiety. She forces the men out of the flat and forcibly shuts the door behind them, she then walks into the bathroom and takes narcotics, they’re are shown to be illegal necessarily and there is no shot of her actually taking them, however the fact that she takes the drugs directly from the bathroom cabinet and suddenly massive effects begin to occur would imply illegal or least very hard drug use. The camera stays focused on a close up of the girl and begins to pan around her whole head as though she is being transported into a new world, then there is a big explosion and a door producing a mass array of different colour comes apart and people are shown to encourage her to walk into it (as though saying “walk into the light”, typical religious iconography), once she walks into the door then suddenly the whole video is in colour, her hair has changed to a much more stylistic look and she has a very fashionable white dress with a princess tiara, this is just when the music begins to increase its tempo increasing the party atmosphere. From then on the whole band of Oasis can be seen cross cutting between the band playing and the girl walking around the party with numerous random people all dancing to the music. As far as I can tell this is a fairly unique concept, not fully unique but it is fairly rare to have the narrative of a video link directly with the live performance, usually the performance could be considered like a form of escapism from the narrative and although is filmed in a similar style there is often little correlation of interaction between the two. When the girl first enters the music continues to play but the other people at the party stop as though the spotlight is on her, however after a few seconds they continue to dance as though she has been accepted by them, the fact that the girl has clearly taken drugs to influence this shows this is probably the environment she wants to be in I.E she wants to be excepted by people and wants to have fun and party to the music and be beautiful indicating the escapism effects of drugs. The people at the party all seem to have strange, large masks on and dark clothing; this is probably done to keep the attention focused on her as there doesn’t appear to be any major conflict between the girl and the other party goers. Frequently there are side angled close up shots of Liam Gallagher indicating typical iconography of rock music. The girl throughout the party begins waving her arms and stretching as though she is now finally free and has released all her worries and stress. POV shots of the girl indicate other members of the party smiling at her as she glances over them and dances thus involving a pan effect from the camera as well as frequent shaking. As the song continues the editing becomes faster and it becomes difficult to conjure up what is happening in each shot, whilst the performance by Oasis stays essentially the same using basically the same shots and being very clear, the attention on the girl changes, suddenly more POV shots show that the faces once smiling at her have become very grim and snarky, very quick shots also show a large, obese man as though he is about to vomit creating a very distasteful and horrific feel to the video. This is done to represent the downwards spiral of drugs, as the girl was feeling happy and free originally she is now feeling worried and has stopped dancing and started twisting and turning her body to watch out for the people around her, suddenly members of the party begin to grab her as the song goes into its solo guitar performance creating a sense of urgency and intensity, as she tries to wrestle them off the images become far more darker and sinister as though the members have become like monsters, the lighting does not differ for the live performers creating an effect that they’re in another world whilst the girl is starting to panic and get really scared of the dark, stark lighting and scary images of men grabbing her and pulling evil faces directly at her. Superimposed images are placed during the end whilst the girl is running away, the images seem to highlight very ghostly images and even a shot of the girl running away makes her face appear as though it’s a ghost again adding to the downward spiral of drug use and how the girl is coming back to reality after taking the drugs. Once the girl escapes the party room she arrives back in the original black and white flat and begins to stare at the window where the words “Don’t Believe The Truth” is shown in bright yellow and black letters on the building opposite, the words are taken directly from the album which the song is from therefore integrating a link between the album itself and the song as a whole. Overall the song presents the notion of drug use in a very bad and sinister light and highlights how although it may be escapism for a brief moment it still has a notably horrific consequence and can lead to very upsetting, sad and stressful imagery. I personally think that the words “Don’t Believe The Truth” have any real link towards the song, although it could be interpreted to mean that the girl’s real life could be in either world and she just doesn’t know it, I feel that because of the style of the band and the fact that they personally prefer to leave question marks and cliff hangers towards these concepts then it’s just a phrase to keep the audience guessing as well as use as a market ploy to increase the sales of the album now that the audience know the name of it.
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