Music Video Analysis 4 "Sugar, We're Goin Down" by "Fall Out Boy"

Fourth video is "Fall Out Boy"'s lead single from their third album (From Under the Cork Tree): "Sugar, We're Goin Down":

The video was shot in Margaretville, New York, found in the Catskill Mountains.

The main concept for the song is a scenario of complete jealousy: it depicts how he wants to be a girls boyfriend, but he's not. The line "I'm just a notch in a bed post but you're just a line in song" indicates that he means nothing to her, and he's trying to make it seem that she seems the same to him, but from hints in the song, it doesn't look like it's working too well. It continues to reveal that their relationship is failing miserably in an "earlier round" as they don't even have a relationship in the first place. "I'll be your number one with a bullet, a loaded God complex, cock it and pull it" means that she might as well be killing him as he's hurting from the rejection so much.

The video is a very different take upon the song, as apparently the band let director "Matt Lenski" take charge of it's scenario in the video, as they believed that someone else's impression would differentiate the band between other mainstream pop-punk bands.

And in doing this, it generated the video's story-line following an outcast male character who has the unique disfigurement of antler-horns. For this he is shunned and repelled in all social aspects within his community. He falls in love with a local girl, to which her father sees this and forms a deep grudge for the character. As the two characters relationship develops, it is halted by the angered fathers demand. From this, our character tries to cut off his antlers in-order to be with the girl, yet before doing so is stopped by her, as she loves him for who he truly is. Afterward, the father tries to kill the male character with a bow and arrow, yet in his attempt is run over in the process. When the male character goes to help the father, it turns out that he also has the unique deer disfigurement, in his case having hooves. From the boys kindness he grows to accept their relationship and his own disfigurement, as now all the characters are happier for the outcome.

The song is instead reflected in the fathers jealousy for the boy, in finding happiness, despite his more obvious disfigurement, which is why he tries to break up the couple in envy that he couldn't find happiness as-well.
Throughout the song, the band are occasionally shown in VFW hall performing the song at hand, whilst having no connection to the other story.

This video can be seen as being different from the others so far, as it does not incorporate the band within it's song's own story-line, unlike the others, which I can take note of when developing my own video.