Music Video Monday: "Jellybones"

Song: Jellybones

Artist: The Unicorns

Album: Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?

Year: 2003

There's always been something infinitely entertaining about anything Nick Thorburn touches. From the intrepid Unicorns of the early 00s, to Islands, Human Highway and Th' Corn Gangg today, his projects never lack personality and a humorous charm. With that touch of humor though, there's the inevitable underlying intelligence. As goofy as The Unicorns sounded in their day, you knew that below all of the fuzzy synths and other strange instrumentation was a true vision of death, as the band saw it. Nearly everything Thorburn's been involved in has involved the theme of death- whether it be fearing it, accepting it, dealing with it or being obsessed with it- the man has nearly mastered the undercurrent of the afterlife. Though this song fails to deal with it a ton, the video nevertheless gets involved with death on a personal level.

Of all of the tracks on Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone, "Jellybones" is definitely one of the most poppy and fun. With that and the band's personality in mind, it's no surprise when they begin to play the track live on top of tables in a pizza parlor. The band, dressed in pink, proceeds to play, eventually donning glow-in-the-dark masks alluding to ancient native Central Americans, before the (un)expected, hilarious passing of one of the members mid-show. They lay their comrade to rest in traditional ancient burial, black x's on his eyes, then proceed to go out and drink away their sorrow(?) A seemingly fitting end for a song by this band... I suppose. Give it a look below.