Weekly Blog Post 4

The Thunder Rolls (video)

Garth Brooks | MySpace Music Videos
When we were assigned this project for our next blog post, I immediately made the decision to select a music video with some level of controversy. It is not very often that we find country music videos to be “controversial” per se, but the video interpretation of Garth Brooks’ single “The Thunder Rolls” is sure to bring about some strong emotions from those viewing it. The context in which Garth Brooks’ song – or story – is expressed is within the strained relationship between a woman and her cheating, abusive husband. This context in itself is sure to impose a certain bias among the viewers regarding the characters in the video without them really having to pay attention to it at all. This context – along with his threatening their daughter – is conducive, to a certain extent, to the woman’s killing her husband at the end of the video. Murder is obviously looked down upon in society, but it suddenly becomes acceptable when the murderer committed the act when defending him- or herself against the victim. To offer a concrete example of this understanding, a West Virginia woman was convicted of killing her husband, but was then acquitted of all charges when the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals realized that she did so in self defense. The realization of the context changed the Justices’ views of the actions of the woman, thus changing her sentencing as well as the ways in which she as a person would be perceived by other people.

Another context apparent in this music video is the incorporation of darkness. The dark mood of the song in general and the literal and physical darkness of the night work together to evoke the feelings of sadness and anger within the viewers. Had the song been played with a more upbeat and bright-sounding guitar tune and the setting of the video been a beautiful and sun-shiny day, the audience typically would not have taken the story behind the song after watching it as seriously as the songwriter intended. Whether we like it or not, different colors and different sounds alter the way we feel, and it is apparent in the incorporation and intensities of each that the creators of Garth Brooks’ “The Thunder Rolls” music video used this phenomenon to their advantage.