POPSCREEN: José González

José González’s soft vocals and melodic guitar were front and center in a 2005 Sony Bravia ad featuring thousands of colorful balls bouncing all over San Francisco. The Swedish singer-songwriter’s newest music video, “Down the Line,” is markedly darker, focusing lyrically as well as visually on human weakness.

The opening scenes transport the viewer to a hazy pastoral setting, engulfed in gray mist. A figure comes riding in: half pig, half man; he’s a repulsive amalgamation, a nightmarish figure.

Nevertheless, we feel pity as he goes about his solitary life. Engulfed for mysterious reasons by worry, boredom, and heartbreak (a past love is hinted at as he traces the word “Ella” on the frosty windows), his pain is palpable.

As the song reaches its climax, González’s repetitive vocals grow increasingly urgent against the guitars’ violent strumming. “Don’t let the darkness eat you up,” he pleads, once, twice, eight times. But the pig-man, deaf to the music, can’t help but succumb to his rage. The final scene shows him angrily setting a vehicle on fire, then staring into the destruction.

Some music videos are made purely to entertain, while others are made to instruct. By using the extended allegorical image of the swine to represent sloth, greed, and wickedness, and mixing with it the features and body of a man, González provocatively suggests that our animal nature is closer to the surface than we think.