ed sheeran

1. Analysis of real music video
Ed Sheeran- the A team
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
UAWcs5H-qgQ

2. The A team
This music video stuck out to me because it’s a very deep and meaningful song, It
narrates the story of a girl addicted to drugs, living on the streets of London,
played by Selina MacDonald. She tried to sell magazines for money, but only
managed to sell one to Ed Sheeran. The girl struggled so much that she
resorted to selling her body to earn money. She may not have loved it, but it
provided her with a general income. Later on, the pain became too much for
her to bear and she just wanted to end it all. She traded in her "dirty" money
for drugs, referencing the lyric "...and in a pipe she flies to the motherland." In
the end, the girl succumbs to her drug abuse and sadly dies as a result.

3. Meaning behind the lyrics
White lips, pale face
Breathing in snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Lights gone, days end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men
And they say
She's in the class A team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since eighteen
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
'Cause we're just under the upper hand
And go mad for a couple grams
And she don't want to go outside, tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the motherland
Or sells love to another man
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly, for angels to fly
Ripped gloves, raincoat
Tried to swim and stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Loose change, bank notes
Weary-eyed, dry throat
Call girl, no phone
And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
'Cause we're just under the upper hand
And go mad for a couple grams
But she don't want to go outside, tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the motherland
Or sells love to another man
Its too cold outside
For angels to fly
An angel will die
Covered in white
Closed eye
And hoping for a better life
This time, we'll fade out tonight
Straight down the line
And they say
She's in the class A team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since eighteen
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
They scream
The worst things in life come free to us
And we're under the upper hand
And go mad for a couple grams
And we don't want to go outside, tonight
And in the pipe fly to the motherland
Or sell love to another man
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly, angels to fly
To fly, fly
For angels to fly, to fly, to fly
Angels to die
And they say
She's in the class A team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since eighteen
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
Smoking cocaine
You often sleep all day after a
long night only to wake up and
repeat the process.
Due to the struggle with
addiction you can't hold a steady
job, so you do what you can to
make the money you need for a
place to stay and to feed your
every growing addiction.
The "A Team" is a
reference to people
who are to far gone in
their addiction to be
saved.
Her face, her body, her life, its all
going downhill. She may want it
to end, and it will, just not the
way she wants.
Her life is falling apart at the
seams, and her whole world is
just crashing down around her.
When she smokes it she feels
like she is on top of the world
and nothing can go wrong. She
goes to the same place every
time, and she is there so much,
it feels like home.

4. Andrew Goodwin
In his book Dancing in the Distraction Factory, Andrew Goodwin points out characteristics and features that can
be found in music videos.
• Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.
(e.g. stage performance in metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band, aspiration in Hip Hop). The
typology that my music video lies under is narrative, as it tells the story of a homeless girl struggling to get
by.
• There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are represented with images.(either
illustrative, amplifying, contradicting). In this case their is indeed a relationship between the general tone
of the music video and the visuals as well as the lyrics matching every scene e.g. Loose change, bank notes
Weary-eyed, dry throat, we see her face and it just look warn out and tired.
• There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and atmosphere of the visual reflects that of
the music. This again is the case with this music video, the tone of I slow as well as the visuals, it just
seems to drag on and on reflecting the young girls frustration of her life and the idea that it just goes on
and on the same things happen everyday, repetitive and boring.
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
• The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may
develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style). With regards to this music video this isn't the
case as we only see Ed once in the music video, this is because instead bringing attention to himself he is
bringing light on the problems displayed in the music video characterising him as a humble person.
• There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages, etc) and
particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. The female body is seen here, but for a whole other
reason, not for pleasure of the audience but for sympathetic reasons, because the audience feel sorry for
her as selling her body is the only way that she can make money.
• There are often intersexual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc).

5. The video
The video in itself has a circular structure, in that it starts with the main
characters face, presumed to be dead, and we find how out how she got
to that state.
The whole music video is in black and white, quite literally meaning that its
black and white what is going on in the characters life, this has more to do
with the lighting use to create high contrast images. Additionally the black
and white concept highlights the way things are portrayed by the media as
being either black and white. Which is a principle this music video
challenges but also conforms to, by using only black and white footage.
You could say it also draws more attention to the negative aspects of the
young women’s life and makes you as an audience feel more sympathetic.
Levi-Strauss described narrative as created by constant conflict of binary
opposites. The A Team has binary opposites such as: Life and Death- We
see the struggle of the young women trying to live and make it through
each day. The film started with death and moved onto life when the young
women woke up on the bench to a new day with the ambient sounds of
vehicles moving in the morning rush hour and then the music video ends
with her death where it bean in the first place.

6. The video
We are then shown a medium close up, from this scene the
audience learn more about the character and Realise she is
homeless as we are shown in this shot her sleeping on a bench
with a blanket wrapped around her, not fully dressed suggesting
she cant afford clothes. In the background of this scene we can
see a large amount of dead trees. During the whole of the video
low key lighting is used maybe again to convey her hard and
colourless life
In the video we see the effect “stop motion” used several
times. Here it is used to show how she is standing still and
all the cars are moving fast, like life is passing her by and no
one cares about her. This clip has been fast forward to show
all the people walking past her without even looking at her
while she sits still. This effect is used to show a lot of time
has passed.
focused close up of her to show her facial expressions of
horror, disgust, and guilt. This is used to make the viewers
feel sympathy for the character, and what conditions this
young girl has been led to live.

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