The Temper Trap - “Sweet Disposition”

We start out with someone throwing a drum over the side of a building, so we might be dealing with some anger management issues. Cue some guy staring at something that just got broken, then we have lead singer Dougy breaking into the song while he and his band are gathered in a warehouse and somebody else throws a drumstick through the air in slow-motion. No idea.

Then we have a whole cavalcade of drumsticks flying. (Or maybe they’re chopsticks, which would totally change the meaning of the video, yes?) Quick shot of some person hiding behind a drum cymbal, possibly very shy or maybe just avoiding the stick projectiles, followed by shots of blank, white walls. I think I may have missed a memo somewhere.

We move on to an extended sequence where one of the band members is putting his guitar into a giant homemade slingshot, because this happens all the time when bands are unsupervised in warehouses, and we spend the next several minutes checking in on this naughty guitar as it slowly hurtles toward whatever. (Maybe the actual script for this video?)

Meanwhile, Dougy keeps singing and the rest of the band keeps playing, as drumsticks and guitars are airborne around them. Oh wait, we’ve also got some drums that look like stools joining the air-show, so this is turning into a really dangerous warehouse. Especially when the guitar finally slams into a mirror, sending shards of glass in all directions. Why do these people hate their instruments so much?

I guess they’re really proud of the guitar-mirror thing, because we get to see it happen about 20 more times so we can confirm that, yep, they done smashed a mirror with a guitar. Then we get some more flying chopsticks and people hiding behind cymbals (or symbols, which would totally change the meaning of the video, yes?).

For our next celebration of musical destruction, we have Dougy setting one of those stool drums on fire, again with the slo-mo. We watch the match slowly drop and the flames engulf the instrument, as Dougy stares with slightly-disturbing intensity and people presumably run get a bag of marshmallows. (Luckily, they won’t have to look for sticks, there’s plenty of those already lying around on the floor.)

Cut to that person hiding behind the cymbal, which turns out to be a good defensive move on his part as he gets pelted with some of those drumsticks. (Although that flimsy cymbal isn’t going to help much if the one dude reloads the guitar-slingshot, hope Cymbal Guy has a Plan B.) I guess somebody really doesn’t care for Cymbal Guy, because they throw a lot of sticks at him. Maybe it’s his odd ponytail, which I really don’t care for, either.

Then we’re back with that drum somebody threw off the side of the building when we first started. Turns out that drum is still attached to the rest of the drum set, and we watch as drums get yanked out from under the drummer, who continues to play despite his equipment disappearing. This is probably a political statement in some way. Or people were just bored.

We roll toward the end of the song with re-visits to all the mystifying vandalism and apparent emotional dissatisfaction. None of this stops Dougy from wailing away, of course, proving that you can overcome any odds, including self-destructive behavior and unexplained music videos. Final shot is of the rest of the drum set vanishing over the side of the building.

Hope the marshmallows were good…


Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.