Note: On the surface, this appears to be just
a video of Kelly standing on a stage and reacting to some occasional fancy
special effects around her as she sings. On a deeper level, Kelly is actually
doing an interpretive dance on what it’s like to grow up in a small town in
Texas. (She may not realize that’s what it is, so we’ll just have to tell her
about it later.) And here we go…
We start out with
Kelly standing a bit away from us, a lone, solitary figure. This is a
representation of how many small Texas towns have populations that are so tiny
that the figures are almost negative and the Census Bureau doesn’t even bother
stopping by. When there are only 7 people in town, everybody knows your
business and you can’t belch without everybody knowing about it in 3 seconds.
Then we have some
images of water, another sign of things that are different in small towns. When
you don’t have any citizens, you can’t collect any taxes to pay for adequate water-treatment
facilities. You have to wait for it to rain before you can get a glass of
water. It’s very sad. No wonder Kelly starting writing songs about a better
life.
We zoom in on
Kelly, and she’s wearing a dress that is very flattering but also could have
doubled as a costume that a galactic empress might have worn in an old Star Trek episode. (She clearly wouldn’t
have been able to purchase this at the local clothing emporium (which also
doubles as a feed store), so she must have a cousin or something that lives in
a bigger city and secretly sends her couture in the mail.)
Then Kelly starts
singing, and she’s waving her arms with the initial segment of her interpretive
dance, the part of the story that details what it’s like having the same teacher
for more than one year whilst attaining a public education. (There’s only so
much you can do when there are only 3 teachers in the entire school system, and
one of them has to take extended leaves to bring in the crops during harvest
season.)
We get a glimpse
of some rather evocative rings on Kelly’s fingers (more down-low gifts from
that cousin?) and another shot of water, then we see several different angles of
Kelly’s now-blond tresses. (All good Texas women go blond at some point, it’s a
tradition that dates back to the discovery of the first peroxide well in
Beaumont.)
The first round
of the chorus kicks in, and now Kelly is getting very dramatic, waving her
hands and flipping her hair with intensity. This is probably the part about running
from escaped cattle, because this happens all the time in farm-based communities.
You’re innocently practicing your talent routine for the Armadillo Princess
Beauty Pageant, and next thing you know there’s a herd of Angus taking over the
Dairy Queen.
Oh wait, now
there’s some graphic imagery of what might be roses turning into very bitter
hornets. I’m not really sure about that bit of psychology, but when I turn to
Kelly for some intel, she’s busy dancing under some pink storm clouds. Ah, so
now we’re telling the story of the weather in Texas, a thing that boggles the
mind. One minute it’s 112 degrees and the highways are buckling, then the next
minute a cold front has frozen the cows’ tongues to their salt lick. (This is
probably why they sound so angry when they moo.)
Whoops, now the
clouds are gone, and Kelly is really waving her arms and subtly thrusting her
hips. This might be the part where Kelly is discussing sexual relationships in
the Lone Star state. (Bottom line: Everybody claims that they aren’t getting
any but everyone is.) To simulate the climaxes that no one talks about, they
shove a wind machine at Kelly so that her hair flies straight upward in a
symbolic orgasm.
We now have what
looks like water droplets flying through the night sky. Although you might
think that Kelly is referencing water supplies again, she’s actually bravely
bringing up another taboo subject: The fact that alien beings have somehow
gotten past the Texas Rangers and infiltrated the state. I don’t know why
Texans don’t like to talk about it, but it’s obvious that UFO’s can be the only
explanation for the people you meet in certain West Texas towns.
Kelly loses me
for a bit during a montage of her standing in water and getting her dress wet
mixed with more of that wind machine, but then we roll into a segment where
purple and gold fire is taking over the screen. This is clearly a reference to
the significance of high-school football in a state where scoring touchdowns
trumps all. It’s more important than home mortgages, happy marriages, and
having the biggest barbecue grill. (Although that last bit runs a close
second.)
We get a few
shots of Kelly wearing what might be a jacket made out of Yeti fur, and I’m
just going to have to let that one go. I have no idea.
Okay, Kelly has
just changed her arm choreography, which means we’re on another chapter of her
interpretive dance, and I believe this one concerns the political divide in the
state. Despite the other 49 states gazing upon Texas with either horror or
adulation (depending on the blueness or redness of the client base in those
states), Texas is not a locked-in Fox News outpost. Change is on the horizon,
and I believe Bob Dylan wrote a song about it, he just didn’t know it at the
time.
Wait, where was
I? Oh yeah, this is about Kelly dancing the story of her upbringing, not mine. We check back in with her, and at the
moment she’s doing some more things with the Yeti jacket and trying to keep the
wind-machine hair out of her face so she can sing the song. Then we suddenly
roll into more scenes of the odd water droplets in the night sky and Kelly
wearing an outfit that creates a star image above her breasts. Kelly really
enjoys those droplets, and she even lets one fly out of her mouth.
Hold up. Is Kelly
actually from a distant planet? Holy cow
that would put a spin on things. I’m going to ignore this development for now,
because it would totally change the meaning of all of her songs and I don’t
think the world is ready for that. (Although I believe it’s a fair assessment
to consider that Simon Cowell is not from Earth, instead being born in an
alternate universe where harsh criticism of fledgling singers is considered
admirable, and that maybe Kelly winning the first American Idol was an interplanetary conspiracy. OMG!)
Perhaps I should
put down this wine. I might be hearing voices that are not real.
Back to Kelly,
who is still jacking around with the water bubbles and wearing the inexplicable
Yeti jacket, and then we have a scene where pretty fire clouds take over the
top of the screen. This is probably symbolic of how this state can dry out to
the point where simply blinking your eyelid can create enough friction to burn
down 74 counties. This place gets parched.
Of course, this doesn’t stop the idiots in their mammoth but pointless Chevy
trucks from hurling a cigarette out the window.
Luckily, Kelly’s
hair does not burst into flames, despite the angry clouds, which allows her to
move into the final segment of her interpretive dance. Or maybe not. The
billowing fire now moves to the ground, jeopardizing the long-ass skirt of
Kelly’s sexy but still-discreet dress. She immediately launches into some
defensive karate moves that she probably learned at the Dairy Queen after
random steers thundered into the place looking for something sweet (yes, that
image can mean a lot of things).
After several
tense moments where it appears that her personal
freedoms and choices might be at risk of being burned away (sounds like the
2012 presidential election when some people actually thought Romney might win),
Kelly triumphs over the rude burning clouds, her color-treated hair intact and
lovely.
We end the video
with another water image, and then Kelly and her currently-golden locks glare
directly at the camera and let us know that there is simply no stopping the
girl from Burleson, Texas. (Take that,
Clive Davis.) And then we fade to black.
Off screen, a
galactic spaceship, headed by the real Captain Kirk and not the endless
wannabees that followed, arrives to whisk Kelly away, with a brief stop in
London to snag Simon…
Click Here to Watch
this Video on YouTube.
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