Nick: I love the little knocking (mimicking instrumental sounds) Aaron: (mimicking instrumental sounds)
Aaron: Oh, damn. Destroying the car.
Nick: Oh!
Umu: Now you're acting to the K-R&B artist Dean and his song 'Dayfly,' released in 2019.
Well, I mean, first it was released in 2018,
but the video wasn't released until 2019.
A dayfly is an insect with an extremely short lifespan.
It is used the song as a metaphor for one-night stands. The lyrics explore the emotions Dean feels about these short-term relationships.
He says it's the only way he feels alive, but also questions whether he's a good person.
Dean said in an interview that the song is about regret and repetitive cycles and observing himself.
This can be seen in the imagery of the music video. The song is composed by him, Rad Museum,
marldn, 2xxx!, and No Identity. Cloud: I think this is my favorite part of doing this, Henry: I've done none of those things, I've done none of those things.
is just listening to you read off composers' names
Elizabeth: Three, two, one.
Owen: I have a feeling we're going get looping themes in the music
that make it feel repetitive.
Aaron: It's really like singsong. Kind of like a lullaby.
I like the instrumentation. The bamm! It's a little more held than I expect, the electric guitar: Bamm, bamm.
Elizabeth: Ooh, his voice is a lot higher and like,
lighter than I thought it would be.
Kevin: Ooh, I like how the beats are different.
Oh, now it's not different.
A lot of dynamic variation as well as rhythmic variation.
Fiona: Still thinkin' about that hollow-sounding drum beat. I'm likin' it.
Daniel: It's like it's very light.
Nick: I love the little knocking. (mimicking instrumentals) Aaron: (mimicking instrumentals)
Aaron: Oh, damn. Destroying the car. Nick: Oh! Yeah, that's like the opposite of how the song sounds.
Aaron: It's like an alienation effect. Nick: It's like a little sad.
Nick: Like very relaxed. Aaron: They're just hard raging right now.
Kevin: Oh, very cool. I like the one-take video. It hits the theme home very well.
Elizaabeth: I feel like their voices
pair together really well, cuz they're both very like,
I keep thinking fairy-like, for some reason. Owen: Very light. Elizabeth: Just very wispy, I think. Owen: Yeah. And smooth, too.
Brianna: Do you hear that bass?
(imitating bass)
Okay, yes, syncopation.
James: This is so good. Brianna: I love the vibes. I love R&B vibes.
Henry: Look how they're distorted there. Cloud: Ooh! Ooh! Henry: Maybe it's a reflection of the music?
Cloud: This is so nice.
If I was listening to this and I didn't know the words, I would not expect them to be burning a car right now, in this moment, with guitar solo.
Daniel: Yo, what's going on? Fiona: ASMR.
Daniel: It's like some freaky ASMR.
Fiona: Are you in the car? Daniel: Oh my God, this is very horror movie-esque. What?!
Henry: Is he lost?
Don't jumpscare me.
Umu: Ahh!
Cloud: you suck
Fiona: It sounds like they're underwater. There's like,
it's like you put an Instagram filter on a song.
Daniel: I think it's because it's like
the sounds are mid-range
now, in terms of register, so it feels like you're submerged, because it's like, I think it sits in the middle for your ear.
Fiona: Yeah,. Daniel: Literally. Fiona: It's covered. It sounds covered.
It's blurry-sounding.
Kevin: All the singing parts are so hard-hitting, and yet there's such light instrumentals.
I guess the instrumentals represent the facade.
Owen: (whistling)
Elizabeth: Oh, and then we get the binary code. I like the whistling! It's a whistling solo! Owen: Yeah!
Daniel: It's suddenly super minor.
Fiona: There's just a lot of vibratory sounds goin' on.
James: Whoa, holy shit!
Brianna: That was cool.
She's still going.
Nick: I love... Aaron: These remind me of very atonal and contemporary type things. Nick: I love reversed vocals
Nick: Especially when it's a little subtle. Aaron: That's what that was!
Nick: So those things, which I don't even know if they were words, you can just tell a little bit
that there's something off about them. Aaron: There's like that
liquidy sound about them, like, I don't know, like you're trying to scream underwater or something,
when you play it, you know?
Nick: I'm kinda in love with his song. It's so relaxing, Aaron: I think it's cool. Nick: But it's not like relaxed....
It's not like a hundred percent positive. It's like,
I don't know, it's gets you thinkin'.
Isaac: When I was listening to it just for the oscillations or the repetitions of life in one-night stands,
it's interesting how you could take an ostinato line, which for Mozart could be a propelling motion of excitement into
unknown territory or whatever composer, but in
Dean's choice, it was to represent the repetitions of life.
Kevin: I really like how the song is like
a sexy type of song. If you hear the style, if you hear all the whistling and the guitars,
it sounds like a sexy type of song that you would play... Isaac: To allure someone. Kevin: To allure someone,
you know, during the more sensual moments into the night you would play it, but then
with the lyrics it becomes something much more sinister. And I like how
the lyrics add that extra layer to it, how there's like this
doubling, like he's still doing these things, but he's
reflecting on them at the same time, and a lot of it is very dark.
And what makes the video,
what makes the experience truly dark is the music video, when in the end he starts glitching, and
there's the realization that maybe maybe this whole thing gets so repetitive. It feels like a video game--
he's just starting over, and over, and over again,
and all the code, and it's just one of those things where like, it's like in the movie The Matrix, a lot of people are affected by
that, because they were like, what if my life is a simulation? And this song, with the lyrics, with the video,
really made me question, especially when the code came out at the end. I'm like, oh, geez!
This is making me question everything!
Owen: How do you...
Elizabeth: Explain? Owen: What do you think about that?
Umu: It's up to your interpretation.
Elizabeth: Oh.
I don't know, I feel like if it's about this cycle that you can't break, I mean, I think
comparing that to like
being stuck in a video game
where when you die
you come back to life, and you're constantly caught in a cycle of trying to accomplish a task and failing,
I don't know, that's an interesting pairing.
Umu: How do you think that's supported in the music?
Elizabeth: I think at the very end, especially, a lot of the effects that were happening in the music.
It was very garbled, a lot of the sounds, and a lot of it was edited together in sort of a
haphazard, like intentionally haphazard way,
so there would be little flashes of whistling, and then there would be little clips of Sulli singing,
and then there would be a little bit of strings, it almost sounded like, but it was very jumbled together,
so I think having that as the ending, where it doesn't really
come back to a chorus or come back to a full sound, it sort of makes you feel like
like what's happening to him in the video, that the sonic world is disintegrating just as the visual world is disintegrating.
James: Oh, my God. Okay. Brianna: Wow.
James: Okay.
Art.
That's all. Brianna: That was really cool. James: Okay,
immediately,
the guitar and the beat, it just draws you in,
which is really important, because I think the star of the whole song are the lyrics.
It's really meant to set a vibe and draw you in so that you're paying attention to what
they're saying, and it just screamed poetry to me. And also the way the video was shot,
really important, like so important. They were beating up the car and pouring gasoline on it. It sort of seemed like
for that one night, you get to act out do whatever you want,
but it's all just kind of a facade. Like when they were starting to get pixelated and things were starting to break apart
is when reality is starting to come back, and you realize it was all just you know,
it was kind of just
for show. Brianna: Yeah,
and I kind of noticed when that started happening, when he started
pixellating or whatever, and like failure at the tonal center, like started leaving,
cuz you're losing grip on reality itself. James: And also that whole interlude where he woke up in the car,
it's kind of like being like jolted back into reality,
maybe? I don't know. I thought it was really, really interesting. The concept, as well.
And then also the video game at the end with the car, it was very much like glitch in the matrix vibes, like...
Brianna: Um-hmm. Because is life just a video game?
Are we in a video game right now? James: Or was the one night stand just a fantasy?
Brianna: Um-hmm. James: Like looking at a screen and, you know, it's just like, it's a really, really interesting concept,
but I think mainly it just addresses the fact that
even though people may have different outlets,
we're all
lonely and we all want to be heard, which I think is probably the, maybe the main point, at least that I got from it.
Kevin: Bolero! Isaac: Bolero. Umu: Oh.
(singing)