We’re excited to premiere the new video from The Lovely Few for the song “Mariner” off their most recent album The Geminids.
Over ten years from the early 1960’s to 70’s NASA launched 10 Mariner spacecrafts to do nonlanding flybys of both Mars and Venus and return data on their atmospheres, magnetic fields, and send pictures back to Earth. “Mariner” might be one of The Lovely Fews most disguised songs, and also one of their best. The video starts with chief songwriter and vocalist Mike Mewborne going into surgery, but there’s no way to tell what for. Just as the Mariner spacecrafts sent back information on planets in our solar system, the surgeons find inside Mewborne clues to his past. As he rediscovers mementos from his childhood, the surgeons remove them. From postcards to photographs, and toys to C.S. Lewis’ sci fi book Out of the Silent Planet each surgeon examines the piece of nostalgia upon removal.
Beautifully shot and directed by William Lide Powell, the video hones in on clue after clue, opening with an out of focus X-27 Explorer toy displayed on a shelf with pride, and ending with an intimate moment where Mewborne sits down and removes the wind up robot from its box. Maybe a toy that first piques children’s interest in space exploration, a feeling of new discovery that’s lost over time.
William Lide Powell: Director & Cinematographer
Erick Lee: Gaffer
Amy Jumper: Surgeon
Jordan Wilson: Surgeon
