Bachelor’s “Stay in The Car” music video takes us on a journey to nowhere.
Indie singer Jay Som and Palehound’s Ellen Kempner have joined forces to collaborate on an alternative band called “Bachelor.” Their album Doomin’ Sun is set to release on May 28th. However, the band has already released two songs off their premier album, including a music video for “Stay in the Car.”
The video opens on a shot of figurines and collectible toys scattered along the dashboard of a car. A yellow CRT television rests below next to a lone hand doodling on a 90s etch-a-sketch. Indie singer Jay Som and Palehound’s Ellen Kempner appear first in an empty warehouse, strumming their guitars fervently, wearing matching outfits with yellow sunglasses (even indoors). Cut to Kempner and Som sitting in the car filled with colors, chewing bubble gum, throwing toys, laughing in slow motion, and singing their hearts out; the pair is cool and carefree — the teenagers who knew they could skip class.
The video takes inspiration from the dead-beat 90s aesthetic — green beanies, rainbow lights, kaleidoscope shots of the car driving in circles; we are going somewhere, but we don’t know where… which is kind of the whole point. Som and Kepmner wrote the song “Stay in the Car” about an inconsequential moment coinciding with a hugely consequential event. Kepmner took her partner to get top surgery in Florida. Post operation, Kepmner went to grab her partner lunch, where she spotted an alluring woman sporting red from head to toe; the woman engaged in an impassioned conversation with the man behind the wheel, insisting fervently that he stay in the car while she grabbed him “whatever he wanted.” Kempner was enchanted; she wished that she was the man behind the wheel, staying in the car, being a part of the bewitching woman’s life.
We are swallowed up into Kempner and Som’s imaginations, told to “yield to the present” and accept whatever comes our way. “Stay in the Car” is a song about possibilities; a world where things happen how we wish they would. We venture into their psychedelic playground, swimming through fish-eye lenses and warped camera angles, accepting visions as realities, watching them drive on and on in circles, ending up nowhere in particular.
We are invited to dream with the duo; to stay in the car and imagine our lives like a 90s video game. The video ends with Som and Kepmner driving the car off a cliff to be abducted by a UFO overhead, which is the perfect close. “Stay in the Car” asks us to suspend our disbelief, creating a world of possibility, without any hard and fast motive in mind. Sometimes, it’s nice to just ride.
