Synopsis

On an Icelandic farm, a young woman and an older man endure a strange, joyless existence until a dead stag mysteriously falls from the sky. They drag the animal home, where it begins singing along with them and transforms their household into a surreal playground of costumes, masks and childlike excitement. When the man's fortunes change, the relationship between the woman and the stag turns hostile. She carries it into the countryside, attacks it with a sword and eventually throws it onto a bonfire, but the enchanted animal keeps singing.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was released in 2009 alongside "Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know," múm's fifth studio album. The clip was circulating by early October of that year.

• The production credits list Jessica Collins, David Simpson and Jane Simpson among the performers. Eli Born handled cinematography, while Erin Staub and Megan Fenton were responsible for production design.

• Dandy Dwarves and Team G were involved in the production. The visual-effects work helped create the video's most memorable supernatural moments, including the stag's arrival and the butterflies emerging from its wound.

• Promotional material described the clip as a twisted fable set among Icelandic hills and farms, combining a fairytale atmosphere with deliberately unsettling imagery.

• The song itself incorporates a melody from Otto Brandenburg's "The World Laughs On." That tune was also known through the Icelandic song "Eg er kominn heim," recorded by Odinn Valdimarsson in 1960.

• The unusual combination of a cheerful vocal arrangement, a dead animal and increasingly disturbing fantasy imagery made the video one of the more distinctive visual companions to the album's title track.