Synopsis

Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein drive through Detroit in a battered delivery truck, wearing Detroit Tigers jackets and moving through familiar city streets. Along the way, the video introduces local residents, workers and creative figures who lip-sync to the song and represent a city rebuilding itself. Eastern Market, Green Dot Stables and other Detroit locations become part of the portrait. Rather than dwelling on decline, the video presents Detroit as a place defined by civic pride, activity and determination.

Factoids & Trivia

• The track is a cover of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson's "We Almost Lost Detroit," originally released on Scott-Heron's 1977 album "Bridges." The song addresses the 1966 partial meltdown at Michigan's Fermi 1 nuclear reactor.

• The band framed its version as more than a straightforward cover. Their stated intention was to focus on Detroit residents who were actively building, making and improving things in the city.

• The video was filmed across Detroit, including Eastern Market and Green Dot Stables. Local people, businesses and community figures appear throughout, making the city itself the video's central subject.

• The group filmed at Signal Return, the letterpress studio in Eastern Market. The studio later noted that members of its team could be spotted making cameos.

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. recorded the song for "It's a Corporate World," released in 2011. A 12-inch release followed for Record Store Day on April 21, 2012.

• The video arrived less than a year after Gil Scott-Heron died in May 2011. The band acknowledged his influence while emphasizing that it did not consider itself a replacement for his socially focused voice.

• The video was promoted as a visual ode to a "down-but-not-out" Detroit during a period when the city's economic problems and signs of renewal were both prominent parts of its public image.