Synopsis
A lone drummer performs relentlessly in a stark housing-estate courtyard, ignoring the strange activity unfolding around him. A girl wearing devil horns, a running fox, passing men, and an offering of milk punctuate his obsessive performance. As the rhythm intensifies, the drummer's hands begin to bleed. The video then shifts toward surreal menace, introducing a shadowy figure with a baseball bat and a moon that appears to explode. The final images leave the drummer's fate ambiguous, surrounding the performance with an unsettling, almost dreamlike sense of ritual.
Factoids & Trivia
- The video was shot on 16mm film in black and white, with a listed running time of 4 minutes and 26 seconds.
- Production took place around Sheffield's Park Hill flats and was later completed in the courtyard of Bromyard House on London's Ledbury Estate.
- The drummer is played by actor Adam Dean Ayadi rather than Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders.
- The video's imagery is loosely connected to the story of the Buddha's meditation. The devil horns suggest attempts at distraction or sabotage, while the milk offered to the drummer recalls the nourishment given to Buddha before enlightenment.
- A brief shot of the drummer floating in shallow water is presented in color, making it stand out sharply from the surrounding monochrome footage.
- The character's right wrist carries the three-intersecting-circles symbol associated with Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.
- Factory Films handled production for Domino Records.
- The video was nominated for Best Rock Video at the 2005 UK Music Video Awards.
- It was later selected for the "Power To The People: British Music Videos 1966-2016" DVD box set.
- Although the song opened the band's debut album and appeared on the *Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?* EP, it was never released as a conventional single. The song nevertheless became a regular part of the band's early live shows.