Synopsis

A young girl sets out on a dreamlike journey, riding her tricycle through a succession of distant cities, landscapes, and carefully composed tableaux. She passes workers, travelers, animals, and unfamiliar communities as the world unfolds around her in surreal, storybook images. Her voyage eventually leads to a richly colored gathering where the search for rest and sleep finds its gentle resolution. The video treats the song less as a literal narrative than as a visual voyage through memory, distance, and the shared human need for comfort.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed across eight countries on four continents during a four-and-a-half-week shoot. Locations included Spain, China, Russia, India, Kenya, Turkey, and the United States.

• The production reportedly had a budget of about $150,000, much of which went toward travel and hotel costs. The small crew planned locations rapidly, often scouting with Polaroid photographs and leaving each location after roughly three days.

• The girl on the tricycle was Shaan Sahota, the filmmaker's niece.

• Nearly all of the visual effects were created in camera. The video uses forced perspective, carefully positioned props, and straight cuts rather than dissolves or elaborate postproduction.

• The closing image of a man apparently walking on water was achieved with a tightrope stretched between two poles. The poles were left visible instead of being removed digitally, preserving the sequence's deliberately handmade quality.

• The visual style pays homage to the films of Sergei Parajanov, especially through its theatrical compositions, flattened perspective, vivid tableaux, and symbolic use of objects.

• The video received four nominations at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards: Breakthrough Video, Best Direction, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography.

• The song's signature vocal is based on "Rorogwela," a Baegu lullaby from Malaita in the Solomon Islands, sung by Afunakwa. The later controversy over the recording's unauthorized use has become an important part of the song's legacy.