Synopsis

The camera approaches a rain-soaked apartment building and moves through its rooms, hallways, elevators, and windows in one fluid journey. Inside, residents carry on with private dramas: a father cares for his daughter, neighbors pass through shared spaces, and Tracey Thorn performs from an apartment as the camera briefly joins her. The building feels both intimate and surreal, with walls, floors, and perspectives shifting around the viewer. After observing this cross-section of lives, the camera returns to the street, completing its quiet urban circuit.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video is designed to look like a single uninterrupted take lasting roughly seven minutes. Its camera movement travels through the exterior and interior of the apartment building without conventional cuts.

• The apartment block was a constructed set rather than a real building. Its open, multi-level design allowed the camera to pass through walls, windows, elevators, and rooms as though the building were transparent.

• The production was difficult to explain using conventional storyboards. A scaled-down Lego model of the set was reportedly used to help Massive Attack understand how the elaborate camera movement would work.

• Robert Del Naja later recalled that he had to hold an awkward position against a slanting wall for around 15 takes during the shoot, in freezing weather in Paris. He described the experience as a likely source of his later back problems.

• The video won the Best Director award at the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards and was also nominated for British Video of the Year at the 1996 Brit Awards.

• The song's theme of offering shelter and emotional support connects with Tracey Thorn's own account of writing the lyrics. She associated the protective sentiment with concern for her Everything but the Girl partner, Ben Watt, during a period of serious illness.