Synopsis

Christopher Hall wanders through a surreal, abandoned landscape that resembles a twisted version of Oz. Purple-haired and visibly distressed, he encounters small, construction-clad figures while a derelict house is dismantled around him. The imagery moves between theatrical fantasy and bleak rural decay, reflecting the song's emotional exhaustion and sense of collapse. Rather than presenting a literal storyline, the video turns heartbreak into an unsettling dreamscape, with the destruction of the house suggesting the breakdown of a relationship and the loss of any place of refuge.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was released in 1998 as part of the promotional campaign for *Darkest Days*, Stabbing Westward's third studio album.

• Its visual language draws heavily on *The Wizard of Oz*, but replaces the colorful fairy-tale world with a damaged, industrial-looking landscape and a condemned house.

• The construction-clad figures function as a deliberately strange variation on Oz's Munchkins, adding an uneasy theatrical quality to the video rather than advancing a conventional plot.

• "Sometimes It Hurts" is the ninth track on *Darkest Days*. The album was structured in four emotional sections about the stages of a breakup, placing the song at the end of the section associated with lust, hope, and longing.

• Trade coverage from September 1998 reported that the video was still in production. By November of that year, it was appearing in music-video programming alongside the band's other *Darkest Days* singles.

• The song's 1998 video is part of a visually varied run for Stabbing Westward: the band followed the horror narrative of "Shame" with the surreal imagery of "Sometimes It Hurts" and the rundown-house setting of "Save Yourself."