Synopsis

Ben Folds Five's video turns "Don't Change Your Plans" into a fractured breakup drama. Ben Folds and Gretchen Mol appear within a series of emotionally charged scenes that suggest memories from several past relationships rather than one continuous story. The band also appears as part of the performance-driven presentation. The result is deliberately cinematic and unsettled, matching the song's mixture of affection, uncertainty, and resignation as its narrator faces the end of a relationship.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video features actress Gretchen Mol alongside Ben Folds and band members Robert Sledge and Darren Jessee.

• Ben Folds later said that the filmmaker understood the song as reflecting patterns from three of his major breakups. The filmmaker cast women who, according to Folds, closely resembled people from those relationships.

• Folds recalled the shoot as chaotic. He said the filmmaker would film briefly, become angry, kick things around, leave, and then return to continue working.

• The record label rejected the finished video, even though Folds said approximately half a million dollars had been spent on it.

• Folds admitted that he did not initially understand what the song was about, despite the video's specific interpretation of its emotional subject.

• The song itself went through major editing before reaching the album. Folds described an earlier version as an eight-and-a-half-minute piece, with producer Caleb Southern cutting away much of the instrumental material and revealing a more direct pop song.

• The track appeared on Ben Folds Five's 1999 album "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner."