Carolines Video Analysis: The Fray, 'You Found Me'

"You Found Me" is the first single from piano-rock band The Fray taken from their eponymous second album. The Fray is a well known, four-piece piano rock band. The band Formed in 2002 by schoolmates Isaac Slade and Joe King and they released their debut album ‘How to Save a Life’ in 2005. This was the song which highlighted the band to the wider consumer market and plunged the band towards their current success.
"You Found Me", a song from their self-titled second album ‘The Fray’, became the group's third single to sell 2,000,000 downloads in the United States. The song also peaked at 35 in the UK Singles Charts.
A few musical influences of The Fray include bands such as, ‘The Beatles’, ‘Better Than Ezra’, ‘Coldplay’, ‘Keane’ and ‘U2’. The Video for ‘You Found Me’ reflects the genre by using textual references throughout the video. For example, the use of instruments and a performance aspect within the video. The most obvious example of this is when the band is seen to be performing above the streets, on the roof. The expectations of music videos from this genre are that they illustrate a story. Whether it is someone looking in on another’s life or the same as this video, where it shows more of a performance illustrated by a story.

In the early 20th century, a multitude of record labels came and went, but a handful of label corporations thrived for decades. By the end of the 1980s, the "Big 6"- EMI, Sony, BMG, PolyGram, WEA and MCA - dominated the industry. In mid-1998, however, PolyGram merged into Universal Music Group (formerly MCA), dropping the leaders down to a "Big 5". They became the "Big 4" in 2004 when BMG merged into Sony.
The Fray is signed to Epic Records. Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. This is one of the four "major labels", mentioned above, which dominate recorded music — Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI.
Epic Record's commercial success, in the 1970s, peaked with releases from acts such as ABBA, Cheap Trick, The Clash, and The Jackson’s. Also contributing to the labels success was its distribution of Philadelphia International Records, which produced additional hit records by acts such as The Three Degrees and McFadden and Whitehead.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Epic's mainstream success continued to escalate with the success of such acts as Adam Ant, Céline Dion, Europe, Cyndi Lauper, Ozzy Osbourne, Sade, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. The labels greatest pay dirt achievement came with the release Thriller, the 1982 album by Michael Jackson, which went on to achieve fifty million in international sales; becoming the biggest selling album in history. More recently, other successful acts on the label have included Jessica Simpson, Shakira, Fiona Apple, Jennifer Lopez and Rage Against the Machine.
The band's debut album consisted of a mix of mid-tempo piano driven pop-rock tracks and power ballads. The band's second release didn’t see a vast change in style. However, the album did spread across a wider spectrum of music; the pop-rock songs were faster and more energetic, while the ballads were softer than that of the first album. Lead vocalist and pianist Isaac Slade's vocal style on the latter release, while retaining the basic style on the debut album, were stronger, edgier and more aggressive, most notably on the tracks "We Build Then We Break" and "Say When". The lyrics on the album revolve around life's problems and issues. Common themes include troubled relationships, growing up, the problem of evil, war and happiness. The emotional nature of the lyrics has also had critics labeling The Fray as Emo, comparing them to mainstream emo acts like Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional. In an interview, Slade stated that "We're not like real rocking rockers; we'd rather write about feeling and emotions".
The video for ‘You Found Me’, was shot in Chicago with Josh Forbes as the director and premiered on December 9, 2008. It depicts scenes of the band members in different roles- playing the song in the rafters of a steel building, unknown people, and the members of the band are standing on top of skyscrapers looking towards the sky, and at a car accident at which the band oversees those involved, somehow being their own "guardian angel". The video ends with all material objects being lifted into the air.
Songs written by The Fray generally tell a story, and thus the videos to these songs illustrate the diegesis of these songs. For example, ‘You Found Me’, has an element of a story being over-seen by the band members. The story is being portrayed to the audience through the eyes of the band members themselves. However this video also has a performance based diegesis. It is a mixture of the two. In a couple of the scenes, the story behind the lyrics is being shown parallel to the performance aspect of the video. The best example within the video of this, is when the camera tracks from the band performing on the roof, to street level where the lyrics are illustrated by characters on the road.
Within this video, I wouldn’t have said that there are many ‘glamorous; locations, however the locations used are made to look more flamboyant than you would expect them to be in reality. The same is shown within their costumes, they do not have a wardrobe full of flamboyant costumes, instead they are dressed in more ‘normal’, casual outfits, ones that would not look out of place on the high street. This reflects the genre as this is what the target audience would expect from this kind of band. The camerawork within this video varies from close-ups to long shots, for example whilst the band is seen on the roof of the skyscraper, the camera tracks around the band. This shot is a slight low angle, long shot. The video tends to use a lot of tracking shots throughout. This tends to make the transitions and also the flow of the video smooth, to reflect the music behind. This video creates an image of the band as ‘guardian angels’ overlooking the characters portrayed in the rest of the video.
In an interview around the time of release, Isaac Slade voiced his interpretation into the meaning behind the lyrics of the song: "You Found Me" is a tough song for me. It’s about the disappointment, the heart ache, the let down that comes with life. Sometimes you’re let down; sometimes you’re the one who lets someone else down. It gets hard to know who you can trust, who you can count on. This song came out of a tough time, and I’m still right in the thick of it. There are some difficult circumstances my family and friends have been going through over the past year or so and it can be overwhelming. It wears on me. It demands so much of my faith to keep believing, keep hoping in the unseen. Sometimes the tunnel has a light at the end, but usually they just look black as night. This song is about that feeling, and the hope that I still have, buried deep in my chest."

In another interview Isaac Slade stated that:
"I kept getting these phone calls from home - tragedy after tragedy... If there is some kind of person in charge of this planet - are they sleeping? Are they Smoking? Where are they? I just imagined running into God standing on a street corner like Bruce Springsteen, smoking a cigarette, and I'd have it out with him."

Furthermore, in an article about the album, Slade says that the lyrics for "You Found Me" were written two and a half years ago and that the song asks about the problem of evil, why bad things happen to good people, after some of their friends and family went through very tough times.

There are many possible interpretations of the meaning behind this video. For example when I first heard this song, I first thought it to be a suicide note. After watching the video, however, I now believe it to be the mourning of a loved one. Another interpretation of the narrative is that the singer is mourning the loss of his ego, for the reason that he has fallen in love and has now found ‘God’ in a woman's love.

When asking the opinion of a few individuals, I received a wide variety of interpretations. The simplest of answers which I received was merely ‘an imagined argument with god’.

Another was that he needed god when his life was falling apart, but he wasn't there for him and his troubles. But, later on in the narrative, he figured out god was always there. When he was ‘lost and insecure’, god found him. But this was too late for him.

One interpretation of the narrative was that of a place in Texas. The lyrics were taken literally by this individual. He believes that the song tells a story of First and Amistad, a street corner in Quemado, Texas. They said, ‘It seems way out in the country so i think its kind of a random place to be writing the song about, but that may be the whole point: that God is everywhere’.

‘I believe this song to be about a man who has lost someone extremely important in his life, someone that knew him more than any other person ever could. And now that she is gone, he feels helpless and he calls out to God for help. But no answer from God ever comes. He starts to lose his faith, in God and in everything around him. He loses faith in himself and his life. Everything, to him seems to be falling apart. He commits suicide. He does it at the corner of First and Amistad. And that's where he meets God. And that's when he says to God, "Where were you?" and God says "ask anything". He goes on and on, asking God where he was during the hardest and most trying times of his life. Where was He when the man needed him? "Just a little late" shows that God was too late. Too late to help him. The man is angry at God for taking "all he wanted", meaning the woman that he lost’.