Fall Out Boy Feat. Foxes, Just One Yesterday (Deconstruction)

In October 2013 Fall Out Boy released the 'Young Blood Chronicles'; 11 music videos to make a YouTube series. I will be looking at part 6: Just One Yesterday. This music video reminds me of 'the Fall' in the Bible with it's religious ideologies.

Stranded in a forest, the members of Fall Out Boy find themselves severely injured and looking for safety.

Starving, Pete comes across a tree with a pristine red apple and picks it.

The story of the original sin says that God told Adam and Eve to never eat the fruit because they are forbidden. Pete eats the apple, but it was poison.

He then vomits a snake. Many say that the snake in this Biblical legend was the devil in form of a serpent. The snake is as red as the apple that Pete ate. Dark red like you can see above connotes danger and blood.

In the Chronicles, there are flashbacks to what the men remember. As Pete is vomiting a snake, he remembers his 'last supper'. Another thing related to the Christian faith.

Patrick hitchhikes in a red car with a beautiful woman. In the Bible God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the forbidden fruit, and one of the punishments would be for women to feel pain during child birth. So the woman in the car, would subsequently be effecting by the men's actions.

Joe seeks for refuge, asking a woman for her help. As you can see the woman's left side of the picture in white, clean and pure. Possibly connoting that she has not sinned. Compared the right side that Joe is on, where it's shady, he's battered and bruised and he has sinned prior to this video.

Andy comes across a homeless man and is prepared to steel his only food. Jesus said the give to the poor and not to steel from this.

The same applies the above shots. Pete chases a little girl and her mother for help. But being the way he looked at the time, they thought it was an attack and sprayed him with pepper spray.
The young girl is wearing a tiara and pink dress, showing us that she is more fortunate. Also portraying that while she is young and think life is a fairy tale there is trouble out there, from what her mother wants to protect her from.

The snake is a recurring motif in this video. Connoting that the Devil is everywhere. The snake and apple are iconic as they have religious connotations and meaning. 

The gang find each other and share water. Foxes then takes them to the hospital. This is indexical; from there wounded make up we as an audience are able to recognize that these people are in trouble.

In the end it turns out that Foxes was the Devil all along.  We understand this through the semantics or how her eyes are black. We can assume that she plays a negative character.

Without any knowledge of the Bible, it would be difficult to label a meaning to a snake or apple or devil. Therefor these items make it difficult to be polysemic. Unless you were to factor in the idea of a wild animal and a natural fruit, then an element of survival could be the connotation.



Narrative is so important when constructing a video, and this video shows it clearly. I know I will have to make my video understandable.