Earlier this week, Dan Mangan shared the new video for “Lay Low” from his 2018 album, More Or Less. Shot over the span of a year during a global pandemic by director Deryn Robson, we follow the experience of a toddler confronting emotions of frustration, sadness, fear and happiness amidst life in lockdown.
Mangan explains:
“Deryn’s beautiful capturing of his little Auggie throughout the pandemic perfectly captured the listless feeling of floating through moments. Sometimes, dealing with yourself is enough workload – such that dealing with others as well as yourself feels like an unmanageable existential obligation. Though toddlers are more demonstrative and erratic, I think that we all basically share the same emotions as Auggie. Sometimes it’s not enough, and sometimes it’s all too much.”
Robson adds:
“I had the pleasure of connecting with Dan almost a year ago when he reacted to a instagram story of August, my then 2 year old child singing along to ‘Lay Low’”, says Robson. “Dan’s music had become a staple within our ‘quarantimes playlist’. August particularly loved the song, and would sing along unaware of the meaning or how it related to our current context. As was the case for many people, the slow down in work and the sudden, jarring pause to normal life provided lots of time for introspection and observation. It immediately became apparent to me that much of my own internalized feelings of uncertainty, frustration and fear were freely expressed by August on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. August, or Auggie as he would introduce himself, provided us with a perfect abstraction of our own, sometimes unspeakable frustrations with the world we suddenly find ourselves in as we grapple with an uncertain future and a past we can’t return to.”