Video: Joywave, ‘Like a Kennedy’

Kevin Bronson on July 9th, 2019

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A certain generation of viewers might cast a wary eye on Joywave’s well-intentioned video the new single “Like a Kennedy.” JFK’s assassination in November, 1963, gutted a nation like no single event would until 9/11, and the former came long before media saturation numbed hearts and minds to similar horrors. (It was, in fact, the first time TV news went 24/7.) And so Joywave’s video, a surreal reenactment of the scene in a convertible on Dallas street, treads on delicate ground, bringing back, for some, memories of first-graders hearing their hardened, WWII-veteran principal crying over the school P.A. only to be dismissed and get home to find their parents crying, too.

Fewer and fewer tears are shed these days. “Nobody is surprised by the violence and no action is taken each time that it occurs,” says Daniel Armbruster, founder of the Upstate New York indie-rockers. “The violence is allowed to just continue and continue and continue. Obviously that is very relevant to where we’re at now. Every time there’s another mass shooting, all these people die, and you know, thoughts and prayers. And nothing changes.”

In an accompanying audio commentary, he elaborates: “I think a lot of people will probably try to fit this song into some type of political narrative, but that’s really not the point. It’s a song about complete exhaustion and media burnout. It’s an anti-chaos song. Every screen you walk by demands your attention. Everything is BREAKING NEWS in all caps. It’s a really difficult time to think about the mundane small-scale things that have been the focus of human existence until very recently. I don’t think people should check out, but I think it’s beneficial to at least zoom out and not take the bait every time. It feels like everything is designed to keep us enraged 24 hours a day. We deserve a little sanity.”

||| Watch: The video for “Like a Kennedy”