Marissa Nadler - “Drive” (Official Video)

By sheer coincidence, Stereogum just published a Galaxie 500 feature the same day Marissa Nadler released a video directed by Galaxie member Naomi Yang. Yang combined footage by French artist Bernard Faucon with striking closeups of Nadler to create the visual for “Drive,” an eerie, ethereal ballad about life on the road from Nadler’s recent album July. Here’s her director’s statement:

As a musician I immediately connected to the emotional content of this song—especially as it starts with the very powerful first verse chronicling a discouraging night on the road: “If you ain’t made it now/ You’re never going to make it/ Seventeen people in the dark tonight.”
The video tells the story of Marissa facing her own ambition—as well as her disappointments — but ultimately of her desire to reach people through her music. It’s presented as a series of metaphors, or a surreal dream, but one in which Marissa is an active participant in her future (not a passive witness) as she explores her feelings about making music.
Running through the song is the refrain “Nothing like the way it feels to drive,” which made me think of the French artist Bernard Faucon, whose recent work is shot entirely from the front seat of a car as he travels all over the world. Bernard graciously allowed me to use excerpts of his footage—as he put it, “Yes, you can use my roads, they fit so well with Marissa’s song…”

Nadler approves; as she put it in a press release, “[Yang] really got to the heart of what this song is about.” Watch the results.