It's often said that reality is nine-tenths perception — that your level of happiness or misery in life depends way more on how you view your circumstances than the circumstances themselves. Sometimes it's best to just shrug everything off and say, "things happen" (or words to that effect).
It's the driving notion behind a new ear-worm and video from the Los Angeles-based rock group Dawes. "Things Happen," from the band's just-announced album All Your Favorite Bands, follows a Beatles impersonator as he slogs through the city, beaten down and repeatedly rebuffed as he tries to find a street corner to perform on. "Let's make a list of all the things the world has put you through," sings Dawes front man Taylor Goldsmith. "Let's raise a glass to all the people you're not speaking to. ... Things happen. That's all they ever do."
"Change, hardship and general bullshit is an inevitability," Goldsmith tells us via email. "But by shifting the ways in which we acknowledge these realities, [we] can hopefully deprive them of at least some of their power over us.
"I think by making the video about street performers, which is a pastime that's at once fascinating and mysterious but also can be perceived as unglamorous or dismal, it really helps to illustrate the shifting sentiments of the song. How one guy can seem truly miserable in dealing with his current lot in life while others can take that same situation and figure out a way to find joy and acceptance in it?"
The video was conceived and directed by Kevin Hayes and Andrew Vaughan. All Your Favorite Bands is due out June 2 on HUB Records.
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