Week 4: Zoe's Textual Analysis of Bon Jovi's 'We Weren't Born To Follow'

Hey - here it is!! =]
'Bon Jovi - We weren't born to follow!'



Genre characteristics
The genre of this music and video is Rock/indie. The band members are all male, Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Tico Torres and David Bryan. The band member’s hair is all either mid length or long which is a typical characteristic for this type of genre.

Relationship between visuals and lyrics
The line ‘we weren’t born to follow’ also the title of the song, shows people following their own dreams and achieving what they want to do, showing great moments in time. It shows people doing what they want to do and what they believe in, ‘stand up to what you believe’. ‘It’s not about giving up or giving in’ at 1.45 shows Princess Diana helping people and showing how she didn’t give up or give in. ‘This ones about anyone who does it differently’ at 1.31 is a clip of Barak Obama, who was a different person standing forward to do something great. At 2.35 the lead singer says ‘Guitar’ and at this point there is a guitar solo.

Relationship between music and visuals
Throughout the song the music is all band type music, drums, guitar, bass, and keyboard. The first shots of the video are all close ups of the instruments, we than see a full shot of the band at 6 seconds. At 2.35 Jon Bon Jovi says ‘guitar’ and we see the guitar while it is being played by Richie Sombora.

Close ups
Although there isn’t many close ups of the band members there are many of shots of the members all individually as well as a group. The first close up of a band member is of Jon Bon Jovi at about 5 seconds. This is a mid close up and features him with the mic. You can also the other members of the band in the background. Most of the closes up shots are all of instruments rather than the band members first 4/5 seconds and 2.37 – 2.40. The band shots are usually mid shots.

References
During the music video there are many clips that have been in the public eye or moments of history seen on TV. Such as Barak Obama, plane crash, Olympic events etc.

Performance, narrative, concept
The music video is generally performance based but there is also a slight narrative with the clips that were used along with the music, fitting together.
Done! Cya =]
P.S as soon as i can get it to work (or find out how to do it) i will upload the video! =]