When I was a kid, this was one of those music videos that never seemed to get played that much, but when it did, I would stop to watch it. I guess there was just something moving about it that I couldn’t resist. I always had a fondness for the books on the floor part. Watching it today, it doesn’t do a whole lot for me except to send me on a bit of a nostalgia trip.

Whenever I listen to the song, it sounds like the story of a an old woman who dies in one room while a woman gives birth in another room. According to Ed Kowalczyk, the music video created a misinterpretation that the new mother died:

“While the clip is shot in a home environment, I envisioned it taking place in a hospital, where all these simultaneous deaths and births are going on, one family mourning the loss of a woman while a screaming baby emerges from a young mother in another room. Nobody’s dying in the act of childbirth, as some viewers think. What you’re seeing is actually a happy ending based on a kind of transference of life.”

I never really thought of it as having a happy or sad ending, but something sadly inspirational. A mystical experience if you will. I think that aspect is captured well in the music video. You could say that the books represent a lifetime of accumulated knowledge haunted by ghosts of people who have come and gone in the form of the band members who seem to either be ghosts or pass on just as the baby is removed and held high before being given to the young mother.

The music video was directed by Jake Scott who seems to have been drawn to this type of music video seeing as he also did Everybody Hurts by R.E.M., Wonder by Natalie Merchant, and When You’re Gone by The Cranberries. He seems to have directed 50 or so music videos.

Salvatore Totino shot the music video. He seems to have shot around 15 music videos usually directed by Jake Scott. He went on to shoot some well-known films such as The Da Vinci Code (2006), Frost/Nixon (2008), Everest (2015), and the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).

Patrick Sheffield edited the music video. He seems to have only worked on a handful of music videos.

Ellen Jackson produced this music video, and that’s all I could find. I highly doubt that is all she has done though. She probably worked for their record company. That’s my best guess.

Enjoy!