Kyle McNeill airs grievances against an ex in his new video for "Suzanne."
Meet Kyle McNeill: He's a Los Angeles-born singer-songwriter with a broken heart of gold and a unique country-blues/jazz/swamp-rock collection of sad-sack songs that could make Morrissey himself well up. And trust us, when you see the video for Kyle's latest single, "Suzanne," you're going to be all, "STEP BACK, I LOVED HIM FIRST" and "JUST WHO THE HELL IS THIS 'SUZANNE,' ANYWAY?" You're welcome, and we apologize in advance.
Watch Kyle McNeill's "Suzanne" video after the jump.
A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Kyle initially got his start with 2012's I Was Happy, the debut release of his bandKyle McNeill & The Stumble. We don't know exactly what Kyle's L.A. upbringing was like (except for the fact that he used to be in a band with Robert Downey Jr.'s son O_O), but if you told us he was raised in the Mississippi Delta and moped palled around with Hank Williams and Robert Johnson or interned under Robert Earl Keen or Ryan Adams, we wouldn't be surprised. At just 19 years old, Kyle tackles an intimate and honest subject matter with the kind of maturity that rivals the melancholic greats. And even if it's been a minute since we had our heart broken, one look at Kyle's "Suzanne" video conjures up, with vivid power, those awful achy, breaky heart feelings.
Directed by Pele Kudren, "Suzanne" (not to be confused with Leonard Cohen’s similarly crestfallen but slightly less bitter song of the same name) takes a close look at the paralyzing effects of an ex-girlfriend who just straight effed you up. The video alternates between close-ups of Kyle singing alone in a motel room and grainy shots of him doing other "lone-man-with-his-guitar"-type things like smoking butts by a window sill, pensive face washing, and sulking down forlorn halls.
With a voice that sounds like swallowing a mouthful of tears, Kyle sings, "Suzanne, you made a mess of me / You cut my love and you let it bleed / Oh, Suzanne." Fortunately for this God-awful-sounding ex, Kyle doesn't actually name names -- "Suzanne" is just an alias. But we also pity the fool whom Kyle attempts to date next, since, OOF, this guy needs some TIME TO HEAL.
Stay tuned for Kyle's forthcoming second album, Happy At Last, to be released later in the year.
