A warning: The latest video from Seattle singer-songwriter Noah Gundersen is a relentless attack on the tear ducts. If its visuals, directed gorgeously by Ryan Booth, don't make you cry, Gundersen's plaintive voice and aching lyrics might. This track, "Jealous Love," is self-explanatory in the best ways a folk song can be. It's got an immediate emotional accessibility reminiscent of The Swell Season — Gundersen's credibility and sincerity are unshakable from the first note. And that's just the song.
The video would seem manipulative in its use of heartbreaking imagery, if it didn't also feel deeply true. Gundersen's lyrics are perfectly embodied by the (remarkable) actors performing over them — the lead, Ted Johnson, plays a man who has, in the twilight of his life, lost exactly the kind of love Gundersen sings of wanting for himself. "Jealous Love" takes repeat viewings, if your heart can handle it, in order to appreciate how intricately bound Gundersen's performance is to the actors'. Does the voice singing belong to the young version of the old man onscreen? Or is it perhaps the man's adult son (played by Marc Menchaca), who knows what he hopes for because he's seen it lived in front of him? It could be either, and it could be both. From any direction, this song and video are a (devastating) triumph.
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