If you’ve read the book ‘The Time Machine’, by HG Wells, or seen the 1960 film starring Rod Taylor, or the more recent 2002 film starring Guy Pearce, you will be familiar with the description of time passing as though the fluttering pages of a flipbook. Both exhilarating and terrifying, significant and mundane moments merge as one into a story of untrammelled change. With her new video, ‘Time Traveler’, German musical legend Ute Lemper brings this same vision to life, telling the story as viewed through the picture window on her ship, as she sails the seas of time.
As the hands of the clock spin faster, we see battlefields become temples, wilderness being tamed before once more becoming wild, and ordinary men transform into figures on the pages of history.
While it’s both dramatic and intriguing to watch, the song and video also serve as a metaphor for Ute’s incredible award-winning career. Her music has always served as a bridge between the past and the present, as Lemper recorded breathtaking versions of songs by the likes of Kurt Weill, Brecht, and the Berlin Cabaret, as well as more contemporary artists such as Tom Waits, Philip Glass, and Nick Cave.
In much the same way, ‘Time Traveler’ feels like it’s at once contemporary and based in classic sounds. The jazz-pop track was also written by Ute, and its playful lyrics and hooks will resonate with the romantic in all of us.
The video for ‘Time Traveler’ shows us that it’s not just the world around us that’s changing, but we’re also being altered by time. While the video shows us a version of Ute Lemper unshackled by time, it’s at times the youthful version, starting out in musical theatre, and others it’s the current legend. Whatever the phase we see, we know for sure, Ute Lemper is not going to be stopped by something as simple as time.
Watch the magnificent music video for ‘Time Traveler’ below and keep up to date with Ute Lemper and her music online on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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