Watch Sanam’s Haunting Music Video for ‘Jaane De Mujhe’
The Mumbai band delves into mental health, heartbreak and love on the new track
Mumbai-based pop-rock band Sanam is certainly reinventing their sound. With their latest dark, love ballad “Jaane De Mujhe,” the group seems to have completed the transition they were undergoing in their 2018 release, the gritty electro-rock single “Tu Yahaan.” Band frontman Sanam Puri tells Rolling Stone India that this song wasn’t an easy one to put out there, revealing that “this original (song) is the closest to him” among all the tracks Sanam has written so far.
The new track’s accompanying music video delves into the subject of mental health and the themes of love and heartbreak. Directed by Mumbai-based filmmaker Prayrit Seth, the video features interesting visual metaphors that mark the boundary between life and death, as the lyrics, penned by Jaipur-based lyricist Kunaal Vermaa, artfully navigate the hollow left in the wake of unspoken words. “We’re working on a lot of originals this year and they’re all very different from what you’ve heard on our YouTube Channel,” says drummer Keshav Dhanraj.
The keyboard glides through “Jaane De Mujhe” with a string instrument surging around Puri’s powerhouse vocals, elevating the song. “The chorus melody was composed while we were in Israel (two years ago) and I came up with it on the last day of the trip. It was probably [influenced by] the kind of songs we were listening to around the place,” explains Sanam. Dhanraj’s beats amplify the fluidity of the keyboard as bassist Venky Subramaniam’s bass line forms a strong bedrock for the song and guitarist Samar Puri’s rhythm washes the song in soft reverie. “Jaane De Mujhe” charts the devastation that lovers experience when they aren’t able to heed the unattended screams of their own needs.
Watch the music video for “Jaane De Mujhe” below:
(Trigger Warning: Mental illness and suicide)