“Monkeys in a Cage” is part of SWIM; a collection of songs we wrote reflecting our thoughts about people and society.
Ānemi has spotted several ideas we want to share with you. It is like we are telling our story, one chapter at a time.
“Monkeys in a Cage” talks about the receptiveness that we are trapped in. We build our lives around such a specific schedule, down to the last detail, as it is almost forced by external unwritten rules of the norm. No one really chose to be in that situation, but our surroundings drift us like a river as we passively float towards a never-ending circle.
We contribute with our obedience to our precious routines Home, Sleep, Eat, Repeat.
When there’s nothing left to give or nothing left that is us, we are doomed to forget our frustration and do nothing about it. Our power over this is so little, that we might as well be… monkeys in a cage.
The key question we want to flirt with throughout the video is whether you really understand the situation you are in - and even deeper - even if you understood, do you really want to get out, or are you enjoying the "convenient" situation of having no choice... thus having no responsibility and free will. When the cycle that limits our entire lives — our actions, the way we exist — disappears, do we map our own path or pretend it never left?
The best way to describe that story is though a short film we made, which follows the lives of two very different people, each trapped in their own repetitiveness, whose endless circle is expressed in a completely different way. The first is a housewife that is doomed to stay put forever doing something that requires no mental effort, such as holding a mug that overflows forever. The second is an employee of a grey office doomed to follow the same path every day and get trapped in the same thoughts.
How will they manage to escape?
Lyrics:
Do I wanna know
Where everybody goes?
Everybody knows
And (they) do it anyway
It's like a hidden rule, that you need to go through
Everybody flows. The system wants you to
It's Home Sleep Eat and Repeat
It's Home Sleep Eat and Repeat
Don't stop it. And after you quit, forget it
And it goes like this again
And it's tying up a rope
And it will never stop
Choking up on time
They let it fly away
They'll spend it anyways
Like monkeys in a cage
It's Home Sleep Eat and Repeat
It's Home Sleep Eat and Repeat
Don't stop it. And after you quit, forget it