The Twilight Zone Stylings of Madison Beer’s “Spinnin” Video

Madison Beer’s sophomore album, Silence Between Songs, shows no signs of slowing down with the release of yet another single (the fifth one, to be exact). Called “Spinnin,” it also happens to be both the song that kicks off the record and something of a visual companion piece to “Home to Another One.” After all, both encapsulate Beer’s daydreaming aura and overwhelming ability to keep her head in the clouds as a coping mechanism. What’s more, in “Home to Another One,” she even refers to the lyrics of “Spinnin” with a magazine called SBS (that obviously stands for Silence Between Songs) that has the “headline,” “Did the world stop spinning?” In the “Spinnin” video, the answer is a resounding yes. 

Although Beer is initially skeptical about whether or not time truly has suspended itself as she looks up at the clock/calendar that informs her it’s September 15th (a nod to Silence Between Songs’ release date) at “00” o’clock, she decides to go outside and see for herself just what the fuck, if anything, is actually going on. Her suspicions about something fishy going on are confirmed when she sees a deserted block (though, in all honesty, that’s kind of normal for suburbia), punctuated by a sprinkler whose water is frozen in midair. 

Elsewhere, Beer espies a car with an open trunk and groceries half unloaded, as well as another car across the street from that with its driver-side door left ajar. Briefly letting it sink in that the world has effectively “faded away,” Beer makes a beeline for the cornfield (the one we see her running through on Silence Between Songs’ cover art—because, yes, it’s a still from the video). Running wild and free as the lyrics, “I woke up, fell back to sleep/‘Cause I’d rather live in my dreams” play over the scene, Beer perfectly delineates the haze and malaise of being caught in a depressive cycle. The one likely caused by being “the other woman” (to use a Lana Del Rey reference by way of her Nina Simone cover) in “Home to Another One.” This being an additional way in which these two songs feel inextricably linked. That and, well, their decidedly 60s sound. For Beer has made no secret of also taking the Del Rey approach to “borrowing” from the decade, taking particular inspiration from The Beatles and Beach Boys on this album. 

Perhaps it’s no accident, then, that the sonic influence also bled into the aesthetic influence for her videos, with “Spinnin” coming across like something out of an episode of The Twilight Zone (which first aired at the end of 1959 and ended in 1964, later being rebooted in various ways). A staple of early 1960s broadcast television, Beer takes one of those “eerie-type” concepts and brings it into the morose realm of “Spinnin.” 

Co-directed by Beer and Aerin Moreno (who also co-directed “Home to Another One”), things take on a faintly Pearl vibe when Beer pauses in a clearing beyond the cornfield. Only, instead of humping a scarecrow like Pearl, Beer simply lies down to stare up at the sky, further confirming that time has stopped when she sees a flock of birds also suspended in the air. The world, apparently, hasn’t really stopped spinning though, as we soon see day turn into night, with Beer making her way out of the field and back into “town.” Coming upon the library, Beer presses up against the window, as though yearning to find some sign of life among the fluorescently-lit stacks (or maybe she’s just fiending for a good book to read). Alas, no such luck. So she continues on her way, finding herself in the middle of a road filled with cars but no drivers…all the headlights on. In fact, all Beer would need to make it look like a full re-creation of Olivia Rodrigo’s “get him back!” video (itself mostly a re-creation of Alanis’ “Ironic” video) is for the windows to start shattering as she walks past them and for it to be daylight. 

Too confused and hurt by the stoppage of time (or the collective abandonment of humanity), Beer decides to simply sit down on the ground, which provides a mysterious spotlight for her, in front of the cars and belt out some of the remaining forlorn lyrics: “​​The world has stopped spinning/The end is beginning and, ah.” For those with knowledge of the classic 60s cuts, this has more than just a tinge of Skeeter Davis’ “The End of the World.” A song Del Rey was also sure to call out during her interview with Beer by noting, “The first track kind of gave me Skeeter Davis vibes. Like ‘The End of The World,’ which I’ve sung [that final “by the way” sort of line helping to keep the focus on her].” Beer confirmed, “That’s one of my favorite songs of all time.”

And that’s entirely obvious in the so-called overdramaticness of the single. With Beer expressing that time has either stopped since her breakup, or she’s living outside of it now that she’s been killed by love. Suddenly running away from the cars she’s been sitting in front of, Beer returns to her creepily empty neighborhood, met only by a fog hanging thick in the air that adds to the 80s horror movie feel. Reluctantly deciding to just go back to bed and hope tomorrow will be different, Beer concludes with the lyrics, “Oh, the world stopped spinnin’, nothin’ seems to change/I’m stuck at the beginnin’ and I’m still in pain/Why’d the sun stop shinin’?/Why’s the sky still gray?/Oh, the world stopped spinnin’ today.” In other words: “Why does the sun go on shining?/Why does the sea rush to shore?/Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?/‘Cause you don’t love me anymore.”

Lying in her bed again at the end of the “day” (or whatever it was she just experienced), Beer looks out the window to see a bird still frozen in flight in her yard. But, just for a split second, we can see it start to move as the video goes to black and then gives the credits over the scene of Beer walking through her abandoned suburban landscape. It’s a small moment of hope, yet it’s enough to make viewers believe that Beer might just pull through this nightmarish, Twilight Zone-esque mourning period.