WATCH: Softengine release lyric video for Yellow House

At Eurovision 2014, Finland’s Softengine took teenage angst, meditated on lost love, added a shouty bridge, and managed to strike a chord with Europe. In the lyric video for “Yellow House” they do much the same.

The follow-up single explores how memories of failed love can hold us captive. The yellow house, perhaps where singer Topi forged his most serious romance, remains on his mind, even if he knows the foundations are cracked and crumbling: “Annoying yellow house across the street/ Turning to a mirage from disbelief/ Should break that delusion, would you mind?”

Visually we see Topi chained to a house, and the entire video is shot in sepia. The vintage aesthetic adds to the sense that he is mining the past and the depths of his memory. It’s a useful exercise. Eventually he frees himself, perhaps by realizing that having a reckoning with the past is the only way to escape it: “Maybe I’ll save myself/ Where it all began/ The yellow house.”

As with “Something Better,” the lyrics aren’t always cogent: “Stage a loot/ All we could/ Betray ruling and make it nude.” It doesn’t matter. The atmosphere, the catchy riffs, and the way the song builds shows a seriousness of purpose that gives the song alt-rock gravitas. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Rating: 4/5

Yellow House lyric video — Softengine

Yellow House lyrics — Softengine

Annoying yellow house across the street
Turning to a mirage from disbelief
Should break that delusion, would you mind?
One thousand made up problems are waste of time

Stage a loot
All we could
Betray ruling and make it nude
Light the mood
Find the rule
Call it truth

Maybe I’ll find you where
All the black is white
Maybe I’ll take you where
We are undefined
Maybe I’m moderate
But I’m not afraid
Maybe I’ll save myself
where it all began
The yellow house
The yellow house

I dominate your life
and you rule mine
Is it the only way
to live sublime
I’m stirring up myself
We’re lost in time
Believing in ourselves is out of style

Rise and see
I believe
We are able to not let it be
You and me
Will make free
Refugee

Maybe I’ll find you where
All the black is white
Maybe I’ll take you where
We are undefined
Maybe I’m moderate
But I’m not afraid
Maybe I’ll save myself
where it all began
The yellow house
The yellow house

A tempting lone decoy across the street
Has been unseen so long but so have we
So have we
So have we

Maybe I’ll find you where
All the black is white
Maybe I’ll take you where
We are undefined
Maybe I’m moderate
But I’m not afraid
Maybe I’ll save myself
where it all began
The yellow house
The yellow house

Annoying yellow house across the street
You have been there so long but so have we