Jehnny Beth has released a music video for her recent solo track “I’m the Man,” which comes off the soundtrack to the fifth season of Peaky Blinders. The video features a spoken word intro from the show’s star Cillian Murphy and was directed by series writer/director Anthony Byrne.
The video is set in a glowing alleyway at night, with Murphy reciting a piece called “A Place Above” as the camera moves in on Beth. She performs the hard-hitting song as she makes her way down the alley, spitting drinks in people’s faces and making out with drag queens along the way. The video has a slick, but aggressive aesthetic that matches the song’s fierce vibe.
“‘I’m The Man’ is an attempted study on humankind, what we define as evil and the inner conflict of morality,” Beth said in a statement when she dropped the song. “Because it is much easier to label the people who are clearly tormented by obsessions as monsters than to discern the universal human background that is visible behind them. However, this song has not even a remote connection with a sociological study, collective psychology, or present politics. It is a poetic work first and foremost. Its aim is to make you feel, not think.”