Taylor Swift Gets Moody In "Safe & Sound"

Taylor Swift has unveiled a melancholy new video on MTV last night for her melancholy acoustic ballad new song "Safe & Sound," featuring country/folk duo The Civil Wars, and the lead promotional single, from the soundtrack of the upcoming movie adaptation of "The Hunger Games." The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where teenage boys and girls fight to the death in an annual televised event and is based on Suzanne Collins' young-adult novel of the same title, arrives in theaters on March 23.
The 22-year-old not only won two Grammy awards, both for "Mean," Sunday night, but she also performed her single "Mean" flawlessly. "Safe & Sound" certainly captures the tone of The Hunger Games, which will be filled with the sort of dread that only an uninviting stretch of woods can provide. It's a relief that Swift didn't take the "Mean" route and equate being hunted for the bloodlust of a ruling class to being picked on by internet trolls. Their spare, haunting tune is the kind of song that demands a video full of fireside glow and American Gothic overtones.
Luckily, that's exactly what the clip is - with glum vibes, and seems to have a stark, gloomy, and pensive feel, is an obvious reflection of the 'Hunger Games' setting and plot, which finds adolescents being used as pawns in a sick and twisted battle to the death. It features the country-singing cutie walking through a deserted desolate forest and singing the track, while the clip also shows a split second of The Civil Wars' John Paul White and Joy Williams strumming instruments with the duo being illuminated in a fiery red light from a fire playing on their faces.
The video shows Swift looking very natural with her hair down and not overly styled, looks a bit lost as she wanders a gorgeously-rendered wasteland full of spooky abandoned wells and ungulates who turn to ash through the barren winter woods, Swift looks almost hesitant, walking among leafless brown trees and crunched leaves. She's wearing a cream-colored lace dress without makeup and donning a flowy white gown that makes her look like she's from another time, and it's beautiful yet strikingly simple. She almost looks like a deserted angel in search of a loved one or some sign of life.