Singer/songwriter Deirdre Murphy is the creator of many original works of music, dance, theatre, circus, and performance art. It’s evident in the music video for her neo-folk song “Sweet and Strong.”

The video is a depiction of a beautiful, light hearted, and sweet celebration of life and friendship. It’s a pure showing of loving life through dance and movement. There has never been a more lively, happy, or delightful music video. It’s freeing to watch these friends interact with each other in such a loving and open way.

We got a chance to speak with Deirdre about the music video and her intentions behind hit:

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?

This song has always called for a really physical video, in my mind. My friends and co-performers, Sean and Zsofia, are my training partners and former students. Zsofia asked me one day if her sister could come to class – she said, “She’s only 16 but she is sweet and she is strong.”  And I went home and wrote the song. So it has that neat little tie-in, but also the song is about feeling really secure, really good, in your body and your surroundings which I wanted to get across in the video. My relationship with them routinely involves handstand training, acroyoga, many jokes, and bodywork/massage. I love the physicality of the practices themselves – the movement just feels good and practicing together is always great fun. I knew if I could get those elements captured, they would speak for themselves and they would speak visually for the song.  

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

Last summer I took up a new hobby with a friend, of rose smelling. We centered our efforts in the rose garden nearest my friend’s house – the one in the video. 

A little known fact that is after about 30 or 40 minutes of smelling the roses, you are absolutely drunk on them. Heady. Our extensive research found that not only does it make you drunk, but also that about one in every ten roses smells exquisite (while some barely have any scent at all!). We further noted that about one in every twenty is magical beyond explanation – transcendent. These are the ones that cause a person to stagger. I remember one particular rose that we couldn’t stop smelling for a full 15-20 minutes, knowing that when we left it we would most probably never find it again. As we spent more time there it occurred to me that it’d be the perfect place to shoot a video for this particular song – it’s very much about stopping to smell the roses and appreciating the little moments. 

I would fully recommend rose smelling as a hobby, by the way. It’s free, it makes you drunk, and there’s no learning curve – you walk in at the top of your game! 

What was the process of making this video? 

The process was just as fun as it looks! We were lucky to work with the wonderful Hannah Bloom, who has a real eye for movement and did a beautiful job with the edit. She used a vintage lens – which I think really adds to the feel – sort of old timey, and highly textured what with all the leaves and vines. I was able to work closely with Hannah on the edit and it was really lovely – she was a pleasure to work with. Sean and Zsofia were in fine form and a lot of craic was had, as is always the case with those two.  

Connect with Deirdre Murphy via:
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