I want to make an Adele comparison when I talk about Dido — not because of any kind of sonic similarity (the latter’s voice is more subtly arresting than powerhouse… not soft, but gentle), but rather in an effort to explain her initial impact. Dido was that big around the turn of the century when she released No Angel; pleasingly ubiquitous thanks to hits like “Thank You” and “Here With Me,” which dominated the radio, popped up on TV and in film, and on MTV, where videos for the two singles and Dido’s cameo in Eminem’s “Stan” video (which sampled “Thank You”) played in heavy rotation. This was, of course, a time when music videos served a more primary role in establishing the identity of a new star — a time before social media. Which is why it’s so weird that Dido introduced herself to American audiences with a sneaky two-part masterpiece about a lonely dead girl.
“What?”
Take this thought voyage with me. On the surface, these songs are gentle pop odes to exciting and intense feelings that all young lovers experience. “Here With Me” is about a young woman who wants nothing more than to be beside her lover, and “Thank You” is about a young woman recounting a great night out with her lover that was, apparently, so enjoyable that she doesn’t care that the rest of her life is crashing down around her. Both videos feature Dido walking through life without being noticed by construction workers, crew members on a video shoot, and her boyfriend. Is it a statement on how no one can see the depths of what she’s feeling or on how the outside world doesn’t matter? Perhaps, but it makes it seem as though Dido is a dead girl walking through existence, singing songs into the void of the afterlife about forever lost love. And that notion takes flight when you consider the lyrics of the songs and some of the shots in the videos.
Both videos feature Dido walking through life without being noticed. Is that a statement on how no one can see the depths of what she’s feeling, or on how the outside world doesn’t matter? Perhaps, but it makes it seem as though Dido is a dead girl walking through existence, singing songs into the void of the afterlife about forever lost love. And that notion takes flight when you consider the lyrics of the songs and some of the shots in the videos.
“Here With Me”
At the start, Dido awakes in a clean and somewhat sterile room and sings, “I didn’t hear you leave, I wonder how am I still here. I don’t want to move a thing, it might change my memory.”
She is disoriented and worried that if she moves (on) she’ll lose all memories of her lover. In the background, a clock flashes signifying that power had left the room at some point. Is this the afterlife?
“I won’t go, I won’t sleep. I can’t breathe until you’re resting here with me.”
She won’t “go” on to the next ethereal plane. She won’t “sleep,” meaning she will not rest in peace. Not until he is also “resting.” She is calling him to join her on the other side where, admittedly, she “can’t breathe.”
The moment when Dido leaves the room and it is revealed to be a set might indicate a want to convey that in life and in the afterlife, we are all on a stage as a part of God’s little puppet show. A stage that Dido walks off of through a crudely lit hallway in pursuit of her lover in the living world.
“I don’t want to call my friends, they might wake me from this dream.”
Is Dido worried that those loved ones who have passed before will shake her from this limbo-like state and take her to the next level without her lover?
Notice how Dido walks into traffic and how no cars stop or even react. It’s because she is a ghost and they cannot see her.
The most damning evidence comes when Dido enters the apartment and begins singing to her boyfriend, who is unstirred despite the noise. It’s worth noting that this scene echoes the entire premise of the grim original UK video where Dido watches her lover sleep within a sepia-toned realm that seems awfully purgatoryesque, before she climbs a ledge and later lays beside herself laying next to him. She then wakes (in the actual world) after, seemingly, having an out of body experience.
Clearly, in both videos, Dido is visiting her boyfriend with the knowledge that she cannot “be” until he’s resting (in peace) with her… or until she comes back from the dead thanks to him breathing smoke onto her in the UK original. In the U.S. version, though, there is no smoke. Theirs is a love so strong that she will remain a restless spirit, haunting him in the quiet until he is also dead. Unless, of course, she is evicted from this realm.
“Thank You”
In Dido’s second video, we see her in a house that feels out of place in the world. There, she hides from authorities of some kind — are these afterlife enforcers there to collect a stubborn soul who refuses to move on?
Listen to the lyrics. Dido’s character drank too much and her head is in pain. Is this some kind of tell as to how she died? She also says that she has “missed the bus” and that there will be “hell today” — is this some kind of comment on missing her chance to leave limbo in a timely manner and a reference to a literal hell that she is now going to? One without her now-distant love?
Dido knows that she is going, so she thanks her boyfriend for giving her “the best day” of her “life,” and she says that it was the best just to be with him.
Throughout all of this, movers pack up her stuff (a metaphor for her memories?) and throw them all away (a continuation of the metaphor, signifying that, as Dido feared in “Here With Me,” moving will change her memory) without acknowledging her existence. The authorities lead her out of her safe haven and we see her unique house get destroyed, much in the same way our bodies are destroyed when we die.
In the end, all Dido can keep as she journeys to the next phase of existence absent her love is a hairdryer… and I got nothing on what that signifies. Still, I think I got you like 99% of the way to the realization that, yes, Dido was dead in her first two music videos. How this impacts your acceptance and affection for those videos and Dido as an artist is up to you, but I for one am impressed by the well-hidden dark and sad undertones of two of 1999’s most darling love songs.
