Grab a tissue box, because Tyler Childers’ new song video is certain to make you cry.
The 32-year-old singer-songwriter released the video for his new single “In Your Love” on Thursday, and it’s an emotional deep dive that recounts the tale of two male coal miners who fell in love while working in Appalachia in the 1950s.
The duo is played by Colton Haynes and You’s James Scully in the video, which opens with Hayes’ character as an elderly man who is reminded of his past when he pauses to pick up a four-leaf clover while ploughing a field.
In flashbacks, Haynes and Scully fall in love at work and embark on secret dates in the forest, where they collect four-leaf clovers.
When a fellow miner exposes them as a couple and they are assaulted as a result, they leave town, forging a lovely life together full of dinner parties and romantic encounters. In one scene, they stop by a local pub to hear Childers perform with his band on stage.
Though their farm is flourishing, Scully’s character, who has been battling coughs, becomes sick with black lung, and their happily ever after is cut short when he dies in Haynes’ arms on a porch seat.
The film concludes with Haynes, now an elderly man, sitting on the same bench with a four-leaf clover in his hand. The actor described the video on Instagram as “one of my favourite projects I’ve ever been a part of.”
Silas House, the current Poet Laureate of Kentucky, Childers’ native state, wrote and creative directed the video. House and Jason Kyle Howard came up with the plot, while Bryan Schlam directed the video.
“I could never have imagined seeing myself in a video as a gay teenager who loved country music.” That visibility is important. “There have always been LGBTQ people in rural areas, and now we’re seeing that portrayed in a country music video,” said House in a statement. “Tyler and I both felt that paying attention to detail about rural life was very important, so we made sure that the house and the people looked realistic for the time period instead of the stereotypes of country people that have become so ingrained in the public consciousness.”
House noted that he and Childers used their own family photos as examples, taking care to depict the “joy and… sorrow” that both homosexual people and rural people feel.
“Too often, simplistic notions are pushed about both rural and LGBTQ people, so we did everything we could to make this story as rich and layered as possible,” he added.
The piano-driven “In Your Love” is the first single from Childers’ next album Rustin’ in the Rain, which will be released on September 8.
“This is a collection of songs I pieced together in a playful manner as if I were pitching a group of songs to Elvis,” he said in a statement. “Some covers, one co-write, and some I even wrote while working around the farm and kicking around the house in my best (terrible) Elvis impersonation.” I hope you had as much fun listening to this CD as I did making it. Thank you very much. Thank you a lot.”
The Food Stamps, a two-time Grammy nominee, are presently on tour.
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