Video Premiere: Pony Hunt Sinks and Swims in Love on "Over You"

We can say it 100 times, but that still doesn’t make it true. Love doesn’t just disappear in the middle of the night: Our complex emotional chemistry requires we take time and effort, conscious thought and energy into feeling the strongest of feelings. That’s one of the things that makes break-ups so difficult: Love doesn’t end with the flick of a switch, and our connections live on despite a relationship’s end. Pony Hunt’s “Over You” is a bluesy, soulful and deceptive parade of denial and indulgence in love’s hypnotizing womb.

I got in my car and I drove fast and far
now I’m over you
The earth did shake as the thunderbirds mate
now I’m over you

Listen: “Over You” – Pony Hunt

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering the music video for “Over You,” the album opener from Pony Hunt’s 2016 debut album Heart Creek. “When I was a kid I had a cassette tape of 50s and 60s doo-wop that I listened to endlessly. I loved it,” reflects Oakland by-way-of Chicago blues-folk singer/songwriter Jessie Antonick, who performs under the name Pony Hunt. “I was attracted to the power of so many voices saturating the air with a feeling. Much like the doo-wop artists of that era, I often write about love. The perpetual need for musicians to write love songs is unavoidable and necessary.”

Heart Creak - Pony Hunt — Heart Creak – Pony Hunt

I look to the sky
oh yes I’m falling
why do we cry
for our love my darlin’

“Over You” couldn’t be more about love – or rather, the attempted end of love – if it tried. How many things are so powerful, that even in their supposed ending, we feel compelled to relate the depth of our experience? Love is one of those things that almost always sticks around a little bit longer; it’s a physical phenomenon, an unshakeable presence.

Directed, filmed and edited by Allen Myers, Pony Hunt’s “Over You” video finds a supposedly post-breakup protagonist lost in thought. Jessie Antonick lies back alone, contemplating life while stretched out on her paddle boat amongst blue-green ripples. We see her out with friends, singing songs, bicycle riding, enjoying life – at least, going through the motions. Yet at the end, she ends up where she began – this time, spending solitude against the back of her car. The beginning and end are the moments that one would otherwise be in their lover’s arms; instead, her thoughts keep her company.

As Pony Hunt reflects, “Love is a complex, ever-shifting experience that we can’t seem to grasp in a tangible way. It is perhaps the most relatable human experience; riding through everything and expressing all shades of emotional exchange. Within this process, we create subjective realities to suit our own prerogative. We all have emotional desires which we are so often unaware. Cozied alongside our desires is an inexplicable magic that no amount of poetic phasing can fully describe.”

I went far away and i knew that you’d stay
now I’m over you
Your love finally grew, my eyes swelled up too
and I’m over you

The song title for “Over You” is rather explicit about its intentions, but it doesn’t take long for one to realize Pony Hunt’s internal conflict. She professes in the chorus, “Why do we cry for our love, my darlin’?” in an outpouring of tenderness and longing. “Over You” “is an expansive grey area of love,” quips the artist. “The self deception, the little lies, the longing, the weightlessness, the confusion, the pride, the irony…It is make-believe and the most exact reality.”

Pony Hunt still 1

Pony Hunt still 3

Perhaps the most telling line comes in Pony Hunt’s final verse: Falling over her own words, she sings, “My heart is achin’ for love that keeps shakin’, baby I’m over you.” Perhaps the best takeaway from this song is that, simply put, the heart wants what it wants – love is tragically independent of thought, sense and logic, as we already knew.

Independently released in October of 2016, Heart Creak is a vulnerable jaunt through the singer/songwriter’s heart and mind. Today’s music video adds to the strength of that collection, bringing “Over You” to life in a poignantly classic fashion that reasserts the fact that, while she may be over the actor in question, she is not, in fact, over being in love.

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