Music Video Relapse: "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here" (2008) by She & Him

It's a well-established fact that Zooey Deschanel is America's main exporter of charm. She charming things up in your movies (even your Christmas movies), your TV Shows, and even in your commercials. Additionally, ever since she and M Ward met on the set of the 2007 film The Go-Getter, she is in your music, having released three albums under the name She & Him, mostly made up of songs Zooey D wrote herself.

These albums have given Zooey D a few chances to get in the music video game (most recently with her self-directed video for "I Could've Been Your Girl"), so today we're watching version one of her first ever music video, "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here" from 2008, directed by Ace Norton.

There are, as is the thing to do, two videos made for this song. The second, directed by Marc Webb, ties in with (500) Days Of Summer and includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  It's a great video, it's just not the one we're watching today, okay? Jesus.

The video features a combination of live action and animation, starting off with Zooey D falling off a giant "why" sign and ending up dead in a pool of her own blood. M Ward comes over with a guitar and looks as Zooey as if to say "hey why'd you die, come on". M Ward is, of course, an amazing actor. What follows is a mix of a Zooey D dress up party, cartoon blood and violence, and a lot of camera mugging.

The great thing about this video is just how many weird things Ace Norton managed to pack in here, not least of which is the styling of our star, Zooey D. Her initial image is eerily similar to a 1970s/1980s first communion portrait, complete with a hazy backlight and awkward smile. It's a Zooey D fashion show for the rest of the video, featuring a cowboy outfit, and even a wedding dress. If I knew anything about fashion this is where I'd tell you that it's very 2008.

A few other things mark this as one of the oddest Zooey Deschanel vehicles out there, including a dead, bleeding Zoey D on top of a piano, and cartoon vultures descending on her body and the end of the video. It gets pretty morbid. I'm not even going to mention the angles playing recorders. Okay, I will. The angels are playing recorders and I'm pretty sure you can see one of the angel's underwear at one point.

While the Marc Webb version has some fun dancing, the Ace Norton version just feels like it fits the Volume 1 album aesthetics a little more for me. Considering she would one day go on to star in her own iPhone commercial, this video serves as a pretty interesting mid-career Zooey Deschanel moment. It features her mugging her way through cartoon death, blood, and violence, which is maybe why shortly after that she felt like she needed to make an entirely new made up of her and Jospeh Gordon-Levitt dancin' and goofin'. We're totally cool with the version of Zooey D who decapitates her own fashionable clones, however.