Exclusive Video Premiere: ‘Shine a Light,’ BANNERS

Early this year, Liverpool native Mike Nelson released “Ghosts” under the name Raines. In August, he returned with “Shine a Light” under a new moniker Banners. Here we are pleased to debut the powerful track’s live black-and-white video, in which Banners explores a more stripped down version of the song opposed to the string quartet heard in the original. 

“By playing a song live you’re giving it a new lease of life,” Nelson says. “When you’ve written a song that speaks to, and expresses, your emotions in the way that I try to write, that new lease of life is endlessly fascinating and exciting.”

“Shine a Light,” lyrically, explores being lost at sea and finding that one glimmer of hope that brings you through the storm. “It’s about asking for salvation, a ray of light in whatever form that may take,” Nelson continues. When writing the song, the musician was far from home and the people he loves. “There’s an odd juxtaposition that exists when you’re working on a project that you’re really excited about, yet feeling slightly lonely, slightly lost, and under a lot of pressure,” Nelson says. “It’s then that you feel the furthest from home, and I think deep down, that’s what the song is about.”

In the video, Nelson’s passion for the lyrics is evidenced through his body language, as if he truly were playing for an audience, not just in a studio. “When I try to picture the narrative of the song, I imagine a tony boat on a vast, restless ocean. I imagine the sailor is there because he set out to explore, and to better himself,” he explains. “There’s a bravery to that and there’s a bravery to making music, to sticking to your head about the parapet…I like that sailor and I like his little boat. I like that he tried and I like that he’ll always have hope. And that the storm will always clear.”

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