Snoop D-O-double-G morphs into a Jah lion before our very eyes, with an 8-bit font for some reason, Tim McGraw channels his inner teenager, the Pet Shop Boys return with a momentous stream of Star Wars-scrolled goth-pop-isms and more in this week’s homage to these curious things called lyric videos. Until next week…

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – ‘We No Who U R

The ever-evolving indie chameleon Nick Cave drops the first single from the Aussie heart’s 15th record with the Bad Seeds, Push the Sky Away, with this meditative scroll of a telegram-ish vouyeurism, paralleling its haunting tree-and-bird-themed gospel with myriad pencil scratches, censor bars and date-stamps – personal, intimate, all around superb use of the medium:

The tree don’t know what the little bird brings
We go down with the dew in the morning

Snoop Lion – ‘Here Comes the King

So this is the second taste of Snoop’s new Jah life, from D-O-double-G to ‘Lion’. Rife with hilarious dub-reggea sentiments from killing an “army of haters,” and later smoking “’em with papers,” pushed along with an odd deeper womp into a dub bridge and 8-bit videogame text karaoke-ing it all, you can’t not say this is a comedic push, no? The dude makes porn videos, c’mon now:

One king, one faith, one religion
And if you hear me come and join the revolution

Tim McGraw – ‘One of Those Nights

Another sentimental heartland ballad aimed at all you coming-of-agers, because “someday you’ll be lookin’ back on your life at the memories,” and “this is gonna be one of those nights.” It’s actually kind of endearing, in a classically ‘murrican way. And the scrapbooky photos reach so hard for teenage heartstrings, the text flows in right under your cynical radar. We can picture plenty of these lines being reappriopriated in a hipster dive near you, especially this one:

She picks a song, you turn it up to 11
You say, do you wanna and she says hell yeah

Pet Shop Boys – ‘Memory of the Future

The 80s Casio-pop gods bring their should-padded stride into the future here with a single from their September drop of their 11th record, marrying a Star Wars universe lyric scroll with lines about the most hypnotic slice of madeleine cake every baked, that has a pretty profound effect on the song’s narrator:

Over and over again
I keep tasting that sweet madeleine
Looking back at my life now and then
Asking: If not later then when?

Ron Sexsmith – ‘Nowhere to Go’

The first taste from the pastoral Canadian singer-songwriter’s 13th effort, Forever Endeavour, sees the first lyric video we’ve come across that touts animated versions of its author’s own handwriting, which is all sorts of legit, as you watch them grain in and out of this french-horn lulled cathartic folkism about a downward spiral. Keep your head up, ya’ll:

All you see is the ground
When there’s nowhere to go but down