Thursday, July 10, 2025

Ovié Étseyatsé and Ryan Dolan | Fall to the Floor / 2014 [music video]

wanting it all

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ryan Dolan and Wez Devine (lyrics and music), Ovié Étseyatsé (director) Fall to the Floor / 2014 [4.15 minutes] [music video]

 


In the very same year when Eurovision star, pop singer Ryan Dolan came out publicly as gay, he released the single Fall to the Floor.

     In this 2014 recording, the Irish performer Dolan combines what is basically a song of sensation—the chorus repeats his emotional response,

 

But I fall to the floor

When you walk through that door

I fall down, I fall down

I fall to the floor

When you draw your sword

I fall down, I fall down

I fall down—

 

which he combines with a narrative of breaking up, requiring him to show us the departing lover, and admit some of the vague reasons for his lover’s return of the ring, packing up his bags, and leaving.


You say I'm dreaming

And that's why you're leaving

To want it all, is that so bad?

And now we're both hurting

Because we know it's not working

As we watch the curtain fall

We see the writing on the wall



One life one chance, one bad romance

It makes this easy

You can walk away

Now you've had your say

Go and grab your things

Throw away that ring

I don't want this any more

     Overpowered by his emotions, Dolan goes rushing after the car which carries away is lover (performed by Elijah Rowen), and for a moment it appears as if the escaping partner may stop, allowing a sort of reversal of what the chorus intones. But in the end, the narrative wins out as the car speeds away with Dolan now a long distance in the rearview mirror.


      Since 2019, Dolan appears to have dropped out of the music scene; he now runs a pub in County Tyrone.

 

Los Angeles, July 10, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2025).

 

 

 

 

 

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