Meaning of Spice Girls’ Viva Forever video

Those who were born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s would definitely know this song, Viva Forever by the Spice Girls, very well. Personally, I think it’s probably the best pop boy/girl band song ever to date. It’s very well written, produced and the Girls sang very convincingly. Compared to the mainstream music we hear on radio today, this song wins all by miles. Very emotional piece indeed.

Some didn’t understand the song, some didn’t bother to, and many presumed that the song is a farewell to Geri Halliwell just because it was released right after her departure from the group. Some of those who seen the music video back then were a little spooked out. Not surprising if you were a girl aged 10-13 because it is quite a strange video, but a brilliant one. I can watch it now and still feel the warmth and the sadness. Mostly caused by nostalgia, perhaps. But the song itself is timeless to me.

Here I am gonna share my personal interpretation of Viva Forever’s music video. Let’s first watch the video again to refresh your memory. Maybe if you watched it again, you’d have a better understanding to it now.

When I seen it back then when I was a kid, I literally thought it was a stupid boring video ’cause it didn’t make any sense to me at all. Heck, I didn’t even know what stop motion means back then. Yes, the special effects is probably a little dated now but the metaphors and the cinematography can still be highly appreciated.

So now, let’s over analyse the Viva Forever music video (laughs). Apparently, the Baby Spice, Emma Bunton, said this – “We always wanted to do something a little bit different for the video. It’s a bit hard to explain, but its about two boys who go into a forest where they find something and lose something too. There’s a sense that what they’re losing is their innocence, somehow. they learn something in the forest which means that they’ll always see things differently afterwards. It’s a bit weird really.” Wow, after all these years, I thought that boy was a girl.

Well, it does seem that Bunton’s explanation may be spot on. It starts with a book being opened and entered and ends with the book being closed. That could represent a personal journal or diary. The first 22 seconds show the two boys running in the field. It basically represents childhood friendships. The boys then find a mysterious gigantic mini-toy capsule, which opens by itself and runs away into the forest. They follow it and find another capsule. The younger boy runs off scared while the other stays. These few scenes basically means that childhood friends have fun journeys together, find common interests and pursue it together until they’re grown up and are parted by either age gap or other differences. It’s like when someone turns 18 and is now legal to drink, smoke and have sex while the younger friend has to find something else to do.

Before the second capsule opens up where the Spice Girl fairies appear, the toy chicken screams at them with an angry expression and disappears. This could represent a warning of some kind in life where you either take it or leave it. The fairies whisper things to the boy, give him a kiss and so on. Basically things that you’d never experience until you’ve made new friends when you’re older. The boy is then led into a Rubik Cube. The younger boy comes back and find that his friend is forever lost inside the puzzle toy. He plays around with it, puts into a capsule, throws it into the vending machine and that’s the end of the music video. This one is a little tricky to figure out. It could possibly be about the things you keep that has a sentimental value. That thing, most likely a toy, takes you back to your childhood and gives you the moment where you remember the friend you used to play with back then. After that, like what I do, I’d put it back to where I keep my junks.

Well, I hope this entry explains it all. The meaning behind it can relate to almost anyone, I believe, and that’s just brilliant. In case you wonder, the song is not lyrically related to the music video at all. Leave a comment down here if you wish to read a Lyric Analysis on the song as well.

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