Jessie Reyez's 'Far Away' Video Depicts The Painful Reality Of Deportation

On first listen, Jessie Reyez's "Far Away" is a sweet, sentimental love song about being in a long-distance relationship. Yet pay close attention, and you'll notice the social and political tension brewing beneath the relaxing beat: "You're still a global away / And you're still waitin' for your papers / Been feeling like the government wants us to break up," she sings on the initial verse, before repeating to her partner, "I feel what you feel as soon as you're far away."


In the accompanying video, Reyez takes the song's potent message a step further by depicting the painful experience of losing a loved one to deportation. As Reyez dances alone, her partner appears looking tired and scared; in a flashback, we visualize him being seized in a ICE raid by gun-wielding officers. All of the while, TV screens show images of President Trump and of the border wall separating the U.S. And Mexico. The vid ends with a heartbreaking scene of Reyez embracing her lover indoor a metal cage, surrounded by other couples facing the same devastating implications of Trump's anti-immigration agenda.


The "Far Away" video, which premiered on Friday (October 4), will be airing while in during the day on mtvU and MTV Live. Meanwhile, Reyez has set up a website — jessiereyez.Com/faraway — with intelligence on corporations that protect immigrants' rights, like ACLU, Al Otro Lado, and The Florence Project.


In a statement posted to the website, Reyez wrote, "Attachment to someone is both something pretty and something painful. Imagine finally finding your house in another human being although they're stuck on the other side of this rock we're all on. You're left wanting nothing more than a hug -their hug- that simultaneously feels like pillow as well as a drug. Somehow any time whenever hurt, you hurt, as soon as they smile, you smile.


"This is love suspended in animation, before it's tainted by reality (because eventually all hearts break again) yet in this moment, neither of you are running from one another- it's only water and borders and God keeping you apart. Water and borders and God keeping you from residence. This is pre heart break; once both sets of lungs are still working and once you miss them and so they miss back- so you feel each other even once you're far away."