Chappell Roan uses quarantine to her advantage in her new music video for California. By using internal spaces, empty streets, and simply but deliberate backdrops, the video complements the significance of the song that longs for an escape.

Chappell Roan and Ethan Seneker set a vintage, nostalgic tone with the use of grainy footage, ‘80s wardrobe, and a gold tinsel foil backdrop, which immediately establishes a sense of familiarity.

As the lyrics describe a sensation of entrapment, the current context of the video enhances the sentiment of an enclosed space, a solitary girl who is trapped in the same surroundings - although beautiful, wide expanses of nature, there is still a feeling of being stuck.

California is simple and gentle, from a single perspective with no other interaction. Roan feels through old photo albums and dreams of a days gone by, setting the tone for her album of the same name, California.