Eternity

"Eternity" is a single by jazz singer Riley Brendan, and a cover of an album track by American singer-songwriter Matt Morris. It is the fourth single released from Riley's debut album "Days Go By" The single was released on May 9th, 2011, and is Riley's fourth consecutive top 10 hit, debuting at #6 and holding there for two weeks. The single is known for its music video which had a major budget, and featured scenes shot in Jerusalem to go with the song's heavy biblical themes.

Background
"Eternity" was written by American singer-songwriter Matt Morris, and originally included on his album "When Everything Breaks Open". Riley chose to cover the song not because of his religious background (Riley himself does not identify as Christian) but because of the strength of its lyrics and melody. A radio-length edit of the song was prepared in 2010, in anticipation of the single's release, as mentioned by Riley when he was interviewed on the 2010 Christmas Chart show, at which he performed. Following the top 5 success of "Excuse You", Riley announced "Eternity" as the next single, meeting Blacklight's condition that he release a tour edition of his album to support his UK tour.

Reception
At the time upon which "Eternity" was revealed, there was somewhat of a minor controversy regarding religion in music, of which "Eternity" was caught in a spot of bad timing. The song was moderately received though, and for the first time UK radio stations took notice of Riley, because the song blew up on radio after no radio presence to speak of. The single's music video drove the popularity of the single, featuring Riley as an immortal man living through several ages. The video had an extensive budget to cover multiple elaborate sets and several period costumes, coupled with heavy special effects. There was controversy when Riley was accused of using religion to sell his music; Riley denied ever claiming to be Christian, and that there was no ploy to exploit religion for sales. Despite this, Christian shops declined from stocking the single, which may be a factor in the single selling a little less than Blacklight desired. All things considered, the single still resonated well enough with the public when it held at its debut position for two consecutive weeks.

Music Video
We see a black screen, and we hear desert winds. As the long instrumental intro of the album version creeps in, the scene fades in to show the Judean desert. We see long distance shots of a man wearing a long flowing cape traipsing across the sand, with the wind making his cape billow behind him. From this distance, we cannot clearly make out his face to see who it is. As the drums of the song kick in, we finally get a close-up shot of the man’s boots. The camera pans up, and the man’s outfit morphs into a modern-day suit and coat. When it reaches the man’s face, we see that it’s Riley. He smiles at the camera and just as the vocals come in, sand blows across the screen to reveal a new scene once it clears. We’re transported back to France in the 1700’s, where we pan down to see Riley in a period-appropriate outfit, sitting in a boat on a lake with a female companion. He appears to be attempting to seduce her as they drift past the other boats on the lake. It seems to be working, because the woman takes Riley back to her home. They begin kissing and undressing each other; Riley lays his companion down in front of the fire as they embrace.

Riley and his companion are startled by a third presence in the room, who lights a nearby lamp to draw their attention. It turns out Riley’s companion has a husband who has just caught her as she was getting to the act. The two would-be lovers are up quickly, and Riley is thrown a sword by the woman’s husband. The duo have a duel right there in the middle of the room, with the woman rushing about the room to keep out of harm’s way. At one point, the woman’s husband seems to get the upper hand, knocking Riley’s sword from his grip and starting to deliver a damaging blow to Riley’s unclothed torso. The video cuts away before we can see if any harm befell Riley; we cut back to the scene from before of him in the desert. He sings to the camera as desert winds blow behind him. Colour creeps into the frame throughout the chorus, so that by the time he reaches the end of it and gets to the instrumental bridge before the second verse, the video has gone from black and white to full colour. During this whole segment, intercut with Riley’s performance shots are many landscape shots of the desert, and of the city of Jerusalem itself. Leading into the next verse, sand once again blows across the screen in order to transition to the next scene.

The new scene shows a scene from Civil War era America. We see a different-looking Riley (with shoulder-length hair and thick facial hair) sitting at a campfire with a male companion. They appear to be gearing up for something. We see a man walking down a country road, coming to a place where some rich wedding party is being prepared, with waiters and servants setting up tables and decorations. There is trouble though, as we see a horde of bandits charging toward this place. Riley is the one leading the charge. We see the wedding in progress, with the patrons oblivious to the danger about to befall them. Riley’s horde storm the wedding, frightening guests who go fleeing everywhere. We see people kicking down doors, smashing through windows and destroying the outdoors wedding setting. We see the house being set on fire, with horse-drawn carriages containing party-goers fleeing from the scene as the horses are spooked. The police arrive amidst all the chaos. We see them all showing up in force on their horses while the bandits attempt to make a break for it. We follow Riley as he tries to flee on foot, but one police officer has a clear shot and lifts his gun. We don’t see whether the shot hits Riley or not, as we instead cut away back to the desert.

We see Riley again standing in the desert as he sings the chorus again. This is intercut with more landscape shots of the Judean desert. When we get to the bridge, sand once again covers the screen and takes us to a new scene, now set in the present day. We see Riley walking up the stairs from an underground subway train platform. The world around him seems run down and messy, with hardly any people around as he wanders through the streets. Riley enters some sort of club, where all the people are gathered. He makes his way through the crowd trying to get to a door on the other side of the room. Once he is through and away from people, he pulls out the gun he’s kept hidden inside his coat. He is being followed though, and he knows it – he hides as a sniper tries to track his movements. Riley nearly makes a getaway off the roof of the building – until the sniper finally catches wind of his position and begins firing upon Riley, who loses his footing while shooting back at the sniper, slipping and falling multiple storeys to what is presumably his death.

Riley is about to hit the ground, but right on the last line of the bridge (‘turn your eyes to God’), the screen flashes white, and it fades back into the desert scene with Riley singing the song for the camera. During this quiet interlude leading up to the final chorus, we flash back to the previous scenes from the video – pre-Revolutionary France, the American Civil War, and then the Modern Day – and we learn that Riley survived every single thing that should have killed him in each scenario. French Riley was further beaten and injured, and locked up in a dungeon, continually bleeding but never dying. Civil War Riley’s body was left as the fire blazed long into the night; his body caught on fire but we see him walking out of the fire while in flames, and unaffected. Present-day Riley picks himself off from the ground where he lands, and with some effort pushes all of his dislocated bones back into place before walking off, wincing from the pain. He walks slowly past an abandoned van. We’re taken via sand-across-the-screen effect back to the Riley in the desert, who winks at the camera at his numerous ‘deaths’ through the ages.

This leads us now to the next ‘age’ for Riley, as the sand once again blows across the screen transitioning to a space station about 50 years into the future. A ship is departing, and inside the ship we see that Riley is one of the crew members – still alive and kicking after centuries have gone by. We see the ship travelling and landing on Mars; there are plenty of shots of the red desert landscape. Not all is well between the crew however; we see a quick-cut progression of months, and Riley is at odds with one of the other crew members. They fight, and Riley’s helmet is damaged, letting out his oxygen and letting in the unbreathable Martian atmosphere. As Riley lays ‘dying’ from lack of oxygen, the scene fades back to the Judean desert, which is empty and Riley is gone. The video fades to black as the last of the outro fades out.

Chart Performance
"Eternity" debuted at #6 and held that position for two weeks, and it just missed silver certification. It is Riley's second-highest selling single in the UK. It is Riley's biggest digital hit, peaking very high on the digital chart on the week of release. It is also Riley's only UK airplay hit, charting in the top 5. America did not take well to the single choice, so it was not released in the US; instead, America received "Be Good To Me" as the third single in its place.

Chart Run
TOTAL: 122,244
 * Week 1: #6 - 47,081
 * Week 2: #6 - 35,561
 * Week 3: #14 - 20,675
 * Week 4: #23 - 12,889
 * Week 5: #35 - 6,038