Behind The Tracks: CENSUS - Sunbeam (Single) (2020)

Ben Carey (vocals for Census): “Sunbeam” is about a girl who deals with sexual abuse and battles depression and mental manipulation from her current partner. I wrote this song for a friend of mine after hearing about how she went through some of the same experiences. We decided to make sexual abuse the main topic of the music video because, especially in 2020, it is becoming increasingly more clear how common sexual assault is, and we wanted to use this song and story to bring awareness to that. It’s a hard thing for people to talk about, and honestly, it’s a hard music video to watch at parts, but it’s a real issue. We think it’s important to acknowledge it, rather than pretend it doesn’t exist.

We shot the video with our good friend Joe Lane at Anointed Media, who also shot and edited our “Hydrangea” music video earlier this year. It was actually Joe’s idea to make sexual assault the main focus for the video after I showed him the lyrics. I thought it was such a crazy coincidence that he pitched it to us that way because over the past year or so, sexual assault has been an issue I’ve become much more aware of and wanted to write about. I thought this music video would be the perfect opportunity to bring awareness to such a heartbreaking, yet extremely common, problem. The song and video will be released on August 14th, and we would be so thankful if you took the time to listen and watch. You can pre-save the song on Spotify, iTunes, or Google Play through this link: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/census/sunbeam-3