'Angela' by The Lumineers is the fourth song in their very famous storyline, "The Ballad of Cleopatra", which contains songs from their album "Cleopatra" and follows the story of a taxi driver named Cleopatra (duh!). Though the names keep changing (here, Angela), the ballad follows the story of the same person, Cleopatra.
The video begins with Cleopatra, who is now a 35-year-old woman, pregnant with her husband’s child. She is unable to sleep and a part of her wants to go out to get some air and so, she steps out of her own body (something that has been happening from the very beginning) and stays. Yes, you heard it right, she finally does something for herself and instead of staying (the alternate reality), she leaves. Cleopatra goes out on a drive. Her own thoughts and feelings are mysteries to her. She keeps driving which indicates that she's afraid of commitment.
“But you held your course to some distant war, in the corners of your mind”
Being on the road is something that makes her feel safer and more comfortable than she ever was beside her husband. The first bridge is simply three words “Home at last” which is clearly a reference to Cleopatra going back home. Not the house in which she lived but the place/thing where her heart was. She goes back to the place, both physically and mentally, where she felt safe and felt like her true self. Our protagonist has finally quit running and goes back to the same motel room where she had stayed with her lover (in an alternate reality) hoping she would find him and most importantly, her older self.
She gets out of the car and starts dancing; she starts enjoying the moment and the place she is in. She is finally free; free to do what she wants. She wanted to be here (both, the motel and this mental place she is in right now) and now she is; she almost can’t believe that she made it.
She checks out of the motel the next morning, leaves her husband’s car there (suggesting that she left her husband), and gets into a taxi whose taxi-driver is (at this point, you should know who) a middle-aged Cleopatra. All it took was a little bit of courage to get out of that place, that town that she had lived in and wanted to escape all her life.
Fun fact: Did you notice that she has the same keychain, a cactus plant, that she had when she left town with her lover in an alternate reality?
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