https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnNWUUZ7cEA

I am not going to talk about the background of the song or album. There’s a reason I usually stay away from behind-the-scenes stuff, and stick with the finished product. It’s a great song–end of story for me on that matter.

The music video is cheesy fun. It’s Ozzy Osbourne going around like he’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Wolf with the occasional cutaway to band members. It was partially filmed at an actual sanatorium. That sanatorium being Holloway Sanatorium.

My favorite thing I found on this music video was that in at least two places online they bring up that this was early on for music videos, which is why it looks the way it does. Not true. They had been around for a lot longer prior to 1983 in the modern form. Abba did a music video for Waterloo in 1974 and many more throughout the 1970s. You can go back even further to the 1960’s music video for Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles. The same year as Bark At The Moon, we had stuff like Shooting Shark and Love Is A Battlefield that are a far cry from this music video.

I think it looks the way it does because it was directed by Mike Mansfield who also brought us Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant. If you look at several of the music videos that he did for Adam Ant around the time, then you’ll notice they have this stagey/theatrical look about them. I’m willing to bet they hired him because the people involved liked the style Mansfield was using in the Adam Ant/Adam & The Ants music videos that not only look the same as this one, but were mostly made in the years right before 1983. The best example to look at is Stand And Deliver that was done in 1981. In fact, you can look several other artists he did music videos for at the time such as Charlotte Sometimes by The Cure and Love Blonde by Kim Wilde to see the same kind of style.

Enjoy!