Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Music Video of the Day: Don’t Let Go The Coat by the Who (1981, directed by John Crome)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Don’t Let Go The Coat is thought to be a tribute to Pete Townshend’s spiritual guru, Mehr Baba, who often told his followers to “hang fast to the hem of my robe.” Just as Mehr Baba told his followers to not lose sight of his teachings, the song’s lyrics seem to reflect Townshend’s struggle to remain true to his beliefs even when he’s feeling depressed and struggling with his demons.

The video is a performance clip, directed by John Crome. Crome also directed the video for The Who’s You Better You Bet. The video features Kenney Jones on drums. Jones joined the band after Keith Moon’s tragic death. Roger Daltrey has often said that The Who became a different band after the death of Moon and that none of the drummers that they brought in could duplicate Moon’s frenetic approach. As was often the case when it came to anything Daltrey said, Pete Townshend disagreed. Jones played with The Who until the band’s first break-up in 1983.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Shake That Thing by The Georgia Satellites (1990, directed by Bill Fishman)

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This is the Georgia Satellites song that is not Keep Your Hands To Yourself.

This video finds the band in New Orleans and dropping in on Kitten Natividad, the famed dancer and adult film star who is best known for the films she made with Russ Meyer. (She starred in both Up! and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Vixens.) Natividad is still alive and working, at the age of 73.

The Georgia Satellites released their last studio album in 1997, though the band is still apparently active, with guitarist Rick Richards as the last original member to still be with the group. Lead singer Dan Baird retired in 2019, saying on his website, “I won’t quit making music, but it’ll be in my basement, at my home, where I can walk my dog, go to the gym 4 times a week, shave on Friday and go to sleep with my sweetie beside me every night.” That sounds like the ideal retirement to me.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Armegeddon It by Def Leppard (1988, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The theme of this video seems to be that Def Leppard is the band that has fun onstage and off!

This footage for this video was shot over the course of two shows at McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado. Originally, the footage was going to be used for a future concert film but, when Armageddon It was released as a single, the band’s record label said that they needed a music video to accompany it and they needed it immediately. Since the band didn’t want to do another “concept video” (and really didn’t have time to come up with a concept in the first place), the Denver footage was hastily edited together.

The end result was that Armageddon It went on to the become the band’s fourth top ten hit in the United States.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Cambodia by Kim Wilde (1981, directed by Brian Grant)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Kim Wilde having Vietnam War flashbacks is not something you necessarily expect but that’s the concept behind the video for Cambodia and it worked well enough for the video to become an early success on MTV. It’s hard for me to watch this video without thinking about Martin Sheen tearing up his hotel room at the start of Apocalypse Now.

This video was directed by Brian Grant and it feels like a prequel to the video that he would direct, a year later, for Duran Duran’s Hungry Like The Wolf.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: It Hit Me Like A Hammer by Huey Lewis and the News (1991, directed by Nigel Dick)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Huey Lewis & the News were a band who epitomized the early to mid-80s and their music videos played a large part in MTV’s initial popularity. Unfortunately, by the time 1991 rolled around, the band and its style of music was being overshadowed by the growing popularity of both rap and grunge. It Hit Me Like A Hammer was the band’s final top 40 hit in the United States. One of the cool things about Huey Lewis and the News is that, in contrast to a lot of other bands trying to make the transition from the 80s to the 90s, they didn’t change their sound. Huey didn’t start trying to rap. The band didn’t start wearing flannel and covering the Pixies. Instead, they remained who they were, a rocking and unpretentious bar band who wrote songs for people looking to have a good time.

This video was directed by Nigel Dick, who is one of those music video directors who worked with everyone and who still works with everyone. At last count, he has directed over 500 videos.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Modern Love by David Bowie (1983, directed by Jim Yukich)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This video for Modern Love is probably as straight forward as you can expect any music video from David Bowie to be. Filmed during the Serious Moonlight Tour to support Let’s Dance, the video features Bowie and his band performing an encore at Philadelphia’s Spectrum Theater.

This video was directed by Jim Yukich, who did videos from everyone from Iron Maiden to Debbie Gibson to Phil Collins.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Demolition Man by Grace Jones (1982, directed by Jean-Paul Goude)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Demolition Man is a song that’s had a long history. It was first written in 1980 by Sting, while he was staying at Peter O’Toole’s home in Ireland. It was written for the Police but they never got around to recording it. In 1981, Grace Jones requested that Sting send her a song. Sting sent over the demo for Demolition Man and Grace Jones was then the first artist to release a recording of the song. It was only after the release of Grace Jones’s version that The Police released their own version and, of course, Sting has gone on to regularly perform the song as a solo artist. And, of course, the song reached a whole new level of popularity with the release of the Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes/Sandra Bullock action film of the same name.

The music video for Grace Jones’s version was shot during her One Man Show tour. The video was included on compilation that was released in 1982 to promote interest in Jones’s latest album, Living My Life. Like all of the videos shot during the tour, it was filmed at either London’s Drury Lane Theater or The Savoy Theater in New York City. The video was directed by Jean-Paul Goude, the French artist who was a long-time collaborator with Grace Jones and the father of her son, Paulo.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Low by Cracker (1993, directed by Carlos Grasso)

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For the record, Cracker lead singer David Lowery says that, despite the numerous drug references (junky cosmonaut, comes to mind), this song is not about drugs. He also says that the chorus is “like being stone” and not “like being stoned.” To be honest, the chorus makes more sense if Lowery was saying “like being stoned” but, in 1993, many radio stations wouldn’t play songs with blatant drug references so if Lowery says that he’s saying “like being stone,” I’ll take his word for it.

The video features Lowery getting outboxed by Sandra Bernhard. Director Carlos Grasso, at the time, said that the video was supposed to represent the battle between Lowery’s masculine and feminine sides. Grasso was also breaking up with his longtime girlfriend while directing the video so that undoubtedly played a role as well.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Goin’ By The Book by Johnny Cash (1990, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

One thing that I discovered this weekend is that there aren’t many good Easter songs out there. There’s even less good Easter music videos. I searched far and wide and most of the ones I found were either off the soundtrack of God’s Not Dead and from a Kirk Cameron film. I don’t think even the most religious of our readers want that.

So, I went with this song and video from Johnny Cash. Goin’ By The Book starts with a litany of bad things: pollution, riots, war, civil unrest. Cash goes on to sing that it’s all going to lead to the events discussed in the book of Revelations. Interestingly enough, it sounds like Cash could be describing all of the problems of the world today but this song was actually recorded 32 years ago, showing I guess that there have always been problems and people have always seen them as being evidence of the end times.

I’m not really a fan of most Christian music but Johnny Cash is the exception.

Enjoy!