Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Music Video of the Day: Down by the Water by PJ Harvey (1995, directed by Maria Mochnacz)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“It’s a song I didn’t want to put a label on too much, like this isn’t a song about some woman drowning her baby. To be quite honest, I don’t really know what it is for me, myself, yet – which I don’t mind because I’d much rather leave it for other people to do what they want with anyway.”

— PJ Harvey on Down By The Water

Despite the above quote, it is generally accepted that PJ Harvey’s Down By The Water is about a woman who drowned her baby and is now returning to the scene of the crime and asking for her baby to be returned.  According to Harvey, she has met both fans and critics who have assumed that the song must be autobiographical and that she’s singing about drowning her own child.

Speaking of drowning, that’s what came close to happening to PJ Harvey herself while she was shooting this video.  Made up to look like, as she herself put it, “Joan Crawford on acid,” Harvey was wearing a wig that proved to be so heavy that, when she went underwater, it was a struggle to resurface.

It proved to be worth the trouble, though.  The video was not only highly popular on MTV but it also helped to make a hit out of the song.  In fact, Down By The Water would prove to Harvey’s breakthrough hit in the United States.  Years after it’s initial release, the song continues to live on as a part of the soundtrack of countless investigative procedural crime dramas.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Magic by Mick Smiley (1984, directed by Greg Gold)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Magic is probably best known for being used in the original Ghostbusters.  It’s the song that plays while the ghosts are being released from Ghostbusters HQ and subsequently haunting New York.  It’s been said that composer Elmer Bernstein, who did the score for Ghostbusters, hated the way that Magic was used in the film.  Then again, Bernstein also hated the film’s Oscar-nominated theme song.

The video has nothing to do with ghosts but instead, it’s about the magic of attraction.  It was directed by Greg Gold, who also directed videos for Michael Bolton and the Hollies.  Far better known than the video’s director is the video’s cinematographer.  Dominic Sena would go on to direct several music videos before eventually branching into directing feature films like Kalifornia, Gone In 60 Seconds, Swordfish, and Season of the Witch.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Walking Away by Information Society (1988, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Information Society was formed, in Minneapolis, by Paul Robb in 1982.  Despite a small but devoted fan base, the band initially struggled to achieve mainstream success, which led to several lineup changes during the group’s early years.  It wouldn’t be until 1985 that Information Society would have their first minor hit and then it would be another three years before they released their two best known songs, What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy) and Walking Away.

According to Paul Robb, Walking Away was written while he was thinking about all of the people who had recently left the band.  In Robb’s own words, “So if you listen to the lyrics of ‘Walking Away,‘ it’s basically just someone complaining about people who left. That’s because that’s exactly what it is.”  Though Walking Away was not as big a hit as What’s On Your Mind, it still charted at #9 and there’s a good chance of hearing it played at any 80s night.

Just as Pure Energy sampled Leonard Nimoy, Walking Away opens with William Shatner saying, “It is useless to resist us.”  Leonard’s son, Adam Nimoy, was a huge fan of the band and was instrumental in winning the band permission to use the audio samples in their songs.

Enjoy!

 

Music Video of the Day: Shut Up by Madness (1981, directed by Chris Gabrin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this video, the members of Madness start off as crooks and then they become cops before becoming crooks again.  But regardless of which side of the law that the band finds itself on, they’re all always chasing after the band’s lead singer, Suggs.  What crime has Suggs committed?  It has something to do with cars and a black mask.

In the song, Suggs attempts to convince the police that he’s innocent, even though it’s obvious that he’s guilty.  Despite the song’s title, the words “Shut Up” are never heard.  Originally, the song was meant to have a verse that would be told from the point of view of the cop, singing about how chasing after petty criminals is keeping him from spending time with his family.  At the end of the song, the cop would order Suggs to “Shut up!”  However, that verse was ultimately dropped, leaving the request to shut up merely implied.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: It’s Gettin’ Late by The Beach Boys (1985, directed by Dominic Orlando)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Does this video have a good message or not?

It starts with a sexy beach babe making out with a skinny guy who is wearing glasses so that’s good.

But then the girl leaves with a bunch of stereotypical jocks and her boyfriend isn’t allowed to come because he has bad eyesight.  That’s bad.

Then the spirit of Big Kahuna shows up and the video takes a Cinderella turn when the Big Kahuna uses his kahuna powers to turn the nerd into a jock.  Is that good or not?  It depends on whether or not our hero learns a lesson about being himself at the end of the video.

Our hero then drops in on the beach party. where he discovers his girl sitting next to the main jock.  So, he reacts by flirting with all the other girls at the party.  That’s doubly bad.

Then the Big Kahuna shows up and turns the our hero back into his nerdy self.  All of the other girls run away but not his girlfriend because, it turns out, she loves him just the way he is.  That’s so good that it makes up for all the bad stuff that happened before.

But then the Big Kahuna punishes the shallow jocks by turning them into nerds, which would seem to indicate that, in this video’s moral universe, being nerdy is some sort of karmic retribution.  That’s bad.  But then everyone’s much happier after they’ve all turned nerdy so maybe that’s actually a good thing.

Having sent several mixes messages, the Big Kahuna throws away his magic shell and heads back to the ocean.  At least true love wins in the end.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: One Night In Bangkok by Murray Head (1985, directed by David G. Hilier)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

One Night in Bangkok was written, by Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Tim Rice for a musical called Chess.  Chess, which was meant to be a satire of the Cold War, tells the story of two chess champions, one an American and one a Russian.  One Night in Bangkok opens the second act as the American, who has now retired from playing professionally, is hired to provide commentary for a chess championship that is being held in Bangkok.  As is evident from the lyrics, he is not impressed by the city.  In fact, the American was so unimpressed by the city that the song was banned in Thailand and officially condemned by the Thai government.

The song was performed by actor Murray Head, who played the American in the Broadway production.  The single proved to be an unexpected hit, reaching number three in Canada and the U.S. and number twelve in the UK.  It’s gone on to have a long life outside of Broadway, being successfully covered by several different groups.

As of this writing, it’s still officially banned in Thailand.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: I Quit by Blotto (1983, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Just in time for Friday, today’s music video is all abut quitting your job.  This is the video that asks, “If Nixon could do it, why not you?”

I previously wrote about Blotto last year, when I shared their music video for I Wanna Be A Lifeguard.  Sadly, despite the success of Lifeguard, Blotto never really broke into the mainstream.  They did, however, have a strong cult following in the Northeast, especially among college students who appreciated their humorous lyrics and DIY style.  While this video never made it into the regular MTV rotation, it did show up on Canadian television.

One final note: at the time this video was released, Blotto was being managed by none other than actor Burt Ward, who was best known for playing Robin on the 60s Batman television show.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Mother 93 by Danzig (1993, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“Al Gore wanted to tell people what they could listen to and what they couldn’t…it was basically coming down to the idea that he wouldn’t let anybody record any music that he didn’t think you should be doing. There was going to be an organization that would tell you what you could and couldn’t record. And certainly if you couldn’t record it, you couldn’t put it out. It was really fascist.”

— Glenn Danzig, on the inspiration for Mother

There’s been a lot of debate about what Glenn Danzig is singing about in Mother.  Some people think that the song is supposed to be pro-Satanist, even though Danzig himself has said that he’s not a Satanist and is merely interested in the occult.  Others think that the song is sung from the point of view of a teenager who is warning his parents that he has decided to reject their values and embrace his evil side.

More likely, the song is exactly what Danzig has often said it is.  It was a song written to protest the 80s push by Tipper Gore’s Parents Music Resource Center to have the government step in and regulate music.  The “mother” that Danzig is singing to was probably Tipper herself.

The above video was the second one for Mother, hence why it’s called Mother ’93.  It features live footage of the band performing at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in California.  At around the same time this video was in rotation on MTV, Glenn Danzig was invited to audition for the role of Wolverine in one of the early attempts to make an X-Men film.  Danzig, who had the right look for the role, had to turn down the opportunity due to scheduling conflicts.

This video also inspired a classic line from Beavis and Butt-Head: “That little dance isn’t very cool.”

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Ride Like The Wind by Christopher Cross (1980, directed by Bruce Gowers)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Ride Like The Wind tells the story of an outlaw who has been convicted of multiple murders and condemned to hang.  He is now trying to outrun the posse and reach Mexico where, apparently, the posse would have no jurisdiction.  The plot sounds like something from the Doobie Brothers so it’s appropriate that Michael McDonald provides the backing vocals.

Christopher Cross wrote this song while on acid and traveling between Houston and Austin and it went on to become the lead single off of his debut album and one of his biggest hits.  Cross would later go on to win an Oscar for writing the theme song for Arthur but, by his own admission, neither Cross nor his music were a good fit for the network that came to dominate pop culture in the 80s, MTV.

Speaking of MTV, the video for Ride Like The Wind clearly comes from a time when music videos were viewed as being a novelty.  If the video had been made a few years later, it probably would have dramatized the song’s story.  Instead, like many early music videos, it’s just a performance clip.

As for Cross, he’s still recording and performing and Ride Like The Wind continues to be a soft rock staple.  It was most recently covered by Belgian DJ Laurent Wery.

Enjoy!

Film Review: An Innocent Man (1989, directed by Peter Yates)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Jimmie Rainwood (Tom Selleck) is an aeronautics engineer who, with the exception of once getting arrested for marijuana possession in college, has lived a clean and productive life.  Mike Parnell (David Rasche) is a corrupt narcotics detective with a raging coke habit.  When Parnell and his partner, Scalise (Richard Young), get a tip about a house where drugs are hidden, Parnell is so coked up that he gets the address wrong.  They end up breaking into Jimmie’s house and, when Jimmie steps out of the bathroom holding a hair dryer, Saclise shoots him.

Jimmie survives getting shot but that’s the least of his problems.  In order to cover up their mistake, Parnell and Scalise frame Jimmie.  They replace the hair dryer with a gun.  They plant drugs in Jimmie’s house.  Because of his previous marijuana conviction, no one believes Jimmie when he says he was set up.  Convicted of a crime that he didn’t commit, Jimmie is sentenced to six years in prison.  While his wife (Laila Robins) does everything that she can to get him released, Jimmie is preyed upon by the other prisoners.  His only friend is Virgil (F. Murray Abraham), a veteran prisoner who shows Jimmie that he’s going to have to do some terrible things to survive being in prison.

As he showed when he directed Bullitt, the late Peter Yates was a director who could make even the most conventional genre material feel fresh and that is what he did with An Innocent Man.  Made at a time when American leaders bragged about their devotion to the war on drugs, An Innocent Man is critical of both the police and a legal system that cares more about punishment than rehabilitation.  Even if the plot is predictable, the film is gritty enough to make an impression.  Jimmie is so victimized and Parnell and Scalise are so smug that, by the time Jimmie finally has a chance to orchestrate his revenge, you can’t wait to see the cops get what’s coming to them.

Part of the appeal of An Innocent Man is that it features actors who you normally would not expect to appear in a film like this.  Tom Selleck, best-known for playing upright authority figures, plays a frightened man who is forced to sacrifice his humanity to survive.  When the movie started, I was skeptical that Selleck could pull off the role but, by the end of the film, he had the thousand-yard stare of a man who had been to Hell and back.  Meanwhile, David Rasche, best known for his work in sitcoms, is more than convincing as the most corrupt narc around.  Best of all is F. Murray Abraham, playing the seasoned convict who knows how to get things done in prison.  When he tells Jimmie that he has to “take of care of this,” even if it means committing a real crime, you believe him.  By the end of An Innocent Man, nobody’s innocent anymore.