Everybody happy as the dead come home! You’ll never get that chorus out of your head after listening to Nemesis.
Director Tony can den Ende has also done music videos for The Proclaimers, Meat Loaf, Melissa Etheridge, Joe Cocker, Thomas Dolby, Manic Street Preachers, and Guns N’ Roses.
Enjoy!
The dead! Are after me!
The 1986 film, Raiders of the Living Dead, features what may be the greatest song ever written about zombies. For your listening pleasure, here is George Edward Lott’s The Dead Are After Me!
This is one of Megadeth’s signature songs.
Even though this music video only features the band being interviewed and performing on stage, it was initially banned by MTV because it was felt that lyrics were promoting suicide. Actually, Dave Mustaine wrote the song after learning of the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. Mustaine was hurt that no one from the band called him personally to let him know, despite the fact that Mustaine had been one of the original members of Metallica. Mustaine has often spoken very candidly about how getting fired from Metallica inspired him to start Megadeth but it also left him feeling isolated and insecure.
This video was directed by Penelope Spheeris and features footage from her documentary, The Decline of Wester Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.
Enjoy!
There are several reasons why I love 1981’s Graduation Day. The lengthy roller rink scene in which Linnea Quigley is chased by the killer and a band named Felony enthusiastically performs Gangster Rock is a huge one.
Even if you did not already know it, you could probably guess who directed this video. Everything from the back lighting to the color filters to the fog machine to the leather jackets and the gang of shirtless body builders identifies this video as being the work of Joel Schumacher.
This video, which was filmed in Balboa, California, was made during Schumacher’s Lost Boys/Flatliners phase. His infamous Batman films were still several years away. INXS guitarist Kirk Pengilly has gone on record as disliking this video because he felt that, unlike the other videos that INXS was doing at the time, it was “too American.” He was probably right. The video’s mix of strippers, bikers, yuppies, and rent boys feels more appropriate for a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis short story than an INXS song. Even if it isn’t an ideal INXS video, Devil Inside is still probably one of the better entries in Joel Schumacher’s filmography. If I have to choose, I will always pick this video over watching Batman and Robin.
With the video’s help, Devil Inside was one of INXS’s most popular songs in America, reaching the number two spot on the Billboard Hot 100. By comparison, it peaked at #6 in the band’s native Australia and only reached #47 in the UK.
Today’s song of the day comes from the 1981 slasher classic, Graduation Day!
Just try not to sing along!
Everybody wants to be the winner….
I just know that someone’s going to be like, “Actually, Lisa, this is song isn’t about vampires, it’s about someone sucking the happiness out of life.”
Listen, I don’t care. It’s October. It’s horrorthon. The lead singer of Concrete Blonde says that she was inspired to write the song by Interview with a Vampire, which is something that’s very obvious when you watch the video. And today would have been Anne Rice’s birthday. For our purposes, it’s a vampire song.
Enjoy!
There’s a vampire living next door to J. Geils!
This song was recorded for the original Fright Night and, of course, the music video is full of clips from the film. It does a pretty good job of mixing scenes of the band with the film. I miss that days when music videos were often commercials for movies. I discovered some of my favorite movies through music videos.
This video was directed by Paul Justman. He also did videos for Deep Purple, Rick Springfield, Diana Ross, and The Cars.
Enjoy!
Today’s song of the day comes from the soundtrack of 1973’s The Wicker Man.
Composed by Paul Giovanni, Willow’s Song was based on several songs that screenwriter Anthony Shaffer claimed to have heard at various spring pagan festivals. Magnet, who is credited with performing the song, was a band of sessions players that were brought together specifically to record the film’s score. According to Giovanni, the woman singing was Rachel Verney and not, as some people claimed, jazz performer Annie Ross.
Today, we have the video for Radiohead’s Burn the Witch. Through the use of stop motion animation, Burn the Witch tells a disturbing little story, one that deals with an inspector who comes to a seemingly idyllic English village and who eventually ends up getting trapped in a wicker man. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen either the original Wicker Man or the remake starring Nicolas Cage. The video for Burn the Witch is actually a bit more positive than the film that inspired it. In the video, the inspector escapes at the end. Neither Edward Woodward nor Nic Cage were quite as lucky.
As for the song itself, it deals with the dangers of groupthink and blind obedience to authority. Since Radiohead’s music has always possessed a libertarian streak, that’s certainly not a shock. The video condemns not only those who would demand blind obedience but also on those who are foolish enough to give it. First released in 2016, this video easily predicted much of what would happen in 2020s, from the COVID hysteria on down.
Of course, with The Wicker Man theme, it’s also perfect for October!
Enjoy!
