Category Archives: music video

Music Video of the Day: A Song for Donny Hathaway by The Whispers (1979, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

With this song, The Whispers paid tribute to the legendary soul singer Donny Hathaway, who was best-known for songs like “The Ghetto”, “This Christmas”, “Someday We’ll All Be Free”, and “Little Ghetto Boy” and for his collaborations with Roberta Flack. Tragically, Hathaway, who struggled with depression and who was diagnosed as being paranoid schizophrenic in 1971, committed suicide in 1979 but his music and influence lives on. The Whispers were one of the many groups to pay tribute to Hathaway after his death.

This video is a simple performance clip, as the majority of music videos were in the days before MTV.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Night and Day by U2 (1990, directed by Wim Wenders)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Since I’ve already shared the videos that were made for Annie Lennox’s and David Byrne’s contributions to the Red, Hot + Blue compilation album, it seems appropriate to share the best known cover and video to come out of that project. With Night and Day, U2 not only provide their own spin on Cole Porter’s best-known song but they also introduced the sound that would define them throughout the 90s. This was the first song of U2’s post-Joshua Tree era.

The video was directed by the German director, Wim Wenders. U2 would subsequently provide songs for Wenders’s Until The End Of The World and Far Away So Close. Bono would also produce and provide the story for The Million Dollar Hotel, one of Wenders’s less regarded films.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Don’t Fence Me In by David Byrne (1990, directed by David Byrne)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This cover of Cole Porter’s Don’t Fence Me In appeared on Red Hot + Blue, the same compilation album that featured Annie Lennox’s cover of Ev’Ry Time We Say Goodbye. Along with singing the song in his own unforgettable style, Byrne also directed the music video that was used to promote it. Byrne’s cover and the video both turn Porter’s song into an anthem of tolerance and liberation.

Of course, before Byrne covered the song, Don’t Fence Me In was made famous by one of the original singing cowboys, Roy Rogers. Rogers appears in archival footage throughout this video. The song itself was originally written ten years before Rogers first sang it in the 1944 film, Hollywood Canteen. Porter originally wrote the song from a never-produced western that was going to be called Adios Argentina. Porter based the lyrics on a poem that was written by Montana engineer Robert Fletcher. Fletcher was originally only paid $250 for his contribution to Don’t Fence Me In. A decade later, after Rogers made the song a hit, Fletcher was able to negotiate with Porter’s estate to get a co-writer credit and to also collect royalties on the song.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye by Annie Lennox (1990, directed by Ed Lachman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Annie Lennox sings Cole Porter!

Actually, Annie Lennox wasn’t the only rock star singing Cole Porter in 1990. She was one of 20 artists to appear on the compilation album, Red Hot + Blue. The album was the first to be put together by the Red Hot Organization and the money made from it was donated to the battle against AIDS.

Cole Porter originally wrote the song in 1944. The song, which quickly became a jazz standard, is sung from the point of view of someone who is happy when they are with their lover but who, at the same time, is heartbroken when they’re separated. Lennox used her cover of the song to pay tribute to the filmmaker Derek Jarman, who would die of AIDS-related illness in 1994. In fact, Jarman was originally meant to direct the video but, when he became too ill, he was replaced by Ed Lachman. The home movies that appear in the video are of Jarman as a child.

Music Video of the Day: The Drowned Girl by David Bowie (1982, directed by David Mallet)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I was surprised to discover this when I went searching for David Bowie music videos. This is a video that Bowie did for his version of Kurt Weill’s The Drowned Girl. This was included as a part of the Baal EP, which was released to coincide with Bowie appearing in a BBC production of the Bertolt Brecht’s play of the same name. The play is about an irresponsible womanizer whose actions lead to all sorts of tragedy. In The Drowned Girl, the play’s main character (played, of course, by Bowie) sings about a former lover who committed suicide after her left her.

This video was directed by David Mallet and was filmed at the same time as the video for Bowie’s version of Wild Is The Wind. This video was apparently shot in Berlin and the black backdrop and stark lighting was meant to reflect the style of Bowie’s Isolar-1976 Tour.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: The Darkness That You Fear (HAAi Remix) by The Chemical Brothers (2021, dir by RUFFMercy)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Another version of this song and this video (also directed by Ruffmercy) can be found here.

It’s always a good day for something from The Chemical Brothers.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: It’s All Happening by Saint Motel (2021, created by A/J Jackson and Mario Contini)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s happening!

Seriously, any new music video from Saint Motel is cause for celebration. This is the first video to be released for The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Part Three and it would appear to involve A/J being stalked by an intergalactic admirer.

Along with A/J being chased by the UFO, be sure to keep an eye out for Dak driving a taxi and Greg and Aaron as two drunken revelers walking down the sidewalk.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Addicted to Love by Tina Turner (1988, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Since I shared the video of Kim Gordon’s cover of this Robert Palmer song yesterday, it only seem right to now share Tina Turner’s version. Kim did her video at a make-your-own-video booth in Macy’s. Tina did her version before a sell-out crowd in Europe. I like both versions.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Addicted to Love by Ciccone Youth (1988, directed by Kim Gordon)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Yes, this is a cover of the Robert Palmer song that, for many, epitomizes the 80s. The music video for Ciccone Youth’s version probably cost considerably less than the video for the original Palmer version. Back in the 80s, stores often had booths where, for $19.99, you could stand in front of a blue screen and lip sync along to a song while images were projected behind you. This video was shot at Macy’s. Palmer performed his song with a group of models playing his backup band. Kim Gordon performed the song in front of what appeared to be a documentary about the war in Vietnam. As for Gordon’s vocals, they were recorded in a karaoke booth.

Ciccone Youth was a side project of Sonic Youth members Steve Shelley, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, featuring contributions from Minutemen/Firehose member Mike Watt and J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. They released one album in 1988, The Whitey Album. Ciccone Youth were not the only artist to cover Addicted to Love in 1988. Tina Turner was doing the same thing and she even released her own video of the song at roughly the same time that Kim Gordon was dancing at Macy’s.

Enjoy!