Category Archives: music video

Music Video Of The Day: Crackerbox Palace by George Harrison (1976, directed by Eric Idle)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Yes, this video was directed by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame.  Idle appears in the video, as does Neil Innes.  (Innes plays several roles, including the woman pushing the carriage at the start of the video.)  This video was shot on the grounds of Harrison’s estate, Friar Park (which was also known as, you guessed it, Crackerbox Palace).  The video made its debut on the November 20th, 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live.  SNL, that week, was hosted by Paul Simon and featured both Simon and Harrison as the musical guests.

The name Crackerbox Palace was originally used as the name for the Los Angeles estate that was owned by Lord Buckley, a comedian who was admired by Harrison and whom it was felt that Harrison physically resembled.  Harrison wrote the song after meeting Lord Buckley’s former manager, George Grief.  Harrison also payed homage to Blazing Saddles in the song, repeating Madeline Khan’s famous line of “It’s twoo, it’s twoo” during the instrumental breaks.

This whimsical video reflects Harrison’s sense of humor (not to mention Idle’s).  Harrison, with his reputation for being the spiritual Beatle, never seems to get enough attention for his sense of humor.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: Tommy Gun by The Clash (1978, directed by Don Letts)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“I was saying us rock ‘n’ rollers are all posers and egomaniacs, but we know that terrorists are as bad, or worse than we are. They definitely love to read their own press… I know they dedicate their life to a cause, but they’re always posing for pictures.”

— Joe Strummer, on Tommy Gun

It’s always hard for me to listen to The Clash without also thinking about the way that Johnny Lydon dismissed them as not being a real punk band.  (Lydon was fond of pointing out that Strummer was a diplomat’s son and that he had previously been in a “pub band” before getting involved with punk scene.)  Johnny may have had a point about The Clash never really being as working class as they claimed to be, though that didn’t stop him from collaborating with members of the band on a few projects after The Clash broke up.  Still, I’ve always liked The Clash’s music.

Tommy Gun was the band’s take on international terrorism.  When it was first released, there was some controversy over whether the band was pro-terrorism or anti-terrorism.  As with many of The Clash’s songs, it could be read both ways.  It was The Clash’s first top twenty hit in the UK, peaking at #19.

This video was one of the first of many to be directed by Don Letts.  Some sources say that this was the first video that Letts shot for the band, though Lett’s video for The Clash’s White Riot was actually released before the video for Tommy Gun.  I don’t know how true that is but I do know that Letts went on to direct several videos for both The Clash and Mick Jones’s Big Audio Dynamite.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Maybe Tomorrow Maybe Tonight by Earth and Fire (1973, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

For today’s music video of the day, we have another song from the Dutch progressive band, Earth and Fire. I wrote a little about the history of Earth and Fire yesterday.

This is off of their third album, Atlantis.  From what I can tell, Maybe Tomorrow Maybe Tonight was the only single released off of Atlantis.  It was a hit for the band, breaking into the top ten in both their native Netherlands and in Belgium.  It only reached the 44th position in the German charts.  Who knows why.

This video, like the majority of the music videos from the 70s, is a performance clip.  Apparently, it was originally filmed for a Dutch television show.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Just Can’t Get Enough by Depeche Mode (1981, directed by Clive Richardson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Just Can’t Get Enough is about as upbeat of a song as you are ever going to get from Depeche Mode.  That has a lot to do with the fact that it was written by Vince Clarke, who was a founding member of the band and who was considered to be the band’s leader until he left in November of 1981.  While Clarke went on to become best known as a member of Erasure, Depeche Mode went in a harder, less pop-orientated direction, with Martin Gore eventually taking over Clarke’s role as the band’s main songwriter.

Just Can’t Get Enough was the third single from Depeche Mood’s debut album, Speak & Spell.  The song was written as the punk scene was winding down and London club kids were looking for new music that wasn’t quite as aggressive and self-destructive.  Just Can’t Get Enough was the first Depeche Mode song to become a top ten hit in the UK.

The video, which was directed by Clive Richardson, was the band’s first and it remains the only Depeche Mode video to feature Vince Clarke.  The outdoor scenes were filmed at the Southbank Centre in London.  Though the video did occasionally air on MTV, it wasn’t placed in the station’s regular rotation.  In fact, MTV didn’t really embrace Depeche Mode’s videos until the release of Personal Jesus in 1989.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: If You Leave by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1986, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The year was 1986 and director John Hughes had a problem.

Test screenings for his latest film, Pretty in Pink, indicated that his target teen audience loved the film up until the final scene, which featured Molly Ringwald going to prom with her geeky best friend, Jon Cryer.  Audiences booed when they saw Ringwald dancing with Cryer instead of with Andrew McCarthy.  Realizing that he would have to refilm that entire final scene in order to give the audience what they wanted, Hughes also realized that he would need a new song to fit the mood.

As OMD’s Andy McCluskey later told Songfacts:

“We were delighted to be asked by John, and went to the set where Molly and John Cryer were shooting. Unfortunately, the original song that we wrote didn’t fit after they changed the whole ending. We had 2 days to write a new track at Larabee Studios in L.A. We worked until 4 a.m. writing a rough version and sent a motorbike to Paramount. John heard it, liked it, and our manager phoned us at 8 a.m. and told us to go back in and mix it. That’s how ‘If You Leave’ Happened! The song had to be 120 BPM cos that’s the tempo of ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me),‘ which is the track they actually shot the prom scene to. Unfortunately, the editor obviously had no sense of rhythm because they are all dancing out of time in the final film.”

The popularity of Pretty in Pink led to If You Leave becoming OMD’s biggest hit in the United States.  As a band, OMD was always more popular in the UK than in the US.  Interestingly enough, just as none of OMD’s UK hits were big in the U.S., If You Leave was not a hit in the UK.

The video is typically 80s, made up of footage of the band performing intercut with a few scenes from Pretty In Pink.  About halfway through the video, the lead singer starts to knock out pieces of a pink wall, as if they’re showing Roger Walters that tearing down a wall isn’t anywhere near as difficult as he made it sound.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Counting Blue Cars by Dishwalla (1996, directed by Chris Applebaum)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“It was a conversation between myself and the child within myself, but it was sparked by having a conversation with someone who was really young and around that time thought about God and those kinds of things, and just being really curious about it but hadn’t been taught to think a specific way. I just loved the innocence and honesty of having that conversation with someone who didn’t care either way how you would describe this or that – they were just curious.”

— Dishwalla’s JR Richards on Counting Blue Cars

If you were, for some reason, challenged to come up with the epitome of a generic 90s alternative band, that band would probably look a lot like Dishwalla and the song that they sang would probably sound a lot like Counting Blue Cars.  That doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily bad song.  It just means that both the band and the song definitely belong to a very specific era.

Counting Blue Cars may have been their only big hit but, for a period of time, it was inescapable.  You could not turn on the radio without hearing that familiar chorus of Tell Me All Your Thoughts On God.  The song also received attention because it described God as being female.  According to Wikipedia and Songfacts, that made the song controversial.  I can’t remember any controversy about it at all.

The video also feels like the epitome of a generic 90s alternative video.  You would think that the video would at least feature a child asking questions or maybe a blue car but instead, it’s the band playing in some sort of new age trailer park.  New age trailer parks were very popular in the 90s music videos.

What kind of weird child asks for all your thoughts on God?

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Cool by Gwen Stefani (2005, dir. by Sophie Muller)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I ain’t no hollaback girl …. I ain’t no hollaback girl ….

Oh wait, wrong Gwen Stafani song.  This one’s Cool too, though.  In fact, that’s the name of the song!  It’s all about how Gwen used to date this guy but they broke up but they’re still cool, as in they’re still friends.  In this video, Gwen proves just how cool she is by inviting her ex and his now lover to her Italian villa.

This video was filmed at Lake Como, Italy and the main reason I like it is because I like Italy and watching a video like this reminds me of how much I want to go back and visit Italy.  That was kind of the plan for the second half of this year but then the COVID-19 panic hit and upended everything.

By the way, are we still doing the quarantine thing?  It’s hard to keep track.  I know that two weeks ago, people were threatening to throw me up against the wall for wanting to go outside.  Now, they want to do the same thing because I don’t want to go out.  Personally, I just want to know that I can safely travel to Italy.

Anyway, enjoy this video and hopefully, we’ll all get to travel again at some point in the near future!