Music Video of the Day: Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealers Wheel (1973, dir by ????)


Well, we all know this song, don’t we?

Apparently, this song was inspired by a music industry cocktail party that the band attended.  It was also apparently inspired by Bob Dylan’s feelings towards the industry, though Dylan was not involved in recording or performing the song.

As for the video, what’s interesting is how literally it interprets the song.  Seriously, the poor guy really is stuck in the middle and he really does have clowns and jokers to either side of him!

Nobody loses an ear in this video.  That would come later….

Enjoy!

 

Music Video of the Day: Runaway Boys by Stray Cats (1980, directed by Derek Burbidge)


‘Runaway Boys’ being a little more of a song, song, not just a turnarond song, that took us a while to put together. Jim Phantom helped with the lyrics and it took a while to get right. I came up with bass going chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, and wrote the song around that. I mean there’s no set rules, I’ll have an idea in the shower, I’ll come up with the riff or something, I’ll have it floating around in my head, I’ll get an idea and I’ll get inspired to write some lyrics, I’ll get a real catchy phrase that I like. I’ll hear someone saying something and I think, oh that’s great and he actually said something else. I don’t know, there’s no way of putting any, it doesn’t make any sense, it just comes to you.”

— Brian Setzer on Runaway Boys

Since today is Brian Setzer’s birthday, it just seems right that today’s music video of the day should come from Stray Cats.  Runaway Boys was the band’s first big hit in the UK, though it would take the U.S. a little longer to get with the program and embrace the genius that is Setzer.

This video was directed by Derek Burbidge, who directed a number of videos in the 80s.  In fact, most of the videos for The Police were done by Burbidge.  He also did the famous video for Gary Numan’s Cars.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Looks That Kill by Motley Crue (1983, directed by ????)


This is a really dumb video but it’s Mötley Crüe so why should that come as a surprise?

Like almost every heavy metal video that came out in the early 80s, this one is set in an apocalyptic future.  There’s a group of women who look like they just escaped from a dress rehearsal for Cats. Mötley Crüe shows up looking like KISS and carrying torches.  There’s a battle.  The band puts the women in a cage and then performs a concert for them, which I don’t know if you want your music video to say that you have to actually imprison people to force them to listen to your band.  One of the women fights back.  The video ends with a pentagram because Satan’s cool.

It’s Mötley Crüe.  It really doesn’t demand much thought and at least Kip Winger’s not in the band.  I may think it’s stupid but you know who probably loved this video?  These two:

Enjoy!