It was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw Arbor Day was coming up.
Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart said this about an alleged message of the song to the magazine Modern Drummer:
“No. It was just a flash. I was working on an entirely different thing when I saw a cartoon picture of these trees carrying on like fools. I thought, ‘What if trees acted like people?’ So I saw it as a cartoon really, and wrote it that way. I think that’s the image that it conjures up to a listener or a reader. A very simple statement.”
If you want to discuss the politics, or lack there of in this song, then don’t worry. You can hop on over to YouTube, and people in the comments section will be glad to interpret it as a libertarian masterpiece, just a fun a song about two factions of trees fighting each other, and anything else you think it means.
New Order is a band that was formed by the remaining members of Joy Division after the death of lead singer Ian Curtis. To most people, they are probably best-known for their song Blue Monday. That’s how I know of them. I think this is the first time I have heard another song by them.
Obviously the video is notable for the fact that it runs just short of 11 minutes with credits. Visually, there is a disconnection between the members of the band, and themselves with their instruments. There isn’t even a shot of the whole band together till halfway through the video. There’s a solemn mood about the whole thing–from the walls, to the looks on their faces. It was apparently shot in the band’s practice room. You can see a Joy Division poster in the background, which adds even more sadness to the whole thing.
From what I have read, this was a live video. That would explain why their isn’t a lot of glamour here. Maybe if this were on a stage, and in front of an audience, then it would. But this is just in their practice room. There is a nice article over on Billboard magazine’s website that goes into more detail than I can, but it boils down to the same thing. It is a noteworthy live video that captures New Order–warts and all–performing an exhausting composition live, alone, and far from any kind of glamour or artiness of a Blue Monday ’88 or Regret. If I had to guess, the disconnection was intentional in order to visually convey the separation of the different artists’ parts in the song, the concentration that purges the individual to a well-oiled machine, and the fact that some of the song was performed on the fly, while other parts were pre-programmed.
I’ve done so many of these ABBA music videos that they are starting to blend together. Still, I’m pretty sure these are the best costumes I have seen the band wear for one of these videos. You’ve got Frida and Agnetha in unitards with matching jackets and little bowties. Björn looks like he’s ready for a 70’s sci-fi TV show. Benny is wearing his typical outfit. Let’s face it, Benny could be wearing just about anything, and it is still his face that attracts your attention–especially his smile.
I think the video captures the energy of the song well. Of the three disco club videos, I’d say this one easily beats Dancing Queen and is just a little better than Does Your Mother Know. The part that seals the deal for me is when Agnetha does a Saturday Night Fever move.
If her hand were any lower, then she’d be doing the Michael Jackson.
Fittingly–according to Wikipedia–this song was recorded at Criteria Studios where The Bee Gees made their disco records. Apparently this is the only studio track that ABBA recorded outside of Sweden. They happened to have been in the Bahamas at the time, so they hopped over to Miami and recorded the song.
Björn on lead vocals? Amazing! What’s next, I’m gonna find an 80’s ABBA-like band named after a drink? That would only happen in the land of make believe.
Anyways, it’s about time Björn got a chance to sing a song. I love Frida and Agnetha, but we know Björn can sing. Yes yes yes, I know, sex sells. Yes, I have brought up that Agnetha’s butt was such a selling point for ABBA: The Movie (1977) that it was shown three times in the trailer. I will also get to how Frida and director Stuart Orme cleverly recreated the famous shot of Agnetha’s backside in the music video for I Know There’s Something Going On to announce to fans that she was coming out of the Agnetha’s shadow.
The video is very simple. Even Dancing Queen, which also took place in a club, had more going on. Still, it’s refreshing to see Björn, Frida, and Agnetha combine their vocal talents to make this song possible. While there isn’t much going on, it gets you in the mood of the song. For this, I don’t think I could ask for more.
There’s one last thing I think is worth mentioning. There’s an interesting submission about the title on Songfacts:
“Does your mother know you’re out?” or “Does your mother know that you’re out?” as in the song, is an expression sometimes used by a worldly wise older man to ward off the advances of Jailbait.
I haven’t done a Laura Branigan video since last summer. That video was the one for Self Control that I will never stop referencing because of its edgy content. For some reason, in the last couple of months, a bunch of her music videos have gotten officially releases on YouTube. As a result, I thought I would spotlight one of her other big hits, Gloria.
It’s really just for the song because there isn’t anything especially interesting about the video. The only noteworthy thing for me is that a chunk of director Marty Callner’s early MTV music videos were for Laura Branigan even though he would go on to do a lot of work with Twisted Sister, Aerosmith, Poison, The Cult, and other bands you wouldn’t think of having any connection with Branigan. Then again, he also worked with Pat Benatar, Cher, and Belinda Carlisle. He even did a video for Tori Amos’ short-lived band called Y Kant Tori Read.
The Laura Branigan account appeared on YouTube last June. I’m not sure why exactly then, or if there was any special meaning to it. It isn’t the anniversary of her death or anything. That’s in August. Her birthdate is in July. It doesn’t coincide with her contributions to Flashdance (1983), Ghostbusters (1984), or Baywatch. Even 35 years from the release of her first album would mean you’d put the channel up this year since it came out in 1982.
The only thing I can find that changed concerning her in the last few months is her birthdate. I guess for showbiz purposes she would say it was 1957, but it turned out to be 1952. Even obituaries had it wrong, and some of been corrected. At the time of writing this, the one on Billboard magazine’s website still says 1957. Apparently this birthdate thing caused a furious debate on Wikipedia. If you go over to her brother Billy Branigan’s IMDb page, then you’ll find that his birthdate was thought to be 1961, but it was actually the year that Laura used as her birthdate.
The only guess I have that has any weight to it is that she was known for her connections to the gay community, and June happens to be LGBT Pride Month. It wouldn’t surprise me if the proper rights were obtained to put these videos up, and they went with June.
Whatever the reason, I’m glad they are up now. Hopefully they don’t fall victim to other officially released videos that get taken down later on.
I don’t know how long, or how I did it, but for a long time I thought this song, and Only The Lonely by Roy Orbison were the same song. If that isn’t dumb enough for you, my parents also used to watch the movie Only The Lonely (1991) when I was a kid, which prominently featured the Orbison song. Also, my mom is a big Orbison fan, so I grew up listening to his music. I guess that means it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it took till high school before I realized that when people were saying “ultimatum”, they weren’t saying “old tomato”.
Still, I am surprised it took me this many Mulcahy videos before I started noticing things he likes using. We get several of them in Only The Lonely. First, the use of tables.
Hungry Like The Wolf by Duran Duran (1982)
Second, liquids used as metaphors.
The Reflex by Duran Duran (1984)
The Reflex by Duran Duran (1984)
Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler (1983)
She Loved Like Diamond by Spandau Ballet (1982)
The Thin Wall by Ultravox (1981)
He really seems to like liquids and tables. Finally, we get the most obvious–isolation. In Only The Lonely, it’s the person wandering around a place that may or may not be filled with people, but the person is alone regardless.
Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler (1983)
We also get a repeat of the ending of Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes.
Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes (1981)
Lead-singer Martha Davis won a Best Performance in a Music Video for this at the American Music Awards. The song also did well, but it looks like their biggest hit was Suddenly Last Summer, which also has its own music video. The band is still around today under the name of Martha Davis and The Motels.
The video was shot by Andrew Dintenfass, edited by Doug Dowdle, and produced by Jackie Adams. In other words, the usual crew you would expect on a Mulcahy video.
Coming off the Chrysta Bell & David Lynch stint, I thought I would knock off a couple female artists I haven’t gotten around to yet.
Before Lady Gaga was even born, we had…well…we had numerous artists. One of the most obvious is Missing Persons’ lead-singer Dale Bozzio. Much like David Lynch is nursing Chrysta Bell’s music career, Frank Zappa did that for Dale Bozzio. I can recall her coming to tears when discussing the passing of Zappa in an interview she gave for MTV and/or VH1.
I have to mention it since it is out there, so I’m just going to say that I am aware of the behind-the-scenes story concerning Bozzio and MTV. It’s in the book I Want My MTV. You can feel free to look it up. It just amounts to an example of how crazy it was at MTV headquarters in their first years.
According to Wikipedia, this particular music video was noteworthy for the visual effects it used. I’m assuming they’re referring to the use of the blurred white for framing the shots of the band. It creates an interesting look that would make the video stand out from the crowd.
This was directed by photographer Sasha Samsonova. She’s apparently well-known for her work with Kylie Jenner. I know I bitched and moaned, for lack of a better phrase, yesterday about the music videos that were being made for Chrysta Bell & David Lynch collaborations, but this one is different for me. The video doesn’t do a whole lot for me. The song does even less. However, I look at this video, and knowing that she is a photographer, I think of Killer Wolf by Danzig.
That video was made by Dutch director/photographer Anton Corbijn who got his start working with Joy Division, as the band’s photographer. He is best known in the field of music videos for his work with Depeche Mode, Echo & The Bunnymen, and Heart-Shaped Box by Nirvana. But it’s Killer Wolf by Danzig that I think of when I look at this video. Killer Wolf is a stripped down video that is a composition of short video segments that would be created by a photographer who leaves the video running for few seconds instead of shooting a still. I guess what I am saying, is that I see the same kind of raw talent that you can watch develop if you go from Corbijn’s earliest video and work forward.
Kylie Jenner appears to have jumpstarted her career. You can read a full interview with Samsonova on People magazine’s website. She seems to say that her ultimate goal is directing feature films. I say it that way since she differentiates film from music videos. That has me a little worried since the two mediums can be very different.
Regardless, this is the high point for me in going through these David Lynch related music videos. It also happens to be the last one I can find. It’s a good one to go out on, and I hope to see more from Samsonova.
Through the Shattered Lens