Today’s music video of the day is for Iron Maiden’s The Trooper, which was one the band’s few songs to achieve frequent radio airplay in the United States.
The song was inspired by Tennyson’s poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade and the video features scenes taken from the 1936 film of the same name. The BBC actually banned this video and demanded significant cuts because they felt that the footage from the film was too violent. Obviously, back in 1983, no one at the BBC had any idea what the future would hold as far as violence in music videos was concerned.
The footage of the band performing was filmed in Brixton Academy and directed by Jim Yukich, who did videos for everyone who was anybody.
When today’s music video was first released, it was banned by MTV. MTV claimed that the song and the video glorified suicide, which was certainly not the case when it came to either one. As Dave Mustaine explained in interviews at the time, the song was about what Mustaine would say to his friends if he learned that he only had a few minutes left to live. Mustaine sings that he would want to say, “I love you all and now I must go.”
(Some of the misunderstanding probably came from the song appearing on an album entitled Youthanasia. Megadeth’s lyrics could certainly be dark and serious but they were just as often misunderstood, even by people who should have known better.)
Most only sources list Justin Keith as the director of this video. In an interview with a German site, Mustaine explained that Justin Keith was actually the incredibly prolific Wayne Isham and that MTV apparently told Megadeth not to use Isham as their director because the channel was already “saturated” with videos that Isham had directed. So, when Megadeth submitted the video, the listed Isham as being “Justin Keith.” According to Mustaine, this — and not the the video’s content — is what actually caused MTV to ban the music video.
Mustaine later rerecorded this song for 2007’s UnitedAbominations.
A woman has been kidnapped and it’s up to Van Halen to save her! Eddie’s a cowboy. Alex is Tarzan. Michael Anthony is a samurai. David Lee Roth, not surprisingly, is Napoleon. This video says a lot of about the appeal of early Van Halen, which really was a mix of Eddie’s technical virtuosity and Roth’s showmanship. Van Halen was a band that knew how to make amazing music but, at first at least, they were also a band who knew how to have a good time.
Playing the damsel in distress was International Chrysis, a transgender performer who worked in a number of revues and off-Broadway productions in the 80s, along with appearing in Sidney Lumet’s Q&A. International Chrysis died of cancer in 1990.
This video was shot at Indian Dunes, near Valencia, California. Director Roberto Lombardi was a musician who also acted and worked behind the scenes in a number of productions. He appears to have been one of those people who dabbled in a bit of everything as far as his creative outlets were concerned.
In 1982, this video was considered to be so controversial that MTV banned it from the airwaves. Of course, as Tipper Gore later learned, trying to censor something only made more people want to watch it. The video has since been unbanned but MTV gave up playing music videos a long time ago. I don’t know what the M stands for now but it’s definitely not music.
Perhaps due to the controversy, Van Halen’s cover of Roy Orbison’s signature tune because one of their biggest hits.
This is a very powerful music video. I don’t have much to say about it other than that. It’s not a political song or as political music video. Instead, it’s a tribute and an appreciation of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and the loved ones who were left behind.
Dragonfly is from the early days of Fleetwood Mac, before the arrival of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks and the resulting soap opera that made the band a boomer favorite. Instead, Dragonfly is a far more psychedelic song that Fleetwood Mac’s later work and the music video reflects that psychedelic feel.
Written by the band’s then-guitarist Danny Kirwan, Dragonfly features lyrics adapted from W.H. Davies’s 1927 poem, TheDragonfly, and it was the first single that the band recorded after the band’s original frontman, Peter Green, had let the group. By the time the single was released, guitarist Jeremy Spencer had also left the group. Even before the arrival of Buckingham and Nicks, Fleetwood Mac was a band known for its backstage drama.
This single failed to chart when it was originally released in the UK, though the members of the band felt it was one of their best songs. The psychedelic video, which was obviously made in the days before MTV caused bands to consider that people should be able to watch a music video without burning out their retinas, probably didn’t help. The song is better than the video. It was finally given a belated U.S. release in 2014 and managed to make it to 9th place on the Hot Singles Sales Chart.
Through the Shattered Lens 