Tom Waits recorded this version of Cole Porter’s It’s Alright With Me for Red Hot + Blue, a compilation album that was put together to benefit the Red Hot Organization, a non-profit organization that raises money for AIDS relief and education.
Probably the best known of the songs to come off of Red Hot + Blue was U2’s version of Night and Day. However, Waits also brought his own unique style to Porter’s lyrics. This video was directed by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, who has also featured Waits in several of his films.
In this song from her 1992 album, 99.9F°, Suzanne Vega sings about a lost relationship. Apparently, this song was inspired by a relationship that Vega actually had with someone who from Liverpool. He and Vega met in America when she was 18 and they fell in love, just for their relationship to end when he had to return to his home.
Today, this song makes me think of my friends and family in the UK and how I look forward to someday getting to see them again.
This video was directed by Howard Greenhaigh. Greenhaigh has several videos to his name but the one he’s probably best known for is Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun.
Tesla did not come up with this song on their own. Instead, Signs was written by Les Emmerson in the late 60s and it was a hit for Five Man Electrical Band in 1970. The song was inspired by a trip Emmerson took down Route 66. While driving, Emmerson noticed that there were a lot of … you guessed it … signs! Embraced by the “long-haired freaky” people mentioned in the opening lyrics, Signs became a surprise hit.
Twenty years later, the song was revived when Tesla performed an acoustic version of the song. At the time, Tesla was the opening act for Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood tour but, because they had an off-day, the band booked an acoustic show. Each member of the band picked a different song to perform. Signs was selected by lead singer Jeff Keith, who grew up in Oklahoma and, as you can see in the video, had some definite thoughts when it came to signs blocking out the scenery (or “fucking up the scenery” as the band put it in the uncensored version of the song).
Signs is a good example of song that probably would have been forgotten if not for MTV. When the song was originally released, it didn’t get much attention but the subsequent video proved to be popular and the song eventually became a hit. The success of Signs led to other bands do acoustic shows and eventually MTV launching Unplugged.
This video is probably about as 90s as you can get but the 1990s were a cool decade and this video introduced a generation to meditation. According to the band itself, this song was written as a way to thank the fans who were “down” with them before 311 ever found any sort of mainstream success.
This video was directed by Josh Taft, who also directed Plush and Sex Type Thing for Stone Temple Pilots.
This is probably one of the best songs ever written about a 16 year-old buying condoms before heading to a brothel (that would be the House of Fun referred to in the title). Only Madness could have pulled it off.
This video was filmed at a Camden joke shop, a Kilburn chemist (or pharmacy), and a roller coaster in Great Yarmouth. Reportedly, the band had to ride the roller coaster 54 times before director Dave Robinson was happy with the footage.
Blood Makes Noise was the 2nd single to be released from Suzanne Vega’s underrated 1992 album, 99.9F°. Vega is a performer that deserved to be a bigger star than she was. If you’re the right age, you remember Tom’s Diner but otherwise, I don’t feel like she ever got the type of success and recognition that she really deserved.
This video was directed by Nico Beyer, a German director who has worked extensively in advertising and who also directed music videos for The Verve, The Pet Shop Boys, They Might Be Giants, and others.
I’m sharing this video in memory of Avicii, who would have been 31 years old today and whose talent was taken from us far too early.
This video tells the story of two sisters, outsiders in their village who find a new and better home. The older sister is played by Kristina Romanova while the younger sister is played by Laneya Grace. It’s a song and a video that epitomizes everything that made Avicii such a special talent. In the end, the sisters find a better life. They wake up, as hopefully everyone will have a chance to do at some point in their existence.
For this Labor Day, I wanted to share a music video about working so I decided to see if Jimmy Buffett had ever done an official video for It’s My Job.
It turns out that he didn’t.
However, he did perform the song on a 1981 episode of Fridays.
Fridays was a rip-off of Saturday Night Live that, today, is best remembered for featuring several people who were later involved with Seinfeld. Michael Richards and Larry David were both cast members of Fridays. (Michael Richards even got into a staged brawl with Andy Kaufman during one episode. It was recreated for Man on the Moon, with Norm McDonald playing the role of Richards.) Fridays was not well-received by critics but it aired during one of Saturday Night Live‘s creative dry spells so, for a while, it appeared that Fridays might actually replace SNL as America’s premiere sketch comedy program. It didn’t happen, of course. Fridays was cancelled after just three seasons. Mad TV, on the other hand, never threatened to overtake SNL and it still managed to last for 14 seasons.
Because Fridays imitated every aspect of SNL, they had a weekly musical guest. When Jimmy Buffett appeared on the show, he performed It’s My Job.
This song, produced by New York DJ Arthur Baker, was the first song that New Order ever recorded in New York. It was released as the follow-up to their breakthrough hit, Blue Monday.
The video was shot in New York City, primarily at a club called Funhouse. Director Charles Sturridge was a former actor who went on to work as a television and occasionally a film director. His best-known work is probably the original BBC adaptation of Brideshead Revisited.
Through the Shattered Lens 