Hi! Lisa here, filling in for Val, with today’s music video of the day!
Before anyone asks, my selection of this music video has absolutely nothing to do with the current situation between the U.S. and North Korea. To be honest, when I picked this video, I didn’t even know that was going on. The fact that I picked Atomic at a time when everyone is freaking out about nuclear war is just one of those coincidences that helps to keep life interesting!
No, the reason I picked this video was because I’m getting ready to finally watch T2 Trainspotting but, before I watch T2, I have to rewatch the original Trainspotting. Sleeper’s cover of Atomic is prominently featured in Trainspotting and I have to admit that I’ve always liked that chorus of “Your hair is beautiful.” I’ve always loved my hair.
(My boyfriend got excited when I told him I would be featuring this song because apparently, he used to listen to it while running down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto. And, actually, I can imagine this would be a pretty good driving music.)
Anyway, I did some research to see if I could explain just what exactly this song is actually about. It turns out that the song is actually about nothing. Courtesy of Songfacts, here is Blondie’s lead singer, Debbie Harry, on how Atomic came to be:
“He (Blondie Keyboardist Jimmy Destri) was trying to do something like ‘Heart Of Glass,’ and then somehow or another we gave it the spaghetti western treatment. Before that it was just lying there like a lox. The lyrics, well, a lot of the time I would write while the band were just playing the song and trying to figure it out. I would just be scatting along with them and I would just start going, ‘Ooooooh, your hair is beautiful.'”
While the video takes place in a post-apocalyptic world (and features artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as the man who takes away the horse at the beginning), the song actually has nothing to do with nuclear war. It’s actually not about anything. It’s just a good song!
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 