Though Accidents Will Happen has since come to be seen as one of Elvis Costello’s signature songs, it was only a moderate hit when it was initially released in the UK. Maybe it would have been more popular if MTV had been around in 1979. The music video was innovative at a time when most videos were just performance clips of the bands in concert.
The video for Accidents Will Happen is considered to be the first fully animated music video. The video was directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, who also did videos for Rush and Cathy Denis. Jankel and Morton would later go on to create Max Headroom and to direct the infamous first Super Mario Bros. film.
On August 1st, 1981, MTV premiered. Over the course of 24 hours, 116 unique music videos were played on MTV. Yes, there was a time when the M actually did stand for music.
The 99th video to premiere on MTV was the video for Elvis Costello’s cover of (What’s So Funny Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding. The song was originally written by Nick Lowe and performed by Lowe with his band, Benny Schwartz. Though the original version didn’t chart, Costello’s cover became one of his first big hits. It’s one of the songs that’s still most associated with Costello. Interestingly, on a day that was dominated by repeated airings of videos from Rod Stewart and REO Speedwagon, the video for Costello’s biggest hit was only aired once.
The video was directed by Chuck Statler, who was responsible for many of Costello’s early videos.
On August 1st, 1981, MTV premiered. Over the course of 24 hours, 166 unique music videos were played on MTV. Yes, there was a time when the M actually did stand for music.
The 38th video to air on MTV was this video for Elvis Costello’s Oliver’s Army. This video was shot in Hawaii, while Costello was on tour. The interior scenes were shot at 4 in the morning in a strip club after the band failed to find any other venue that was willing to allow them to film.
“(A) song I wrote in ten minutes almost as a challenge to myself. I thought, maybe I could write just a simple, almost formula song and make it mean something…”
That was how Elvis Costello described Everyday I Write The Book in an 1998 interview. The song went on to become one of Costello’s best-known compositions and the subsequent music video was a hit during the early days of MTV. Directed by Don Letts, the video features Elvis performing while Prince Charles haplessly attempts to woo Princess Diana (both of whom are played by celebrity lookalikes). Released just two years after their royal wedding and at a time when the story of Diana and Charles were still being held up as the ideal romantic fairy tale, this video proved to be prophetic in its portrayal of Charles and Diana’s marriage.
According to Costello, director Don Letts was solely responsible for the idea of using the royal lookalikes in the video. Letts is best known for his collaborations with The Clash. Not only did he direct several music videos for that group but he and Mick Jones later co-founded Big Audio Dynamite.
Yesterday, Elvis Costello announced that he would be cancelling the last six performances of his current tour because his battling what has been described as being “very aggressive cancer.” I know that I speak for a lot of music fans when I say that we’re all keeping Elvis in our thoughts and that we hope he makes a full recovery.
Through the Shattered Lens 