I had to do this video eventually. It might as well be on Election Day or Inauguration Day. I decided to go with Election Day. There’s never a time this video wouldn’t be controversial to spotlight anyways.
I’m hardly a history expert, so numerous people in the stock footage are unfamiliar to me. However, I do recognize some, and thanks to a YouTube comment, I have been able to look up a fair amount of the ones I didn’t know, such as Mobutu Sese Seko, Ferdinand Marcos, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, and Megawati Sukarnoputri. You could play this back-to-back with Cult Of Personality by Living Colour because all the people featured in the stock footage had or have a cult of personality around them, whether you agreed with them or not.
There’s something that’s easy to miss in the video if you aren’t familiar with their 80s videos. They did one called The Devil Made Me Do It that might as well be sung from the perspective of a guy in a film noir that was drawn into criminal actions by a spider woman, and would like to be let off the hook as a result. The parts with the band are largely done with lead singer Barry Hay looking upwards as if he is singing to God in order to pardon him for the crimes he has committed. You’ll notice that near the end of this video, the camera goes up so that Hay is looking upwards like he did in The Devil Made Me Do It. Seeing as this video starts off with confession, I imagine that was done on purpose.
I don’t know who the director of the video is, but there is someone in the YouTube comments section that seems to say that they were the one who did it:
OMG. I so forgot I did this one as CD-extra for them in 1999. Just found it back on an old back up! KREWL!!!
I was a fool to think Golden Earring showed up with Radar Love in the early 1970s.
They actually date back to the early 1960s. In fact, Barry Hay wasn’t even the original lead-singer. He came onboard in 1967. It’s weird to not hear Hay sing on a Golden Earring song even if that song is from a very different period. They weren’t even Golden Earring then. They were originally called The Golden Earrings. They had a pop-sound during this time.
The only thing weirder to me than not hearing Hay sing a Golden Earring song, is hearing him dial back the power of his voice to sing this kind of song. I’m well aware that This Is Spinal Tap (1984) already covered this kind thing, but it’s no less strange to me to come across this. It’s up there with listening to Bon Scott singing in the Australian pop-group The Valentines.
Then there’s the video for the song.
Hay looks more like he does from the 1980s onward,
When The Lady Smiles (1984)
in the 1960s,
than he did during the 1970s.
Radar Love (1974)
I guess that was just a phase.
The video is very 1960s–much like Radar Love is to the 1970s. It’s one of those videos that essentially turns a band into silent comedians, complete with mud wrestling.
That sequence goes on for quite awhile.
My personal favorite part of the video is when Hay pops out of the water playing an invisible flute.
I also like when one of the members of the band reaches out to turn the camera as a way to create a spin transition. It’s a nice little thing.
Along with Hay’s vocals sounding wrong, this video would not tell you that they would go on to do something like Clear Nite, Moonlight.
Speaking of that video, I made error when writing about it. I missed the obvious foreshadowing of the violent end in the form of the “So Little Time” license plate at the start of the video.
Clear Nite, Moonlight (1984)
To put that correction in a new post, is the main reason I did this post on another Golden Earring video. It’s also a fun video, regardless of my reason for doing it today.
The reason I put the date of release as 1967 is because according to Wikipedia, this was a single that was released in 1967 separate from any of their albums. That explains why Hay is here, but not on the album that they released in 1967, Winter-Harvest.
I’ve done three Golden Earring videos at this point. However, I feel as if I have been talking about Orson Welles films from the 1950s onward as if Citizen Kane doesn’t exist.
If there is one song that people know by Golden Earring, then it’s Radar Love. This thing has been a staple of rock radio for decades. It’s one of those songs you can put on, and people instantly know what kind of station they have come across, as well as the decade the song comes from. It’s so 70s it hurts.
The song has been covered, used in games, on TV, and in movies so many times that there is an entire website devoted to this one song. I can’t say I have ever come across that before.
But we’re here for the video.
First things first, look at Barry Hay. Look at him!
The bolero jacket. The top. The pants. And that hair. The hair!
I’ve only seen him top that look with the one he had in the video for Something Heavy Going Down.
Something Heavy Going Down (1984)
Something Heavy Going Down (1984)
The difference being that the red jumpsuit with the gigantic boombox was done on purpose for the video. By looking at another 70s Golden Earring video, that appears to have been Hay’s standard look back then. It’s glorious.
I like the fake freeze-frame this video opens up with. I have no idea why it’s there, but I think it’s a neat way to start off the video.
I’m assuming that since this appears to have been their musical introduction to the world, they did these closeup shots of the band members in order to visually introduce them to the world.
But why do that if you’re not going to put their names there? That seems a little weird.
Then again, this is something that happens.
Who exactly does he think he’s throwing that guitar to?
This is made even dumber by the fact that they immediately cut to him with the guitar back in his hands.
At least the leap over the drum set is a way of capping off the video.
Overall, I like the video. They didn’t just stick the camera in front of them while they performed on a stage. It’s edited in such a manner that brings you into the performance. They added some creative elements to it. Despite the lack of names under them, I think it was clever to use the instrumental opening portion of the video for that purpose before showing us them in action. I can see this video doing well going around the US and European TV shows that they couldn’t be on in order to stand in for a live performance.
So there it is. I now feel comfortable doing more Golden Earring knowing that I have spotlighted the video for the song that kicked off their career.
First things first, the title. The official posting of the video lists the title as Clear Nite, Moonlight. However, both the greatest hits album I have and mvdbase list the song as Clear Night, Moonlight. That’s why I included both in the title of this post.
This song is from Golden Earring’s 1984 album N.E.W.S., that has what must not only be their most controversial song, but video–When The Lady Smiles.
I’m spotlighting this video for a few different reasons. The first is that I love the song, and wanted to share it. The second reason is that I like the darkness of the video–literally and figuratively–that is juxtaposed with an upbeat song that makes you want to sing along. The same is true with When The Lady Smiles, which probably explains how it got used in such a weird context, despite the lyrics. I’ll talk about that video another time.
The last is the ending.
We see the band abandon their beat-up vehicle after pulling up to a house.
They help a woman down from her room past her sleeping father.
They steal her father’s car.
They rob a car dealer, and kill him in the process.
They go to a cafe.
We see she is having a good time despite the murder.
In fact, when her father says, “Bloody murder,” we cut to her smiling.
They nearly die by crashing head-on into a truck.
They go to a drive-in theater where we see her cry, and Hay look confused and sad when the film eats itself. I’m assuming it is a film with Rudolph Valentino in it.
Then we some matching on action between Hay trying to start a lighter and people loading guns.
Then a kid is taken to sit on a tow truck.
The car stops.
We zoom in on the kid, and we can see and hear bullets filling the car, which presumedly kills everyone inside.
I have no idea why that last part happens. The kid doesn’t even look like he comes from the 1980s.
Edit: I messed up when originally posted this. I missed the “So Little Time” license plate at the start, which foreshadows this ending. It doesn’t come out of nowhere.
I also think that the video is meant to take place in the 1950s, and not just have a retro look to it. That might explain the appearance of the kid.
The whole video has this otherworldly feeling about it that seesaws between comfort and unease, happiness and death, and then screeches to a halt with the cops unloading on the five passengers with what sounds like every gun they have, all in front of kid watching as he eats.
A few weeks ago when I did the music video for Twilight Zone by Golden Earring, I mentioned this video and how insane it is. With that in mind, let’s enumerate over the things in this video.
A concentration camp.
Bloodfist.
Our main victim of torture.
Visible camera crew.
A whole bunch of people who have been hung.
A gun to the head.
A child who is most likely going to be killed.
Comedic interruption of someone waiting to die.
Angels.
Fire-breathing as a metaphor for death-from-above.
Soldiers playing American Gladiators.
Belinda Carlisle reference hanging above the group–Heaven Is A Place On Earth.
The Nazi dancers from Twilight Zone.
A black man being beaten by Illinois police officers.
Hitler snapping his fingers along to the music while Jesus receives his crown of thorns in the background.
The comic relief coming out of a jukebox.
Paying a visit to our guy waiting to die.
Making sure we didn’t miss the nuclear weapons reference earlier.
Hitler and Napoleon dancing to the song. It connects someone who annexed the Netherlands from his younger brother–who was the leader of the Kingdom of Holland–with someone who took the Netherlands by force. My memory of Dutch history is too weak to go into any connections between the two as it pertained to Jews in the Kingdom of Holland. I’m sure the whole thing with the invasion of the Netherlands by Hitler and the Maas river wasn’t lost on the director.
Lead-singer Barry Hay looking confused as to what he is supposed to be doing here.
May foreshadowing the appearance of the devil.
I have no idea why they are punching their fists threw glass.
Two guys I’m sure I should recognize, but I don’t want to guess.
Remember, it’s a musical! And there’s an American flag in the background.
The little girl survives, but will always carry the memory–another Golden Earring video that appears to be referencing both the film The Assault (1986) and the book De Aanslag by Harry Mulisch that the film is based on.
We see that there are many numbered rooms where people are being tortured.
The colors of the Flag of Overijssel, which represents the province of Holland. The center river shaped stripe stands for the river IJssel.
The river was a natural line of defense that had to be crossed by Allied troops to liberate the Netherlands at the end of WWII. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that a river that has to be controlled–like so much water in the Netherlands–in order for the country to exist is in this video.
The last temptation of Christ.
A reminder that things like the Bombing of Rotterdam, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki have happened.
Changing the channel from the news to a sitcom.
Hay, Castro, guy I should know, and Napoleon popping his head in to say hi.
Gunshot.
Did you know they did, or maybe still do sell Mussolini cologne? I had an Italian Studies teacher in college who brought it up, so I of course went to her office hours, and she showed me where online they sold it. The site got Neo-Nazi very fast, so we didn’t stay long.
Castro on the drums.
Hitler breakdancing.
Let them know it’s genocide out there.
I think May might be trying to remind us of the video for When The Lady Smiles.
Exit the jukebox and fade to black.
Dick Maas went on to do feature films such as the Flodder movies, Amsterdamned (1986), and the more recent, and apparently controversial film Saint (2010). It’s a killer Santa Claus movie–more specifically, a St. Nicholas killer movie. Bear in mind, this was several years before Kirk Cameron would also include a violent St. Nicholas in Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas (2014). It was still a touchy subject for people who hadn’t seen Christmas Evil (1980); Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984); and Santa’s Slay (2005). Or it was a publicity stunt as IMDb would suggest:
“Upon release the movie poster proved to be very controversial. Various organizations of concerned parents tried to boycott the poster, which features an image of a ‘zombie St. Nicolas’ as opposed to the friendly St. Nicolas the people in The Netherlands are used to. Dutch director Johan Nijenhuis became the spokesperson for the movement that tried to boycott the poster and he even went to court, claiming the poster would damage the festive season and cause trauma with young children.”
“In hindsight, the complaints by Johan Nijenhuis about the movie being inappropriate for young children seem to have been part of a publicity campaign.”
I have to admit that until recently, I didn’t know any song by Golden Earring other than Radar Love. I didn’t even realize I had heard this song till I clicked on the video. They are good. They also put a lot of effort into their videos from the get-go with MTV.
This must have been something to see back in 1982 when this was far from the norm. Oh, and if you thought they might tone this down for later videos, then you’d be wrong. They only upped the ante. Turn The World Around has people in a concentration camp, people who have been hung, people being tortured, a black man being perpetually being beaten by cops, Jesus being crowned while Hitler is in the foreground snapping his fingers to the song, and much like this video, it has two different dimensions–the one in which the dark stuff is going on, and a bright, colorful, and otherworldly one. These videos remind me of Italian Comedy like Seven Beauties (1975). The dancers look like they belong in The Damned (1969) or The Night Porter (1974).
Here’s one tiny tangent since I mentioned Seven Beauties. I really hope Nathaniel R of The Film Experience is just ignorant of Italian Comedy and Lina Wertmüller because otherwise, getting a chance to see Seven Beauties is a “rare opportunity,” as he wrote in a recent blog post. If true, it’s a sad world when that film is a rare thing to see. That’s supposed to be reserved for things like Out 1: Spectre (1972), The Art Of Vision (1965), Douce (1943), and Rocker (1972), to name more mainstream films.
If you didn’t already know who Golden Earring is, then you might have guessed that they are from the Netherlands based on the name of the director. You’d be right. That means they did work with Anton Corbijn on a music video. It was for the song Quiet Eyes. Corbijn being the one who took credit for the singing ravens on the crucifix in the video for Heart-Shaped Box by Nirvana. He chalked it up to “Dutch humor.” I took a class in college on the history of the Netherlands. I don’t remember a section on Dutch humor.
Then again, I probably should have known, seeing as Turkish Delight (1973) has Rutger Hauer wear a pubic hair mustache and The Dark Room Of Damocles (1963) has the lowly shop merchant dragged off as a traitor to his people after WWII even though he may or may not have been led into doing missions he thought would help his people by a secret agent–who is seen at the end living the high-life. Also, Water Power (1976) didn’t have to be edited for its release in the Netherlands, whereas it was in the United States. I guess it shouldn’t come as an surprise to me that these are the kind of videos a Dutch band would make.
Nevertheless, I’m impressed. And yes, the topless nudity was censored at the time. If Wikipedia is to be believed, then the injection scene was also censored. My favorite scene is when the little girl turns toward the camera and stares at you for awhile. It’s a nice little touch.
The song itself was apparently not inspired by the TV Show. It was based off of Robert Ludum’s book The Bourne Identity. That would explain the spy storyline.
Through the Shattered Lens 