This is the second version of The Tide Is High (first version). Any sexual stuff is gone. Even Horny Vader only makes a confusing appearance at the end–without any buildup.
The video stays the same until the squatting-Debbie scene. That’s when a video effect kicks in that brings in other footage on top of the floor.
From then on, things are different. Here are some examples.
They still leave in the rocket, but the video comes across like it was supposed to be about a disaster that the band was fleeing, which is how they end up on the space station, or whatever that is supposed to be.
The video says it is the “director’s cut.” That wouldn’t surprise me for a couple of reasons.
Director’s cuts of videos happen. There’s one of Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus and Heart-Shaped Box by Nirvana.
There seems to be a drop in quality when you hit the new footage. That suggests that it was recovered and inserted back in with the higher quality stuff that wasn’t cut.
It doesn’t seem to fit the lyrics. It’s more trippy. I’ll give it that. I assume somebody else thought so too, which is how we got the first version as well the third one.
The third one brings back the sexual stuff in a big way. But it also brings an element of the song to the video that neither of these do.
Since she did a song by Blondie yesterday, it gave me the idea to do The Tide Is High seeing as it’s kinda weird. It turns out, there are at least three versions of this video–each one different enough to merit a separate post. Yay! Ugh.
This is the first version of The Tide Is High. If you poke around online, then you’ll usually run into this one, with slight variations of the ending.
We start off the video by panning across the boys in the band as they look up, wondering what is taking Debbie so long.
Cut to Debbie’s place, and we see fish filing up her windows. And by fish I mean as close to showing sperm as they could get.
After we see that some of the “water” is leaking into the room, watch Debbie look out a window, and sing to the camera, we cut to a horny Darth Vader watching Debbie.
More of the “water” leaks into the room, so Debbie very precisely squats down and pulls a towel off what looks like a radio.
Debbie then proceeds to mop up some of the “water”, and then ring it right back out onto the floor. I get the feeling that isn’t a blonde joke.
Meanwhile, the guys are outside standing like they are at a urinal.
Horny Vader continues to look at Debbie in a variety of ways, such as the one below.
Debbie does eventually come downstairs so that the band can get into a car, and she can sing out the window.
When she’s done, we are treated to some people…
who had no idea they would end up in video where the audience is meant to think they are looking at a penis.
The phallic object takes off, and after separation, they all go through a brick wall. Just go with it.
Then it cuts to four women in blonde wigs, wearing swimsuits, while carrying a half-naked man. Sure.
Now Debbie taps Horny Vader on the shoulder. He turns around to reveal he’s some sort of combination of Vader and a Cylon?
Debbie seems to have no problem with this turn of events.
This is were you’ll get slight variations. This version does continue a little longer by cutting back to the girls and the half-naked guy.
Once in a while, I came across a version that would not cut back to the five whatevers, but instead go to the following shot where some people run towards the camera.
I’ve included that version below. I don’t know if that was intentional, censoring, or just that during that particular airing they cut the video short, and we are seeing something else for a few seconds. My bet is on censoring.
It is prime time to do this music video now because of the election. That’s why you’ll find numerous videos of Alice Cooper performing the song this year. However, even if this wasn’t an election year, this one is not just a fun election related music video to do. It is important considering this was made in 1972. I don’t mean that there weren’t music videos around then. There most certainly were. But this one is different. It probably would have gone completely over my head had I not stumbled upon a quote on the mvdbase entry for this music video.
“Here’s my take on the whole video history thing. I might have to take a little credit for the bit of attention that the ‘Elected’ video has gotten because I always tried to make a very big deal out of making sure this was always mentioned in all of Alice’s biographical material. Music videos (or promo clips as us old timers referred to them before the advent of MTV) have been around before rock ‘n’ roll even reared its ugly head. Most, if not all of these “videos” were of the artist performing a song — maybe with a backdrop if they got fancy. In the 60’s, the Beatles and a few other bands made some videos that were a bit more like the ones we know of today. They were made specifically as promotional vehicles for the current single. The ‘Strawberry fields’ video was very psychedelic and showed the Beatles running around in a park — frontwards and backwards. There were others by the Who and the Stones, etc. as well.
“The thing that stands out about the ‘Elected’ video is that there was no performance or lip-synching which was very unusual. It also was possibly the first video that had a storyline. And, the most subtle yet significant thing, was the editing. The editing was done in a quick, choppy fashion which ultimately came to be what MTV was most cited for. After people noticed MTV was a force to be reckoned with, commercials and TV shows (Miami Vice) started to pattern themselves to look like MTV with this editing style.” [Brian Renfield Nelson, Alice Cooper band member, Sept. 1995, quoted from Alice Cooper Trivia]
He’s right. If you look at 1970’s music videos by ABBA, then you will see some interesting stuff going on. For example there’s quick cuts, a moving camera, it isn’t just them all by themselves the entire time, etc. However, you’ll notice that while ABBA is lip-syncing, no one is doing that in Elected. Also, even though ABBA videos have artsy stuff going on, there isn’t really a story there. You can see more of one in Take A Chance On Me, but that was 1978. Plus, it is still made up largely of a performance. There’s no performance of the song going on in Elected. The song is played over what could be clips from a film, except there’s no time when it cuts back to Alice Cooper playing.
It is a bit of an unfair comparison in quality because Alice Cooper had Hart Perry and ABBA had famed Swedish director Lasse Hallström, but the differences between Elected and the ABBA music videos highlight why it was so revolutionary. It has the band, it is live-action, it uses real sets rather than just a backdrop, it has a storyline, it has no lip-syncing, and it has no re-creation of a performance. I looked through the 129 music videos I have done prior to this, and I couldn’t find a single one that met all those characteristics. I know there must be one out there, but I haven’t hit another one other than Elected. There were a couple that came close like Self Control by Laura Branigan, but even that had her lip-sync a few lines. The same for Pressure and We Didn’t Start The Fire by Billy Joel.
Probably the most prominent thing that Hart Perry is known for is being the cinematographer on the documentary Harlan County U.S.A. (1976).
That’s the only member of the crew I could find.
I am not sure if the music video is cut short, but I do know the line about him not caring about people’s problems is missing from the music video as it is posted above.
Through the Shattered Lens 