My introduction to Stone Temple Pilots was the album Tiny Music…Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop–not my recommended way to start listening to STP. I remember liking this song, but when I bought the album, it felt generic and instantly forgettable.
The video for Sour Girl on the other hand is still something I remember to this day. Apparently, despite the fact that they look like a creepy version of Teletubbies, they were inspired by a dream that Scott Weiland had. At least that’s according to the Wikipedia article that draws from the Songfacts page on the song and video. The song was written about his divorce from his first wife. I’m assuming this is the same wife who he wrote Interstate Love Song about since according to Scott Weiland’s memoir [Not Dead & Not for Sale: A Memoir]:
[About Sour Girl]: “Everyone is convinced that it’s about my romance with Mary [Forsberg, second wife],” Weiland writes in his autobiography Not Dead and Not For Sale. “But everyone is wrong. ‘Sour Girl’ was written after the collapse of my relationship with Jannina [Castaneda, first wife]. It’s about her. ‘She was a sour girl the day that she met me,’ I wrote. ‘She was a happy girl the day she left me… I was a superman, but looks are deceiving. The rollercoaster ride’s a lonely one. I pay a ransom note to stop it from steaming.’ The ransom note, of course, was the fortune our divorce was costing me. And the happy state, which I presumed to be Jannina’s mood, was because she had finally rid her life of a man who had never been faithful.”
[About Interstate Love Song]: “She’d ask how I was doing, and I’d lie, say I was doing fine.”
“I imagined what was going through her mind when I wrote, ‘Waiting on a Sunday afternoon for what I read between the lines, your lies, feelin’ like a hand in rusted shame, so do you laugh or does it cry? Reply?”
That explains the bleak video, why she is returned to a happy-looking state while in the dark world of the video, and why Weiland is left in the dark world with the creepy creatures.
Considering Weiland’s life and the meaning behind this song and video, it’s interesting that it was directed by David Slade. You might remember him as a producer and director of episodes of American Gods and Hannibal. He also directed The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010).
Yari Schutzer was the production manager. Schutzer seems to have worked on around 25 music videos as well as some movies.
Martin Coppen shot the video. He has worked on at least 25 videos. Since his credits date back as far as 1988, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many more.
Bronni Bakke was the casting director, which I guess mean she picked out Sarah Michelle Gellar and the people in the suits. She worked on The Bogus Witch Project (2000) and a few other things. According to her IMDb profile, she “impersonates Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe, Felicity Shagwell and Lara Croft.” From what I can find, it looks like she passed away in 2016 from breast cancer.
Enjoy!
30 Days Of Surrealism:
- Street Of Dreams by Rainbow (1983, dir. Storm Thorgerson)
- Rock ‘n’ Roll Children by Dio (1985, dir. Daniel Kleinman)
- The Thin Wall by Ultravox (1981, dir. Russell Mulcahy)
- Take Me Away by Blue Öyster Cult (1983, dir. Richard Casey)
- Here She Comes by Bonnie Tyler (1984, dir. ???)
- Do It Again by Wall Of Voodoo (1987, dir. ???)
- The Look Of Love by ABC (1982, dir. Brian Grant)
- Eyes Without A Face by Billy Idol (1984, dir. David Mallet)
- Somebody New by Joywave (2015, dir. Keith Schofield)
- Twilight Zone by Golden Earring (1982, dir. Dick Maas)
- Schism by Tool (2001, dir. Adam Jones)
- Freaks by Live (1997, dir. Paul Cunningham)
- Loverboy by Billy Ocean (1984, dir. Maurice Phillips)
- Talking In Your Sleep by The Romantics (1983, dir. ???)
- Talking In Your Sleep by Bucks Fizz (1984, dir. Dieter Trattmann)