Tag Archives: music video

Music Video of the Day: In Front Of The Alamo by Hal Ketchum (2007, dir by Glenn Sweitzer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is Alamo Day.  It was 184 years ago, today, that 600 men gave their lives in the name of Texas.

That’s one of the many things that I think sets us native Texans apart from the rest of the United States.  Texans believe in freedom.  We always have and we always will.  Some of us may be conservative and some of us may be liberal but what we have in common is a desire to do it our own way.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as moved as I was during the days immediately after Hurricane Harvey.  A lot of people outside of the state seemed to think that Harvey was a disaster of such immense proportions that it would lead to the end of both the state’s reputation for independence and our way of life.   So, what did we do?  We did what Texans always do.  We came together and we helped each other.  We did what we could and, when someone came along who could do the job better, we supported them.  We appreciated everyone who came down to lend a helping hand and we checked on our neighbors to make sure that they were okay.  See, that’s the thing about Texas.  We don’t surrender.  We fight and we help those who need it and, for that reason, we’re the greatest state in the union.

(In fact, if we had never joined the United States, the Republic Texas would probably be a world superpower right now.  Oh well.  In the end, it all worked out.)

Anyway. this music video is about the Alamo so it seems appropriate for today!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Zemra ime by Mozzik (2019, dir by Mozzik)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In today’s music video of the day, the Albanian rapper Mozzik goes to prison and it turns out that prison in Albania is just as tedious and soul-destroying as prison in America.  Fortunately, he can always escape to his dreams.

Or, at least, that’s what I assume is happening in this video.  I don’t speak a word of Albanian.  But one of the great things about both music and the visual arts is that sometimes, you don’t have to speak the language.  You just have to open up your mind to the emotions and the images.

This video was directed by Mozzik himself and he did quite a good job!  I especially like the surreal scenes of Mozzik thinking about being free.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Waiting On A Friend by The Rolling Stones (1981, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“Just let me be cynical for a moment. First of all, it’s really NOT about waiting on a woman friend. It’s just about a FRIEND; it doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman. I can see people saying, Oh, we’re all much older now, Mick’s writing this much more compassionate stuff, must be about a real person. But that’s only in their perception of it.”

— Mick Jagger on Waiting For A Friend

Is our man Mick waiting for a friend or is he waiting for his drug connection?  Since the video features Mick hanging out in front of a building in New York and waiting for Keith Richards to come walking up, I guess both could be true.  Interestingly enough, Keith has often said that he and Mick have a strained relationship in real life, though Keith also wrote in his autobiography, “”I still love him dearly … your friends don’t have to be perfect.”

This video was popular in the early days of MTV.  At a time when many of the big rock bands were still skeptical about the music video format and many were also predicting that MTV would never last, the network was happy to have a video from a group as legendary as the Stones.  The video was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who was  doing videos even before MTV was a thing.  Waiting with Jagger in front of the building is Peter Tosh.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie (2000, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s Ash Wednesday!

I remember, when I was like 14, I got up early in the morning and I woke up my sisters by shouting, “It’s Ash Wednesday, bitches!”  My mom was not amused.  That said, Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days.  I just love the ritual of it all.  Of course, I also usually wash my forehead fairly early in the day.  That’s allowed, by the way.

Now, before anyone leaves any snarky comments, I fully understand that David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes is not actually about Ash Wednesday nor are the ashes mentioned in the song literal ashes.  I understand that but hey, this is a good song and David Bowie certainly does look happy in this clip.  Around the two minute mark, he takes the time to praise the backup singers, which is a pretty classy move.

This is from a 2000 performance in London.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Lord of the Flies by Iron Maiden (1995, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Lord of the Flies is based on William Golding’s famous book about a group of school children who get stranded on a deserted island and turn into savages.  The lyrics are a literal interpretation of the book’s plot:

I don’t care for this world anymore
I just want to live my own fantasy
Fate has brought us to these shores
What was meant to be is now happening

I’ve found that I like this living in danger
Living on edge it makes feel as one
Who cares now what’s right or wrong,
it’s reality
Killing so we survive
Wherever we may roam
Wherever we may hide
We’ve got to get away

I don’t want existence to end
We must prepare ourselves for the elements
I just want to feel like we’re strong
We don’t need a code of morality

I like all the mixed emotion and anger
It brings out the animal the power you can feel
And feeling so high on this much adrenalin
Excited but scary to believe what we’ve become

Saints and sinners
Something within us
We are lord of flies

Saints and sinners
Something willing us
To be lord of the flies

The video was shot while Iron Maiden was touring the Holy Land and it’s a typical no frills Iron Maiden production.  One thing that I’ve respected about bands like Iron Maiden is that the majority of their music videos are just clips of the band performing.  They don’t need to do anything fancy to hold your attention.  They just get out there on stage and play the Hell out of every song.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: You Suck by Abigail Breslin (2014, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

You tell ’em, Abigail!

I like to think that this song was directed at whoever it was who convinced her to appear in New Year’s Eve.

I’m happy to say that no one in my life sucks right now.  In fact, I’m about to go on a two week vacation with my favorite person in the whole wide world.  Fear not, though.  I may be gone but I have a lot of posts written out and scheduled to publish until I get back.  So, I’ll be on vacation and yet, I’ll still be posting reviews.  I often think about this because it’s actually a pretty common occurrence for me to write out a review and then schedule it to publish way later in the year.  So, if — God Forbid — I were to die over the next two weeks, I would still be posting reviews all the way through 2021.  It would be like my ghost telling you what movies to see …. FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!  That’s kind of neat.

Anyway, enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: Southwark by Yumi Zouma (2020, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I watched this entire video waiting for a zombie attack or something similar but it didn’t happen.  That came as a shock to me because I guess the movies have just preconditioned me to expect any happy day at the beach to end with either zombies or, if it’s a Jean Rollin film, vampires.

Anyway, even though this video doesn’t end with the carnage that I was expecting, the shots of the beach are still nicely atmospheric.  The beach shots reminded me a bit of the incredibly depressing scene in Under the Skin where a couple is drowning in the ocean and the only person who around who is capable of saving them is killed by Scarlett Johansson.  (Seriously, that scene gave me nightmares.)  Don’t ask me where this video was filmed because I don’t know.  I’m not an expert on beaches.  The closest that I regularly get to the beach is when I go up to my cousin’s house at Lake Texoma.  To be honest, most beaches kind of look the same to me.  It’s like water, sand, and a bunch of rocks.  Sometimes, you might see a jelly fish wash up on the beach.  Just the thought of that freaks me out.

One thing I like about this video is that you can read the lyrics while listening to them.  As someone who is notorious for mishearing lyrics, I appreciate that.  Seriously, I used to try to sing along to songs and people would give me such a hard time because I always ended up getting the lyrics wrong.  It was really upsetting and it made me associate many great songs with tears and injured feelings.  What’s especially annoying is that my misheard lyrics were often a hundred times better than the actual lyrics.

Of course, to be honest, I’ve never been one of those, “You must listen to the lyrics and ponder what they’re saying about life!” type of music fans.  When it comes to music, my main concern is whether or not you can dance to it.  I used to have a friend who would force people to listen to songs from certain artists and, while you were listening, you weren’t allowed to speak or dream or anything else.  Instead, you were expected to listen to the lyrics so you could discuss what they meant.  After a while, it got to be pretty annoying.  There’s only so many times that you can say, “This song is about the futility of war and institutionalized misogyny,” before you get bored with it.  The last straw, for both me and many of the members of our social circle, came when she got involved with the Occupy Wall Street people and she expected everyone to start listening to folk music.  I was like, “Unless there’s a big beat remix of If I Had A Hammer, count me out.”  There’s only so many times that you can listen to that Turn, Turn, Turn song before you just want to go off and become the most committed capitalist ever.

Anyway, enjoy!