I miss David Bowie
I miss Prince
Today’s music video of the day is a tribute to dead artists, remembered dreams, past memories, and lost love. That really is the way the think about music, isn’t it? We don’t think about what a song has to say or any of that stuff. Instead, we think about what we happening the first, second, or hundredth time that we heard it. Music is all about emotion and that emotion is what runs through this video.
Enjoy!
To be honest, when I first heard this song, I assumed that “ride my bike” was a metaphor for something else and a part of my still suspects that it is. I think it can be argued that a song ultimately means whatever the listener chooses it to mean. That’s the collaboration between the artist and the consumer. However, according to an interview that I just read, Maude Latour actually is singing about riding her bike in this song.
Well, okay. That’s fine. I have some issues with bicyclists, mostly because they always seem to get in front of me whenever I’m at a red light and I’m always worried that, when the light turns green, I’m going slam down on the accelerator and run them over before they have a chance to get out of the way. That said, I do like to run and whenever I’m running, I feel the type of exhilaration that this song describes.
The music video, of course, leaves no doubt that the song is actually about a bike. What I like about this video is that LaTour never stop riding and really, what better way is there to survive the end of the world? Keep moving and don’t ask for directions. Instead, draw your own map. Create your own path. That’s what I did and now, I’m very happy to say that it doesn’t even matter that I lost the map a few weeks ago. I’m just going wherever.
Enjoy!
This song and video are so optimistic that they almost feel like they should be played at a Marianne Williamson campaign rally.
Listen, we’ve all got a difficult week ahead of us and Monday is always the worst day. So, my hope is that this music video and this song will help you get off to a good start!
Enjoy!
You have to feel for Eddie Money in this video.
Years ago, he met the girl of his dreams at the Club Michelle but now that he’s back in town, he can’t find her. Not in the bars. Not on the street corner. Not anywhere. Instead, he’s reduced to asking his cab driver if he’s seen her. I am not sure where this music video is taking place. If he’s in New York, he’s never going to find her. He can’t even find the club again!
As a performer, Eddie Money’s popularity was due to being a rock star who still came across as being a total doofus. Listeners could relate to him in a way that they couldn’t relate to some other rock stars. If Mick Jagger said he couldn’t remember where the club was, you’d never buy it. But Eddie Money? You would be shocked if he didn’t get lost in New York.
Enjoy!
“Just what is it that you want to do?”
“We wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time”
That, of course, is Peter Fonda who is heard at the start of Primal Scream’s Loaded. This vocal sample was lifted from the 1966 biker film, The Wild Angels. Peter Fonda played Heavenly Blues. Nancy Sinatra was Mike. Together, they had a very good time. The biking legacy of Heavenly Blues is continued in the video for the song.
As a result of this song, like a lot of 90s kids, I could perfectly quote Peter Fonda’s speech even though I didn’t even know that it was taken from a movie. (I think most of us assumed it was just a member of the band saying something cool.) It wasn’t until years later that I would watch The Wild Angels and I would discover just exactly who it was who wanted to get loaded and where they wanted to do it.
Loaded started out as a remix of a previous Primal Scream song, I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have. Producer Andrew Weatherall added in not only Peter Fonda’s speech from The Wild Angels but also a vocal sample from The Emotions’ I Don’t Want To Lose Your Love, a drum loop from Edie Brickell’s What I Am, and also Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie singing a line from Robert Johnson’s Terraplane Blues. Years later, Gillespie would tell an interviewer from NME that he wasn’t sure how he managed to clear the rights for all the samples but that if he hadn’t, Primal Scream never would have become the success that it did. Loaded would go on to become Primal Scream’s first top 10 hit in the UK and, in many ways, it remains their signature song.
All thanks to Peter Fonda.
R.I.P.
Since it’s the 50th anniversary of Woodstock right now, it seems appropriate to share this music video.
This is a cover of a song that Joni Mitchell wrote about the festival. It’s a song that’s been covered by many different groups and, as is typical of the boomer folk music of the late 60s and early 70s, it’s a bit too self-serious for my taste. That said, it’s definitely better than that Big Yellow Taxi song and Miya Folick brings a dream-like edge to her version of the song. When you hear Folick’s version, it sounds like it’s possible that she’s being sarcastic when she sings about meeting a “child of God,” and that alone makes it better than most other versions of this song.
Enjoy!
“Lot of freaks!”
Today is the 50th anniversary of the first day of the famous (or infamous, depending on how you feel about hippies, nudity, mud, and Crosby Stills Nash) 1969 musical festival, Woodstock. Today’s music video of the day is taken from Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary about that event.
Arlo Guthrie was the son of folk singer, Woody Guthrie. He’s best known for the Thanksgiving anthem, Alice’s Restaurant. I enjoy his performance here because Arlo is both playing up to the crowd while, at the same time, remaining rather detached from them as well. He understands the audience and allows them to think that he’s one of them while remaining a bit above it all. (And if you have any doubt, just look at him flying over Woodstock in a helicopter.) It’s the same feeling that one gets from watching Arlo in the film version of Alice’s Restaurant and it makes him a more intriguing figure than the artists who unambiguously embraced the counter culture.
Wadleigh, of course, uses Guthrie’s song as a way to acknowledge that, believe it or not, a lot of weed was smoked at Woodstock.
Finally, it’s a pretty good song. Rhyming “Los Angeles” with “a couple of keys” guarantees that.
Enjoy!
“I was looking to make a fusion of various styles which somehow would summarise the last 25 years of pop music. It was a deliberate point I was trying to make. Whereas rock and roll had created a generation gap, disco was bringing people together on an enormous scale. That’s why I really wanted to make a simple, bland statement, which was, ‘All we’re talking about basically (is) pop music.”
— Robin Scott, on Pop Muzik
Before adapting the persona of M., Robin Scott attended Croydon College with Malcolm McLaren (who would later manage the Sex Pistols) and released a folk album called Woman From The Warm Grass. Scott eventually walked away from his folk roots, turning instead to electronic music. Pop Muzik, which was written from the perspective of a DJ, was arguably the first new wave hit and this music video was extremely popular during the early years of MTV.
The video was the first to be directed by Brian Grant, who was a BBC producer at the time. Working with a £2000 budget, Grant created a video that was revolutionary for the time. (In the late 70s, music videos were mostly just straight performance clips.) The success of Pop Muzik led to Grant becoming one of the busiest music video directors around. Grant went on to direct videos for The Human League, The Fixx, Squeeze, Duran Duran, and many others. If you were a New Wave group, Brian Grant probably directed at least one video for you.
I searched but I could not find the names of the two models who appeared in this video. Does anyone reading this know?
Enjoy!
It’s Amy!
Enjoy!
So, is this video a celebration of hanging out with friends or is it the final vision of a dying person whose life is flashing before their eyes. I tend to assume it’s the latter but then again, you know that I always tend to lean towards the morbid when it comes to interpreting things.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 