Music Video of the Day: Dreamin’ Of You by Bob Dylan (2008, dir. ???)

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I wanted to do a different music video today, but it’ll have to come in the following days due to health issues. On the upside, those health issues might have left another music video with Harry Dean Stanton in it go unfound. Or is that a downside? Yes, I found another one, and I’ll take it as a good thing.

Anyways, this time we get bootlegger-Stanton.

We get to see him travel around following Dylan to bootleg his songs.

I think it’s clever the way they did this video. According to Wikipedia, it did get an official release:

It was originally recorded to be on the 1997 album Time Out Of Mind. You remember Time Out Of Mind, right? That was the album that took Dylan to the Grammy Awards so he could meet the “Soy Bomb”-guy. I’ll always remember that one. The song wasn’t included on the album. It must of leaked out because people had access to it regardless. Cut to almost 10 years later, and Dylan decided to not only release it on an album and call it part of “The Bootleg Series”, but a video was made chronicling the hard life of an old bootlegger.

You’ll notice that Dylan only appears in some grainy stock footage. There’s a comment on YouTube that covers that bit:

A friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to work on a Bob Dylan music video. I said absolutely! However, once we got out to the desert in Palmdale, CA I said where’s Bob? My buddy said “Dylan, isn’t exactly in the video. The video is a concept about an old music bootlegger played by Harry Dean Stanton. Bummer. Harry Dean was a trooper, because it was brutally hot at almost 100 degrees. At the end of the day, Harry got on the guitar and played a Mexican folk ballad. He said “film this and send it to Bob.”

I love that story.

This might be my favorite one of the Harry Dean Stanton videos so far. We see this isn’t just a bootlegger. He is a fan who treasures Bob Dylan’s material, would love to be able to play like him, and is so obsessed with Dylan that he appears to have made it his life’s work to make sure not a performance or song is lost to the wind.

As for the album shown at the end, apparently they tried to charge people $18.99 for the two-CD set and the three-CD version for $129.99. Yes, because that’s how to encourage your fans to buy the official release instead of procuring a pirated copy–price gouging.

Enjoy!

Harry Dean Stanton Retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Imagine by John Lennon (1971, dir. John Lennon & Yoko Ono)

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Seeing as it is the International Day Of Peace, I thought it was appropriate to finally spotlight the music video for Imagine by John Lennon.

While this video received a release on its own, it was also edited into a film called Imagine, which was released a year later in 1972.

It’s not the only music video that was made for this song. In 1986/1988 Zbigniew Rybczyński made a new music video for it. Maybe I’ll spotlight that one at a later date if it is still available.

The “This Is Not Here” sign comes from the title of Ono’s art show that was being displayed in New York.

They arrive at the door with the sign on it after walking down the title of a Beatles song (The Long And Winding Road) and proceed to teleport inside the house. Maybe they did that because if that sign isn’t there, then neither are they. Perhaps it’s because the song is about an imagined reality. I’m not sure what they were going for with that.

After that, the video alternates between a closeup shot of Lennon playing the famous white piano…

and a long shot showing Ono opening the metaphorical blinds to let the light into the largely empty white room.

Once she’s done, she sits next to John and proceeds to stare off into space. Honestly, it’s kind of weird.

But then Lennon finishes the song, turns to her, gets a little goofy, and they kiss.

The song has been heard and covered so many times that even the Wikipedia article has a section called “Notable performances and cover versions.” They will often have a full list if they bother to include covers.

The video has had many unofficial postings on YouTube for years, but it took until December of last year for it to get up there officially. I wonder how many people have seen the video in addition to having heard the song.

Today, a video is supposed to go up for a song called One World One Love for the International Day Of Peace. I’ll have to look at that some time.

Music Video of the Day: Stop by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (2003, dir. Charles Mehling)

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Hi, club-owner Stanton!

Bye, club-owner Stanton!

What was the point of having him bookend this video? Was the band really big fans of Harry Dean Stanton? Was Stanton a fan?

In between the parts with Stanton, we just get a stylized road trip. There’s nothing particularly interesting about it other than the spin shots. I kind of liked those.

This is one of those videos where I can find quite a few credits.

Charles Mehling directed the video. He has a little over 25 credits as a director of music videos.

Cathy Pellow was the producer. She has a variety of credits spread over work as a video commissioner, executive producer, producer, and director.

Simon Coull was the one who shot it. He appears to have done a little over 10 music videos.

Jeff Seibenick has worked as a director, editor, and cinematographer. He has a bunch of different credits over on IMDb.

Finally, prolific 1st assistant director John Downer worked on this video along with the some 80-90 videos he has done.

Enjoy!

Harry Dean Stanton Retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Those Memories Of You by Dolly Parton & Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris (1987, dir. White Copeman)

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Is there a single one of these videos that doesn’t have Harry Dean Stanton playing a sad looking old man?

Spoiler! There’s only one that I can find.

This time around we see Stanton hanging around a black-and-white house with a dog and a fiddle.

While Stanton goes about his normal routine, we see Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris in color as ghosts trolling Stanton. I wonder if this was for the same reason that Bob Dylan wasn’t in the Bob Dylan video that stars Stanton.

Stanton still finds a way to have some enjoyment by doing a bit of Gene Kelly mop/broom dancing from Thousands Cheer (1943).

Thousands Cheer (1943, dir. George Sidney)

That’s really all there is to the video. It has Stanton and it’s a nice recognizable Country song. Stanton does a fine job as always. I kind of like the idea of Parton, Ronstadt, and Harris being ghosts even if I can’t keep myself from wondering if the video is this way because they couldn’t get them in the same room together. It works anyways.

Unlike almost any video I cover, this one comes with credits.

I can’t find anything about White Copeman except that he seems to have directed at least one other video for Dolly Parton.

There’s a little more information on producer Caldwell. He and his wife sold a house in Venice, Los Angeles back in 2014 for about 2.56 million dollars. I can also find some scattered mentions of him online that amount to the fact that he works as a music video producer. There are at least producing credits on three videos and graphics work on another one.

Enjoy!

Harry Dean Stanton Retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Nothing To Believe In by Cracker (1996, dir. Samuel Bayer)

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Today’s Harry Dean Stanton video is doubly-sad. That’s because we not only have the recently departed Stanton.

We also have Justin Pierce four years before his suicide. You would know him from Kids (1995).

Talia Shire shows up in the video as well.

I don’t know anyone else in the video other than lead-singer David Lowry. Thank goodness for Wikipedia. I knew of Cracker because of the song Low. I knew of Camper Van Beethoven because of the song Take The Skinheads Bowling. But I would have never noticed that Lowry fronted both bands even though it’s obvious to me now listening to this song and Take The Skinheads Bowling.

I wish I could at least find out who this lady is…

that is doing her best Rob Halford.

Heading Out To The Highway by Judas Priest (1981)

She is prominently featured, but all I could find is that Harry Dean Stanton did two more music videos than I originally thought. It never fails. I’ll do them as well.

The video was directed by Samuel Bayer of…

Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana fame. Did Lowry ask for the Cobain treatment? In addition, I know Bayer directed Bullet With Butterfly Wings one year prior to this one. Still, was Goth-Stanton something people were clamoring for?

I mean he looks like Lars Ulrich in Until It Sleeps.

Until It Sleeps by Metallica (1996)

Yes, that one was also directed by Bayer. And if you are thinking he probably directed some videos for Garbage and Hole based on the woman I couldn’t identify, then you’d be right.

The casting director on this one was Crystal Lujan. Her music video credits alone are close to 100. She has done some acting too. I guess she was one of the cult members in that unfortunate Clive Barker movie with Scott Bakula, Lord Of Illusions (1995).

Enjoy!

Harry Dean Stanton Retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Sorry You Asked? by Dwight Yoakam (1996, dir. Dwight Yoakam)

Posted on September 17, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It’s time to pick up with Harry Dean Stanton’s character from Heart Of Stone. This time we find out his name is Bobby Watkins. The video plays the same till about one minute and fifty seconds. That’s where the videos split.

We see Bobby go into the skating rink with two sets of skates, but we’ll soon see that he has no partner for the couples-only skating period.

Bobby starts skating on his own when we get my favorite bit with Stanton. Am I smoking? How did that get there? Let me just toss it like I have no idea where it came from. He also tells him he can’t be out there during couples-only.

Office-guy sits down with Bobby, and he asks what happen to Carolyn. I assume she’s the lady from Heart Of Stone.

That’s when the video launches into the song at close to four minutes into the video. I wonder how much this was edited when it was aired. That’s a lot of build-up regardless of the fact that music plays during it.

This is the better video between this and Heart Of Stone. Not only do we get to see Stanton onstage with Yoakam, but…

we also get a more playful Dwight Yoakam.

It works well in contrast to Stanton.

This works especially well when Yoakam fades his own vocals out at the end before you would expect, and then drops you off emotionally by cutting to Stanton singing the chorus in black-and-white.

This might be my favorite of the Harry Dean Stanton videos. He was a good choice for this even if his age makes Heart Of Stone seem a little ridiculous. That’s assuming I put these in the correct order and that she was supposed to be Carolyn. Enjoy!

Harry Dean Stanton Retrospective:

Heart Of Stone by Dwight Yoakam (1996, dir. Dwight Yoakam)

Music Video of the Day: Heart Of Stone by Dwight Yoakam (1996, dir. Dwight Yoakam)

Posted on September 16, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

A lot of the time somebody famous, who isn’t associated with music, passes away, I can find one or maybe two music videos they helmed or were in. Harry Dean Stanton did more than just one or two music videos. I can find a record of 7 of them. I can find 5 of them. Let’s do them all. They’re all worth spotlighting.

Edit: I found 2 more for a total of 9 that I know of, and 7 of them that I can find.

The earliest I can find is one he did for Dwight Yoakam’s song Heart Of Stone. He did another one for Yoakam the same year.

I must admit that the extent of my knowledge about Dwight Yoakam is that their is a country musician named Dwight Yoakam. He helmed up to possibly 13 music videos. There are a couple where he was a co-director, but the majority of them have him listed as being the solo director. He even directed a movie called South Of Heaven, West Of Hell in 2000.

There are two interesting things about this video for me–aside from Stanton

The look. I love the grainy footage and the lighting.

The fact that it takes one minute and fifty seconds to even get to the song.

Otherwise, I like the other one Stanton did with Yoakam better. Particularly because you get to hear Stanton sing. However, you do need to watch them both since this one leads into the other. I’ll do that one tomorrow. Think of this as the introduction to the set and character that will be followed up on in the next video.

Music Video of the Day: The Winner Takes It All by ABBA (1980, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

If Lasse Hallström’s intent was to make Agnetha look the opposite of the way she did in the music video for The Name Of The Game, then he succeeded.

The Name Of The Game by ABBA (1977)

Come to think of it, I bet that was his intention. If The Name Of The Game is the start of a relationship, then The Winner Takes It All is when it falls apart. We even get a reverse of the table scene.

Together

The Name Of The Game by ABBA (1977)

Agnetha together, but alone.

This was the same year that Agnetha and Björn got divorced. There’s been talk of whether the song was written specifically about their divorce. Wikipedia says that Björn claims that the song wasn’t written about their divorce. Songfacts says it was 90% or entirely about it. They can’t seem to make up their mind. I also question the accuracy of their “facts”.

Like Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way,” this evokes some very Behind The Music moments as the male band member wrote deeply personal lyrics about a female bandmate. At least Stevie Nicks didn’t have to sing lead on Lindsey Buckingham’s lyrics like Agnetha did with Bjorn’s.

I don’t think it was written specifically about their divorce. The reason being that this is hardly the first song Benny and Björn wrote that covered this area: SOS; Knowing Me, Knowing You; Thank You For The Music; and their career kicked off with that little song called Waterloo. Relationships, defeat, and ends were a thing for ABBA in general. I believe that this one was born out of Björn’s personal experience that hit very close to home–not a musical document of their actual divorce.

At the start of the video, we are greeted with still shots of the band looking happy and glamorous before we cut to Agnetha looking like she was just run through a dryer. Those shots are the centerpiece of the video. Sometimes she is shown on her own, and other times we see her shot through Benny’s out of focus hands playing the piano.

In between, we get some flashback shots and others that were filmed on the island of Marstrand along the coast of Sweden.

While you watch, keep looking for Björn in the present part of the video. He barely shows up. Neither does the rest of the band, but considering the material of the song, and Agnetha being the one singing it, you notice.

Also, notice that Agnetha is wearing the same outfit whether she is laughing at the bar…

or sad at the bar.

Maybe that was done because those were the outfits they had on at the time, and they simply used them in the video. I don’t think so seeing as ABBA is well-known for their costumes. Regardless of whether it was done on purpose or not, it draws our attention away from everything else in the frame, and puts the focus solely on her face, since it’s the only thing that has noticeably changed.

Finally, you’ll see that the last photo at the beginning of the video is of Björn, before they go to Agnetha.

The last photo at the end before cutting to the final shot of Agnetha is of the group all-together.

A split from Björn, but not from the group–yet. I find it interesting that Hallström chose a shot of the band where only Agnetha looks happy before going to the solitary, sad shot at the end of this post.

I mentioned before that I don’t think Björn intended this to be a biographical song of his and Agnetha’s divorce. Lyrics from Knowing Me, Knowing You are “walking through an empty house/tears in my eyes/here is where the story ends/this is goodbye.” That was back in 1976. Take that however you want.

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: I Have A Dream by ABBA (1980, dir. Urban Lasson)

Posted on September 14, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It’s official. I’ve reached the really confusing part of ABBA’s career in music videos–the last couple years before they broke up in 1982.

If I went by mvdbase, then the next video is a television appearance ABBA did to perform Hovas Vittne for Stig Anderson’s 50th birthday. However, that birthday would have been in 1981, not 1980.

The next video that is listed is one for I Have A Dream. You can find a listing for this video on both mvdbase and IMDb. It looks like someone may have just copied it over from mvdbase without actually looking into it. I say that because I can’t find one that stands out as an obvious music video. Also, the release dates match exactly: February 1980.

What I can find are two different live performances ABBA gave of I Have A Dream. In 1979, ABBA was on tour, and it was released the next year as ABBA In Concert. One of the places they performed was at Wembley Arena in London. That is the one I have included above. That seems to be what these listings are referring to since the description on the video says it is on the DVD collection of ABBA music videos. It would appear they took that segment of the concert and released it as a music video. There is an edited one. This is one that is complete. The edited version is the one on the DVD. It looks like this one aired on VH1 at some point.

The other performance I can find is also from 1979. It is from the Spanish TV show, 300 millones. I have no reason to believe this is the one. Regardless, I thought I would stick it here anyways.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches (2000, dir. Geoff McFetridge)

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Like so many music videos, Frontier Psychiatrist has multiple versions. There’s the well-known one that’s been talked about so much that I no longer feel special for noticing the use of the song from a Silvana Mangano movie–she’s best-known for the film, Bitter Rice (1949). And then there’s this version. If for some reason, it is no longer up, then you can follow this link to see it.

It’s a more realistic interpretation since we are seeing events from the outside. You could argue that the other video takes place in this kid’s head. This one is what is happening in the real world. Or at least as real as a world can be that has a mother holding up a book with this cover…

and pages like these in it:

While this video did help me to understand a storyline for the song, it has a problem I can’t get past.

One of the things that makes the well-known video so great, is the tight connection between the audio samples and their visual recreations. It’s a visualization of the way everything from a John Waters film to instructional tapes were combined by having those things performed on one big stage. The storyline is the journey through the components of the song.

Here, the audio and visuals do sync-up on occasion, but there is still such a disconnect that it’s off-putting. Perhaps I’m spoiled by the only version I knew of before I sat down to write this post. I keep expecting movement and cuts at each audio sample, and it doesn’t happen.

I wouldn’t say it’s a bad version though. The parts with the kid who plays Dexter are good.

The kid makes this video. He turns something fun, into something disturbing. On the other hand, I’m not sure I like thinking of Jeremy by Pearl Jam while I’m listening to Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches.

I’m up in the air about this one. Watch it, and make up your own mind about it. Rorschach tests or Turtle-Man? You decide. Enjoy!