Stray Cats | Through the Shattered Lens

“‘Runaway Boys’ being a little more of a song, song, not just a turnarond song, that took us a while to put together. Jim Phantom helped with the lyrics and it took a while to get right. I came up with bass going chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, and wrote the song around that. I mean there’s no set rules, I’ll have an idea in the shower, I’ll come up with the riff or something, I’ll have it floating around in my head, I’ll get an idea and I’ll get inspired to write some lyrics, I’ll get a real catchy phrase that I like. I’ll hear someone saying something and I think, oh that’s great and he actually said something else. I don’t know, there’s no way of putting any, it doesn’t make any sense, it just comes to you.”

— Brian Setzer on Runaway Boys

Since today is Brian Setzer’s birthday, it just seems right that today’s music video of the day should come from Stray Cats. Runaway Boys was the band’s first big hit in the UK, though it would take the U.S. a little longer to get with the program and embrace the genius that is Setzer.

This video was directed by Derek Burbidge, who directed a number of videos in the 80s. In fact, most of the videos for The Police were done by Burbidge. He also did the famous video for Gary Numan’s Cars.

Enjoy!

I remember back in the mid-90s catching an episode of Regis and Kathy, which my mom watched regularly. They had an unusual musical guest that day. It was Squirrel Nut Zippers playing Hell. I had no idea where the hell this was coming from. You have to bear in mind that by about 1996, my music was over with. I was around for the four horseman of the musical apocalypse sure. I saw NSYNC perform at my high school with a recorded applause. But all that said, the music that I took to heart was over with by then. I nearly burst out laughing when Ivanka Trump said she was a Millennial the other night. Anything that came after was something distinctly different to me. Just like Hell was distinctly different than anything made by Nirvana, The Offspring, and Green Day to name a few. Even when I went to Tower Records, they had no idea what I was talking about when I asked about the album. Of course this all changed when the mini-swing revival of the mid-90s kicked into high gear. I think it’s fair to say that The Brian Setzer Orchestra was spearheading the short-lived movement.

A few years later after this brief seemingly out of nowhere revival happened, I was in Lake Tahoe, CA with my parents. We were lucky because we got to see Brian Setzer perform. It wasn’t with the full orchestra. That was a little disappointing, but it was pretty awesome to see such a good guitarist return to his rockabilly roots that are all over this early 1980s Stray Cats song. The music video doesn’t feature dancing in the same way that all the other videos I will spotlight this week do, but I love the band, song, and I did just finish watching four of Lifetime’s “at 17” movies.

In this video we have a square classroom transformed through the power of a camera cut, and the band protesting in class. Once they look ready to take on Glenn Ford in Blackboard Jungle (1955), they are off to sing, play, and dance. There isn’t really anything to bring up seeing as it is relatively simple. They do a good job of pulling you in and making you want to dance along because those parents just don’t understand.

As for the girl, she’s sexy, kind of reminds me of Benatar, and is most certainly not 17 seeing as we basically see her butt naked.

Rock This Town and Stray Cat Strut are awesome, but I love this one too. I can imagine this being one of those music videos that not only reintroduced kids to the roots of rock, but had them dancing in front of their televisions.

Enjoy!