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| From | "Drew MacDonald" <drewmacdonald@attbi.com> |
| Subject | Re: favorite videos, but... |
| Date | Tue, 13 May 2003 00:50:09 -0700 |
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> A second ditto for Blotto's "Metalhead"
Yeah, that was fun, as was their "I Wanna Be A Lifeguard" clip. Blotto were
my Albany homeboys at the time (before the word "homeboy" meant anything
other than the local kid the drug dealers paid to watch out for the cops.)
But...
The thing is, as much as I was glued to MTV in the early days, I understood
even then how second-hand and reductionist the form is. Earlier comments
(Stewart's, I think) to the contrary, when your first exposure to a song
comes from the accompanying video, your mind DOES get locked into somebody's
else's vision. It's not a failure of imagination on your part; it's
inevitable that your interpretation of that art is hijacked. Harmless enough
if the music is a catchy-but-vapid dance tune and the visuals are some
floozy rolling around on a white floor (Madonna's "Lucky Star"), but not
when the original music is actually something good on its own.
So as much as I loved Blotto and hoped the video exposure would vault them
into the big time, I didn't need to see pictures of their songs; the mental
images conveyed by the audio alone were certainly sufficient to plant those
compositions in my head, even if I hadn't seen them performed live a dozen
times.
I remember a discussion with my then-roommate, who suggested that
Springsteen's "Thunder Road" would make a good movie. My response: "It's
ALREADY a movie." Such rich, evocative lyrical imagery, married with music
made by an artist, producer and musicians who knew exactly what they were
doing-- if that didn't play out in widescreen Todd-AO in your head, you must
have been deaf AND blind.
Either that, or you were the makers of "Eddie and The Cruisers."
I know this an old argument, but hey, I'm an old guy.
I'll close by asking if the following work of art would be honored by a
version featuring Julia Stiles as Mary and Josh Hartnett as the narrator:
The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me
You can hide `neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven's waiting on down the tracks
Oh oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run
Oh Thunder Road, sit tight take hold
Thunder Road
Well I got this guitar
And I learned how to make it talk
And my car's out back
If you're ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride it ain't free
And I know you're lonely
For words that I ain't spoken
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll be broken
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone
On the wind, so Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win.
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