Conventional wisdom about writing is conventionally wrong.
Kristin Chenoweth likes to do something few performers dare: grab somebody random from the audience and perform a duet.
This can be funny, or so bad it’s good, like karaoke writ large with a big pop star and an audience of 20,000 instead of 14 guys at the Elks Lodge.
In this case, Chenoweth got a shock when Sarah Horn answered the call to “who knows the words to For Good from Glinda?”
Music videos are common, and have been done so many time, it’s hard to do anything truly different or interesting.
The Beastie Boys played cheesy cops with giant mustaches in SABOTAGE, which is classic. But 99 percent of other music videos are rock stars preening, divas dancing, boy bands prancing or soulful singers looking all pouty and depressed with their guitar.
CLARITY by Zedd has guts and ambition. They shot footage other than the lead singer wailing and the guitarist thrashing. The film looks interesting, like it could be part of a movie — I wanted to see more of what they did out in the desert and the streets.
Well done, German euro-rockers.
So this Jessie Ware, if you haven’t heard of her, is talented and different and old school mates with some singer named Adele and some other singer named Florence, as in Florence and the Machine.
If you like music, and music videos, you’ll like what she does here.
Many, many rock and pop stars tend to make videos that all look the same, and I mean that both ways: every video they make looks like (a) every other video they’ve ever made and (b) every other video made by similar artists. This has been true since Hair Bands put on their first pair of spandex pants in 1982 and will be true forever.
Jessie the Ware tries something different every time, and here she tries something simple and stark and interesting: just her, a plain background and a swiveling chair.
I like it, I love it, I want some more of it.
So I’ve found this genius band from the big honking nation known as Canada — which has provinces where you could fit Texas and Alaska inside and still have room for most European counties — and while WOTE is getting radio airplay know for Red Hands, they’ve done a zillion covers. Here’s the thing: those covers are often better than the originals.
Related: RED HANDS by Walk Off the Earth is music video goodness
Here’s one member of WOTE doing Bruno Mars, all by his lonesome. And he’s just messing around with a loop machine in his guest bedroom or whatever. Brilliant.
The original by Bruno the Mars:
Related posts: Music Video Monday’s Greatest Hits
###
Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that won some award (PNWA 2013). Represented by Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.
Most of the time, it takes a bit for a song to grow on you. Listen to it once on the radio and yeah, that’s alright. Second time, it’s good. Third time, you’re into it.
I liked this song — and this video — instantly. First time. And I have nothing to really dissect or pick on, which is nice.
Well done, MS MR.
Lyrics:
Didn’t know what this would be
But I knew I didn’t see
What you thought
You saw in me
I jumped the gun
So sure you’d split and run
Ready for the worst
Before the damage was done
The storm never came
Or it never was
Didn’t know getting lost in the blue
It meant I wound up losing you
Welcome to the inner workings of my mind
So dark and foul I can’t disguise
Can’t disguise
Nights like this
I become afraid
Of the darkness in my heart
Hurricane
What’s wrong with me
Why not understand and see
I never saw
What you saw in me
Keep my eyes open
My lips sealed
My heart closed
And my ears peeled
Welcome to the inner workings of my mind
So dark and foul I can’t disguise
Can’t disguise
Nights like this I become afraid
Of the darkness in my heart
Hurricane
Make ash and leave the dust behind
Lady diamond in the sky
Wild light
Glowing bright
To guide me
When I fall
I fall on tragedy
Welcome to the inner workings of my mind
So dark and foul I can’t disguise
Can’t disguise
Nights like this I become afraid
Of the darkness in my heart
Hurricane
This is one of the first music videos to feature some sort of story.
You know, a plot instead of (a) the lead singer emoting into the microphone while (b) the rest of the band pretends to play their instruments for the 45th time until (c) the director finally calls it good.
Because this is a piece of epic music history, 12 years from now, somebody will write their doctoral thesis on it. If you are that person, please research whether the female lead’s hairdo was an accidental homage to Princess Diana or totally on purpose. Kthxbai.
Sometimes, you don’t need instruments at all.
This is a lost gem, a beautiful little piece of musical history.
I have heard this song on the radios, and over the Series of Tubes through some kind of Pandora magic, though Pandora is missing her Box for some reason.
HOWEVER: The point is, this song by Elle the Goulding is interesting plus the video is craaazy.
Which is good.
Because the last thing the world needs is another boring music video where (a) the band rocks out on stage while playing their guitars and such, because that has NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE, or (b) the singer pretends to sing while doing a choreographed dance number with 592 backup dancers and 17 costume changes.
I give Elle the Goulding bonus points for trying something different.
Now, I enjoy dissecting the lyrics of insane music videos, such as ICE, ICE BABY — but once and a great while, there’s a music video that comes out of nowhere, like a burly mountain man stomping through town with a giant axe on his shoulder and a hankering for Insane Amounts of Flapjacks — and this is one such video that surprised and amused me.
Also, it has no lyrics to dissect at all, unless I speak bird. Which I don’t. If you can translate, go for it.
Also-also: This would be a perfect song for some kind of spaghetti Western starring Clint Eastwood, though I mean the younger version of about 30 years ago, before he starting picking fights with empty chairs.
This is a simple little song with a simple little video that still manages to ROCK THE HOUSE.
Also, I don’t really hear much of a difference between the Ho! and the Hey! parts, but hey, that’s artistic license and such.
Also-also: There’s something of a trend of Mumford and Son types, musicians wearing suspenders while playing folksy rock that involves (a) a banjo, (b) a bass and (c) harmonicas or whatever.
This is a good thing, though it will certainly snowball into some kind of trend where record executives start signing up folks bands with accordians instead of amplifiers faster than an aspiring writer can tell you about their YA series that is NOT inspired — they swear — by Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, because they have a school of witches, not wizards, and the zombies show up on page 392.
Also-cubed: As for the controversy over whether The Lumineers (original band name: The Night Lights) are singing “You’re my sweetheart” or “You’re my sweet home” — the answer is, “sweet heart.”
Here’s the video. Watch it. DO IT NOW, because YouTube / the Google needs your clicks and money or whatever before their stock starts doing the Facebook nosedive.
For word nerds around the world, the lyrics:
(Ho!) I’ve been trying to do it right
(Hey!) I’ve been living a lonely life
(Ho!) I’ve been sleeping here instead
(Hey!)I’ve been sleeping in my bed,
(Ho!) sleeping in my bed (Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Ho!) So show me family
(Hey!) Or the blood that I would bleed
(Ho!) I don’t know where I belong
(Hey!) I don’t know where I went wrong
(Ho!) But I can write a song
(Hey!)
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweet
(Ho!)
(Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Hey!)
(Ho!) I don’t think you’re right for him
(Hey!) Leave the world it might have been
(Ho!) Took a bus to china town
(Hey!) I’ll be standing on canal
(Ho!) And bowery (hey!)
(Ho!) She’d be standing next to me (hey!)
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
And love, we need it now
Let’s hope for some
Cause oh, we’re bleeding out
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
(Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Hey!)
The Red Pen of Doom 