Music video madness: HURRICANE by MS MR

music video meme sound of music

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

DON’T YOU WANT ME by The Human League

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.

DANNY BOY by Sinead O’Connor

Sometimes, you don’t need instruments at all.

This is a lost gem, a beautiful little piece of musical history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSjvLG7IJAI

ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN by Elle Goulding is completely bonkers

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.

Simple and impressive: The Finnish Whistler

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.

HO HEY by The Lumineers

music video meme sound of music

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!)

TAKE A WALK by Passion Pit

music video meme sound of music

A band I’ve never heard of with an interesting song and great camera work.

Not too shabby, Passion Pit — not to shabby at all.

For all you word nerds, here are the lyrics:

All these kind of places
Make it seems like it’s been ages
Tomorrow some new building will scrape the sky
I love this country dearly
I can feel the ladder clearly
But I never thought I’d be alone to try

Once I was outside Penn station
Selling red and white carnations
We were still alone
My wife and I
Before we marry, save my money
Brought my dear wife over
Now I work to bring family state side

But off the boat they stayed a while and
Scattered across the coast
Once a year I’ll see them for a week or so at most
I took a walk

Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk

Practice isn’t perfect
But the market cuts the loss
I remind myself that times could be much worse
My wife won’t ask me questions
There’s not so much to ask
And she’ll never flaunt around an empty purse

Once my mother-in-law came
Just to stay a couple nights
And decided she would stay the rest of her life
I watch my little children
Play some board game in the kitchen
And I sit and pray they never feel my strife

But then my partner called to say the pension funds were gone
He made some bad investments
Now the accounts are overdrawn

I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, 0h-oh-oh
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk

Honey it’s your son I think I borrowed just too much
We had taxes we had bills
We had a lifestyle to front
And tonight I swear I’ll come home
And we’ll make love like we’re young
And tomorrow you’ll cook dinner
For the neighbors and their kids
We could rip apart those socialists
and all their damn taxes
You’ll see I am no criminal
I’m down on both bad knees
I’m just too much a coward
to admit when I’m in need

I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, 0h-oh-oh
I take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk

TOO CLOSE by Alex Clare

music video meme sound of music

Bad fight choreography, great song.

Maybe, just maybe, somebody saw FROM YESTERDAY by 30 Seconds to Mars and said hey, we can’t afford to fly a crew to China and hire 500 extras to make a mini-movie masterpiece. But we do know two dudes who just started taking kendo.

Lyrics for TOO CLOSE:

You know I’m not one to break promises
I don’t want to hurt you but I need to breathe
At the end of it all you’re still my best friend
But there’s something inside that I need to release

Which way is right, which way is wrong
How do I say that I need to move on?
You know we have is separate way

And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself

And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way

You gave me more that I can return
Yet there’s so much that you deserve
Nothing to say, nothing to do
I’ve nothing to give
I must leave without you
You know we have to separate

And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself

And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
So I’ll be on my way
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing that I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself

And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
So I’ll be on my way, so I’ll be on my way

Music Video Monday: GANGNAM STYLE by Psy

music video meme sound of music

So, I usually find great music videos and go at them with a literary scalpel, like a first-year biology student going after his first frog — or I take insane music videos and make fun of them.

Each method is equally rewarding.

HOWEVER: Sometimes, a random music video pops up that is not one of the pure forms. It’s not insane, insipid or inscrutable. Nor is it beautiful in the standard way.

Every once and a while, something pops up that is both insane AND great.

Like this piece from South Korea, which also proves the point that attitude trumps all. The singer isn’t conventionally good looking. He’s short and out of shape. But oh, he’s got swagger, and it makes him far more charming than a boy-band member with perfect abs who tries very, very hard not to get a hair out of place while he croons.

Typically, I interpret the lyrics of videos. Not this time. Just watch and enjoy.

A new contender for Worst Music Video of All Time

Sometimes, a book / music video / B-movie about swamp monsters can be so Bad, and so low-budget, that it circles back to Good.

This is not one of those times.

Watch this music video, and think about it. Then let’s talk, because this video raises all kinds of Serious Philosophical Questions.

Question No. 1: Is this woman a one-hit wonder, or are there more gems out there, waiting to be discovered?

Lisa Gail has a website and some kind of album, or at least seven songs you can listen to and buy with REAL MONIES, if your monies are able to travel over the Series of Tubes.

Question No. 2: Is it possible to watch this entire thing, start to finish?

Though it was a challenge, and I cannot recommend it if you have heart problems, I did it.

Question No. 3: Sound on or sound off?

Sound on.

Question No. 4: Has any mortal listened to Lisa Gail’s other songs, to determine they, also, have a 2nd degree black belt in awesomesauce?

I, personally, as in me, have not subjected my ears to her other snippets of song-like substances.  If you do so, please give us the word in the comment section. That would be a public service.

Question No. 5: How in God’s green earth did she get all those men in cowboy boots?

This is the biggie, for me, right up there with “What existed before the Big Bang?” and “How can we truly know wrong from right without reading 4,923 pages of nonsense from Immanuel Kant about the categorical imperative?” and “If Snooki actually reproduces, will that cause the galaxy to implode?”

Sure, I could see any random singer being able to lasso her boyfriend / husband / son / neighbor kid into putting on Wranglers, cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat. However, these men are not all related to her, or married to her. It would be a stretch to call them professionals, but they aren’t a random group of people she was cooking grits for one morning.

There are three possibilities: (1) Lisa Gail is famous and successful down in Texas, and these men are volunteer fans, just like 30 Seconds to Mars has rabid fans who guest star in videos and such, (2) Lisa Gail spent a bunch of her own monies to hire the cutest local “models” and “dancers” she could possibly find or (3) these were the manliest men in the feed store on Sunday afternoon and she somehow has blackmail photos on all of them.

Question No. 6: Does she have the self-awareness to understand the irony of her lyrics?

There’s nothing wrong with being a singer, actor, author, director, politician, professor or TV anchor who isn’t some kind of supermodel. I actually prefer people with some character, and talent, rather than pure eye candy, because the eye candy types expect to skate by with no talent at all, and that gets boring real quick.

HOWEVER: If you are a singer making music videos, it’s one thing to be young and hot while you sing this sort of thing. It’s another thing to be older and hot and sing this sort of thing. You can even be uglier than a three-horned toad lizard, as in Lyle Lovett, but if you’ve got talent and charm, hey, it’ll work for you. You can have a long career and perhaps even get hitched to Julia flipping Roberts, at least for a weekend or three.

This is a polite way of saying, “Honey, if I was your man — and I definitely would not be, not if you were a billionaire who didn’t mind if I had six supermodel mistresses on the side — it’d be hard for me to look at YOU for three seconds.”

Also, the real Three Second Rule that every person knows is this: “Anything you drop on the floor for less than three seconds is still sanitary and kosher and fine.” After three seconds, you slip it to the dog. Except I would not slip this video to my dog, as the Hound of the Baskervilles has better taste.