While
the songs of the day were coming from the Women Rock play list, one of the
songs I considered using was Pink's "Please Don't Leave Me". I
decided against it because of the video.
I
like the song -- which covers fairly normal dysfunctional relationship issues
-- a lot. The video is a little garish for me, so I hesitated to put it out
there, but I probably still would have if the video represented the song
better. The relationship in the video is abnormally dysfunctional, and seems to
have pulled a lot of its inspiration from the movie Misery.
It's
not intended to be taken seriously, but on the off chance that someone new to
Pink was going to click on it, I went "Who Knew", which is not only a
softer introduction, but also fits the mood of the song better.
Please
Don't Leave Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eocCPDxKq1o
Yesterday
I wrote about how perfectly the video for "Della May" works for the
song, but that does not mean that it is the only possible vision that could
have worked. A good song has room for a lot of inspiration, and not taking the
most obvious path can free you. There is an ache for a girl in "Take On
Me", but nothing that automatically says that ache will pull the girl from
out of a cafe and into a comic book.
I
remember reading in the forum for "Dancing With The Stars" in its
very first season. Someone was complaining because one couple had been
criticized for trying to follow this story in their routine, and another couple
was praised for the story behind theirs. The poster felt like it was a double
standard, but even without looking at the two numbers it was so obvious what
the judges meant.
Telling
a story with a beginning, middle, and ending is one thing, and it is very
common in books and movies and short fiction. With poetry and music the emotion
is more important than a plot. If the song has a normal structure, with
multiple verses separated by a chorus, it may be impossible for the images to
fit the music and tell a strictly linear story. It doesn't mean that there's
not a story, and having a story doesn't mean that you see all of it.
There's
some freedom in realizing that. It can take you interesting places. Looking at
My Chemical Romance, and the videos off of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge,
each one works perfectly in its own way. "Helena" is the most
literal, where setting it at a funeral totally makes sense. The song "I'm
Not Okay" is feels like it's more about a specific romantic relationship
than alienation at school, but it works so well for alienation at school. The
video for "The Ghost of You" is the furthest from what you would
think hearing the song, but it's poignant, and the sense of loss is there.
I'm
Not Okay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhZTNgAs4Fc
The
Ghost of You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCUpvTMis-Y
I'm
going to be referring to My Chemical Romance a lot in this series, but I am
also going to be referring more than you might expect to Reggie and the Full
Effect. I learned a lot from watching this:
"Get
Well Soon" is off of Songs Not To Get Married To, the album
inspired by James Dewees' divorce. Divorce is a downer of a subject, and I hear
a lot of raw pain just listening to the song.
In
the video, though, it's the Loch Ness Monster. That may relieve some emotional pressure
just by being unexpected, but it doesn't remove it. Nessie is devastated and
losing it. The excessive drinking, the aimless stumbling around, and the tears
are all things that people do, but that it would be very uncomfortable to watch
a person do, and it would be very hard to get the acting right. Having it be
something not human allows us to understand the extent of the suffering without
bearing the full brunt, and having it be an iconic monster like Nessie means
that when he loses the lake, that means something to us.
Pretty
good for a puppet.
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