THE VIDEO Warrant, “I Saw Red,” Cherry Pie, 1990, Columbia
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SAMPLE LYRIC “And then I saw rey-yed / when I opened up the door / I saw re-ye-yed / my heart just fell onto the floor / and I didn’t need to see his faaaay-ayyyyy-ace / (oh-oh) I saw yours”
EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION Metal and wooden freestanding shelves holding tons of lit votive candles (like the ones people light in churches) swing into view as we hear some soaring piano. And ah yes, let me mention that though this is in black and white, all of the candles are in red (uh, and one of the shelves is brown). Tons of crap (I don’t know what -- peeling paint? Hastily-made confetti?) again, with some in red, falls from the ceiling, and then we hear the opening “ooooh-oooooooh yeah” coupled with an extreme close-up on the face of Mr. Jani Lane.
We pull back to see that Jani is seated at a white baby grand piano, with many, many candles and the various members of Warrant arrayed about him. Spotlights shine in various places through the walls of candles, so we’re not supposed to think they’re in a real room or anything, it’s more like they’re in the kind of place where bands like the Vinnie Vincent Invasion or Pretty Boy Floyd make videos. Also, let me mention that possibly all the crap falling from the ceiling is rose petals, but I don’t yet have a positive ID on that.
We then see Jerry from far away (as per always, lest he take away from the beauty of Jani). The space behind him looks pretty industrial, there’s a column and also a large fan (probably for blowing around rose petals). We pan across some whatever-it-is falling in front of a row of votives, then come around to Jani, who is singing while sitting at the piano and wearing a double-breasted vest with no shirt beneath.
Some random stuff (a light swinging past the camera, someone’s leg as they climb down off of something) is briefly visible, then we see Erik strum his guitar, signaling that we are soon to bust into the chorus. The camera goes around him as he goes in and out of shadow, with lots of red candles all about. Then we see that he is standing behind Jani as a like, downpour of rose petals starts. In the next shot, which is looking down on Jani’s piano, whatever all this falling crap is looks like burst balloons.
Ptcha! It’s the chorus! How do we know? Because Steven wails down on the drums making his signature face for the camera (I call it “just pouty enough with furrowed brow”) and then Joey hoists his guitar and leans back. The camera pulls out and we see the various members of Warrant as they are standing in relation to each other and the mad shelves of candles. In addition to the candles being red, Steven’s shirt and drums are also shown as being red. Jerry sings along with the chorus, but you can barely see because the camera is mostly blinded by the lights behind him, then Jani sings of course in extreme close-up.
Next we get reaction shots of the band looking serious: Jerry goes first (and fastest), followed by Steven, then Joey (who admonishes the camera with his guitar), then Erik. Then we see a long shot of Jani, and I swear it looks like there is a tripod that has been left possibly not on purpose in the lefthand side of the shot. Then of course, Jani hits a high note, so we watch that in extreme close up (“whooaaaa! Waaahhhhh!”)
Joey looks ultra-sincere and swings his guitar around whilst stuff falls from the ceiling, and Jani mega-emotes and tucks his chin down and to the side (his signature face) for “I saw yours.” Jerry is shown from beneath, and his skin is colored in red, so that makes him look fairly diseased (he’s not my type, but I’ll admit -- he is probably more attractive than Jani [and he looks about 1,000 times better now]. But it’s like these videos do whatever it takes to make him look worse. I would even swear that the icky Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich album cover is an artist’s rendering of what would happen if Jerry got really, really fat). Then we see Steven, whose skin is maybe tinted a little, but mostly it’s his drum kit that is done in red.
Jerry gets a little better shot, and every time there is a big riff Joey makes his ultra-sincere face (I’d describe it as (“we’re gonna make it through this together baby, keep your head up”). We see the room from really far back, making me realize that even though they look like they’re far apart Warrant are all actually pretty close together, and Jani’s piano is surrounded by more candles that are on the ground. Actually, Steven’s a bit further out and on a riser, but that’s it.
Jani is in close-up again, before we swing past some candles to see Jerry from super far away. Every time they show Jani at the piano, more junk falls onto it (some of which is red). Then we get a quick shot of Erik, who’s not even looking at the camera, then more of the same close-up shot of Jani that they apparently fell in love with back when they made “Heaven.”
He even has to close his eyes, it is just too much. The lights swing around and bring Erik in and out of view, then we see a decent shot of Jerry, but again with sort of red skin. For the “burn a thousand candles” line, we get a bunch of pulled back shots, reminding us that Warrant are totally burning a thousand candles like, right now.
Steven pounding his red drums take us into the chorus again, and we see Erik and Joey crossing their axes. Whoa, and now we are really ready to rock, Jani is now standing up and the piano is outta there! We then see a close-up of Steven, and I guess since he is reasonably cute they have made his skin super red too. Steven, Jerry-from-far-away, and Joey alternate through reaction shots (for their expressions, see above, they each have one!) a couple of times, of course with Jani’s face filling the entire screen in between. We do get one mad pulled back shot though, the place they are in is like airplane hangar ginormous, and several of the spotlights are high up above them.
The piano reappears momentarily for the little trill after “I saw yours”, then we finally get a shot of Jerry where he is both clearly in focus and doesn’t look like he has a disease. Oops, but then the lights go out on him and you can only see his ruffly white shirt. The camera spins around and pans down Erik, then Stephen, then for the break Jani busts out another of his signature moves -- fists together in supplication, then tossing them aside to do a slow spin. His piano keeps coming back, too, even though he is now ostensibly standing and sans piano.
For the sort of yelling interlude, Jani raises his fists often, and even though they’re not standing near each other (except in one brief moment when they are all visible behind Jani) the members of Warrant begin to do what they do best -- slow, synchronized headbanging. Much hair is gently tossed to and fro following the guitar line, and for “I never thought it would end-this-WAYYYYAYYYYY” Jani sort of does American Idol-style hands (fingers spread like he is miming holding an exercise ball).
The camera makes much of the headbanging throughout the guitar solo, and we start to get lots of overhead shots looking almost straight down on the band members. This shows us that the floor in there is covered with …leaves? Seriously, I can’t tell what this junk is. As Jani starts to sing again, the camera comes a little closer, and Jani grabs the front of his vest (this actually made me cringe just now). The piano rapidly appears and disappears, and Joey and Erik stab at their guitars and then let their hands fall away a la the Adrian Vandenberg school of guitartristy.
The lights flash big time and the crap keeps falling and Jani keeps making big eyes at the camera. Though the candles remain red, now in some of the pulled back shots the air above them is definitely somewhat blue. Hmm. It is hard to tell how on purpose that is.
But it is easy to tell how on purpose this is: As we zoom in on Jani for the final “oooh it must be magic,” his face is suddenly in glorious color -- we couldn’t get through a whole video without those baby blues, right? He looks all broken-hearted and sits up straighter as that anonymous substance (which is red in real life, too) continues to fall around him.
THE VERDICT Ooh it must be magic how Jani Lane’s voice makes me forget he looks like a very bedraggled Philip Seymour Hoffman. Every time I hear this song, images of Jani’s former abs form so deep inside of me. If a time-traveling conveyance should arrive, I’d be first place in the line, to go back to 1990 and save him from all those lame tattoos.
Then I re-mem-bered that I’d once said similar things about Mark Slaughter. And I re-mem-bered how much I had regretted those. And you don’t even need to tell me twi-iiii-ice. Save those fantasies for George Lynch, and just move oooo-oooo-oooon with your life. I shouldn’t keep listening to this song every single daaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. (Ooohooohh yeah.)
Sorry for the musical interlude. Jani’s recent appearance on VH1’s whatever-fest “Heavy: The Story of Metal” prompted much thought on my part about past metal icons and how they look now. Like who would have guessed Rikki Rockett would wind up with the Phyllis Diller hair, and not CC Deville? Or that Brent Muscat would now look like a cute, male version of Winona Ryder? And most of all, that Kevin DuBrow has somehow wound up actually somewhat good looking? I don’t know if that’s a wig or what, but it is not the hair he had circa 1982 or whatever, that’s for certain.
Also, let me mention that Dave Ellefson looks like, if not an additional Wilson brother then at the least, a Wilson uncle or cousin or something. Less surprising was Jack Russell’s return as a bleach-blonde version of Jon Lovitz, or that Dave Murray still looks pretty good (and still like one of the Thundercats).
Though for real, perhaps the scariest thing of that whole series was Bruce Dickinson (one who is known already for making unusual sartorial choices like this pouffy shirt/faux lizard pants combo he rocks in the video for “Stranger in a Strange Land,” if I’m not mistaken) busting out into being dressed as the Croc Hunter.
Crikey! What were Bruce’s handlers thinking when they let him put that on? From the boots to the hat, he looked like he should have been crawling along the ground whispering about mysterious reptiles, not pontificating in a little chair that wished it were half as cool as that crushed-velvet-and-chains sofa they used to have on Headbanger’s Ball in the 90s.
THAT ASIDE! I have a mega soft-spot for “I Saw Red,” in spite of the fact that when I hear this song most of what I think is “I just don’t get it.” The verses could not have less to do with the chorus -- things are so effing amazing, I’m gonna light all these candles for you, blablabla, oh wait, you’re doing some other guy. WTF? It is like they had two songs that were half finished, and couldn’t quite make it through either one, so one of them was like, “screw this, let’s just put them together.” The result is sort of like an all-Warrant mashup. I will say that the verses are delightful to warble in the shower etc, while the chorus is hard to sing without feeling like an idiot.
The other thing about this song that I would like to say is that I like the acoustic version on Metal Mania Stripped much better than the original, in fact, the original does not even merit a spot on my iPod whereas the unplugged one is a frequent visitor to my 25 most played list. And don’t even get me started on the acoustic version of “Cherry Pie"... you have to hear it to believe just how good it can be.