THE VIDEO Lita Ford, “Dressed to Kill, Dancin’ on the Edge, 1984, Mercury/Polygram Records
Click here to watch this video NOW!
SAMPLE LYRIC “[Kill me bay-by!] / You’re dressed to kill / [You killll mee bayyy-by!] / You’re drrressed to killllllllllllll”
EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION Lita Ford, clad in an off-the-shoulder mini-dress thing made of uh… garbage bag material (or at least the world’s cheapest pleather) approaches a vanity table covered with an array of girly goods and studded leather accessories and a big lighted mirror. Suddenly, as she is about to take a seat, a random bearded dude (Tommy Iommi maybe?) appears on the right of the screen and growls “you’re dressed to kill.” Lovely Lita takes a seat, revealing a generous helping of stocking-covered leg. An acoustic guitar plays softly as she chooses a compact and a large brush and begins brushing powder onto her cheeks.
Lita smiles to herself as she (off-camera) begins singing the song (i.e., the Lita we see is applying foundation with a sponge, the Lita we hear is singing. Get it?) She’s already wearing a ton of makeup, notably very frosted lipstick and heavy eyeliner, but there’s always room for more. Ope, nope, here we go. She slowly applies more lipstick.
As Lita slides out of her o-t-s outfit (revealing some kind of negligee-type thing beneath), then rolls her stocking down to her totally hot snakeskin heels, off-screen Lita growls “you’re dressed to kill” for the first time, as a guitar kicks in revealing that contrary to what you’ve been hearing so far, this song will not be a ballad. Half-dressed, Lita teases her hair and smiles knowingly at the mirror. But then the camera pulls out and suddenly she’s fully dressed and wearing a black tank top with a pattern of white skulls on it and black pants with long white fringe running down the sides (chaps??).
Lita unnecessarily kicks over her zebra print chair and moves to grab a guitar as the song finally starts rocking, and we cut to a performance shot of Randy Castillo. Now we’re at a fake-looking Lita Ford concert, with Lita pumping her fist in the air and the paid extras in the audience (excuse me, the fans) halfheartedly doing the same. An anonymous guitarist in a killer skinny 80s tux (I am obsessed with skinny 80s tuxedos -- so hot) spins around, and Lita does too, with the camera sort of swinging wildly above them. We also get lots of shots taken from about halfway back in the crowd.
As the song begins its refrain (“kill me baby”), we see a chunky, pissed-off looking girl who’s wearing a scarf on her head and a shapeless flannel thing standing right in front of the camera on the right (weirdly, those shapeless flannel things are like really in right now). In the background, we can see some clothes tossed on the ground, a table with a speaker and some other junk on it, posters, halfheartedly strung Christmas tree garland, and a lamp. An older dude, probably her dad, stands by the doorway. He gestures at the girl, and she makes an angry face, turning toward the camera and aggressively applying powder with a large brush. We briefly see Lita and Hugh McDonald thrashing in unison, then we’re back with the girl, who’s now wearing a shapeless black velvet garment and shaking out bright green hair while her father berates her. Let me mention also that she has a nose ring and eyebrows that have been plucked to the brink of invisibility. Lita et al rock out a bit more, then the girl puts on a hat while her father (now with cigarette and disheveled hair) rants on.
As the second verse begins, we’re in the bedroom of a suspiciously old-looking white skater dude. He jumps in on his skateboard wearing a t-shirt and a backwards hat. The room is sparsely furnished -- there’s a lawn chair, an acoustic guitar, a bookshelf with some junk on it, posters, and a window with venetian blinds. He bops up to the camera, takes his hat off, and shakes out his (graying??) longish hair. We then see fast-forwarded film of him bopping around the room changing his clothes while sort of headbanging the whole time. Come to think, this whole sequence is not super-different from the video for “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” by REM. He changes basically from a skater to a metalhead, with loose hair, a black sleeveless t, black sleeveless vest, boots, etc.
We then see lots more shots of Lita and the band singing, and I’m pleased to report that her random guitarist is actually wearing fabulous 80s tails. And a headband! This is a great outfit. At least one person in this video is actually dressed to kill. The drummer bashes his fists into his head repeatedly and all parties concerned flash the devil hands repeatedly as we move into the guitar solo, which I am pleased to say Lita plays (since she actually did all the guitar on the album, hence the no-name guitarist in the video).
We quickly cut though to an Asian girl in a crocheted sweater who’s teasing her hair. We cut to Lita, and by the time we’re back with the girl she’s put on a leather jacket and her hair is ginormous. She grins ecstatically, and Lita continues to shred onstage. There are lots of close-ups of her hands, and lots of shots of her bent over her instrument silhouetted in a greenish-blue spotlight.
Finally, we get up to our last guy, a heavyish white guy in a suit who’s running his hands through his hair. Behind him a Lita Ford poster and a Scorpions poster are visible on the wall. Grimacing into the camera the entire time, he tears off his tie and shirt and puts on mirrored aviator sunglasses. Lita and her bandmates, meanwhile, take turns screaming “you’re dressed to kill” into each others’ faces. The dude then has put on uh… okay, it’s like an asymmetric torn t-shirt, and he’s wrapping a length of chain secured with full-size handcuffs around his neck. O-kayyy. He tops this off with a sleeveless leather vest.
We then see a longer shot of him, showing that he’s also wearing cuffed jeans and that his room wasn’t quite so tiny as it looked -- we were seeing him from a mirror over a cluttered dresser that was on the long side of the room. The short side of the room is uh, like six feet across, hence the room looked even tinier than it is. It’s very messy, lots of clothes on the floor and stuff. There’s a Bon Jovi poster on the back wall (who was the set designer on this video? Jeez). He spins around and does a bunch of crummy air guitar moves, even dropping to his knees he’s rocking out so hard. The video closes with a brief concert shot of Lita shaking hands with someone in the crowd, then cuts to the shot of her all made up and looking satisfied from the beginning of the video.
THE VERDICT This video is extremely Dio-esque in its embrace of the downtrodden, the disdained-by-their-peers and kept-down-by-their-parents and lampooned-by-their-coworkers "Rock N Roll Children." In fact, give Lita Ford a crystal ball, and this more or less is that video. Of course, rather than running away to live out their dreams these people are um, accessorizing, but it's more or less the same concept.
I really want to like Lita Ford’s music, I really, really do. I like her quite a bit as a person, but as a performer… um… ehh… yeah, it’s just not happening. Part of this is probably that as the most successful female performer in metal, I wanted her to be great. Amazing, memorable songs instead of … high-cut leotards, leather pants, and the usual. Sad to say, but while on a man glam metal style is subversive, on a woman it’s pretty much the usual sexist b.s.
Talking about Ms. Ford however gives me the opportunity to mention the fact that they’re releasing a movie about the Runaways next year. Why, I don’t know. A) I thought the documentary released a few years back pretty much covered it. B) Particularly when I was in high school, the Runaways were a big style influence on me. We’re talking loooong, straight hair, high-waisted vintage work pants, and tiny scoop neck tees with glittery iron-ons. In particular, there’s a picture of them reprinted in The Rolling Stone Guide to Women in Rock that I would ogle for hours (matter of fact, it was this picture). I very much wanted to look like Jackie.
And now… Cherie’s being played by Dakota Fanning. Joan Jett’s going to be interpreted by that sourpuss girl from Twilight. And our good friend Lita Ford will be interpreted by … some girl who’s biggest credit to date seems to be appearing in both the Rob Zombie Halloween remakes. Weak. The one thing I can say for this movie is it features Alia Shawkat (Maeby from Arrested Development) as well as Robert Romanus. Yes, Damone from Fast Times at Ridgemont High! I didn’t even know he still acted. On the other hand, it also includes Elvis’ granddaughter. I didn’t know she “acted.”
Long story short, it’s just a matter of time before Teen Vogue et al. start claiming they’ve always been into Lita et al. and comparing the music of the Runaways to that of latter-day manufactured female punk-pop like Avril Lavigne (because let’s be real, just because the Runaways were really good doesn’t mean they weren’t a Svengali job all the way -- just look at Bow Wow Wow). But even still, they probably won’t be titling any fashion spreads “Dressed to Kill.” But that’s probably more because it’s too reminiscent of that creepfest Brian DePalma movie.
P.S.: Notice anything different? I've rejiggered the layout to bring you super-sized pics -- 1/3 bigger than the old style! Part of this is that when I started this blog, I was using an indigo clamshell iBook which only had a screen with 800x600 resolution, so bigger images wouldn't have even fit. But now, it's the future, and we like our jpgs HUGE!