Y&T, "Don't Stop Runnin'"

My New Year's Resolution

THE VIDEO Y&T, "Don't Stop Runnin'", In Rock We Trust, 1984, A&M

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "(Keep on running) / Don't stop running! / (Keep on running) / 'Cause you can't catch me / You better keep on running / (Don't stop running!) / Oh yeah-ahhh!"

THE VERDICT Can you believe, and I mean truly, can you believe Motley Crue's first live show was opening for this band? Crazy but it's true folks, crazy but it's true. Reasonably decent songs aside, Y&T (which stands for Yesterday and Today) are cheesy as all get out. And as if their songs were not cheesy enough, they up the ante with their videos -- and by up the ante, I actually mean they go all in. With schlock like this, Y&T don't appear to be holding anything back (though allmusic always claims they're in on the joke).

Nonetheless, I thought it would be a good idea to end the decade and kick off the new one with some inspirational fare. While I toyed with many songs that encourage us to keep rocking and indeed, not stop rocking, in the end I picked "Don't Stop Runnin'" because it allows a bit of a wider interpretation. Also because this kind of work hard, achieve your dreams thing is more or less the new year's/new decade's resolution I set for myself. I'm in the midst of several personal and professional projects at the moment, and sometimes it's hard to see an end in sight. Thus, my resolution to "keep on runnin'."

Come to think though, I probably should have resolved to "Hang Tough," and thus blogged about Tesla -- a band and a song I much prefer to Y&T. But come on, Tesla never made a video with an apparently 30-something high school nerd turning into a robot, so we're sticking with Y&T.

Our video begins with said nerd (Paul) asking an equally not-young-looking popular girl (Susie) out on a date to a concert that evening (which we can only assume is Y&T). She harshly turns him down, letting him know she "wouldn't go to a funeral" with him and that she's going out with Big Man On Campus Charlie tonight.



That aside, we know she's popular because, come on, look at the size of the bow on her head! If we're to have learned anything from the movie Heathers, it's that high school social status is inextricably linked to the size of the bow affixed to one's noggin. The interchange is so awkward that the nerd appears to slam himself into a locker. Next thing you know, the BMOC has rolled up, causing the nerd to punch himself. Let's face it, he's kind of a hard protagonist to sympathize with.

The nerd heads home to his Y&T poster-bedecked room, where he can soothe himself with some tunes on his giant cassette Walkman. Throwing himself onto his bed (which, along with his bedroom, overall looks suspiciously like the room from "Cum On Feel the Noize" with some added decor), he's maligning his geek status when suddenly --

His Walkman explodes, and his face turns into the guy from the old Memorex ads! Next thing you know, a big metal breastplate pops through his shirt, he's got metal teeth, and big, useless metal hands -- yes, he is turning into the Y&T robot. This transformation appears to make him as baffled and sweaty as his exchange with the girl, and before you know it, yup, he's a robot. They can't likely afford the special effects to actually show the transformation, so we just get rapid cuts back and forth between the robot's face, and the nerd with metal teeth. Oh wait, not braces, more like grills.

The robot doing some aerobicizing gives way to Y&T performing live-ish in front of a fairly robust crowd. In fact, close-up shots of the robot are used to transition from scene to scene throughout the video, which is kind of weird. Apparently, the robot is flying around the Y&T concert as well as hovering over Southern California.



We next see the BMOC pull up in a white convertible to pick up the girl. He looks smug, and she looks thrilled, having put an even larger bow in her hair. She's also now wearing a flouncy, puffy-shouldered white dress and white gloves. As his car pulls away, we see that the BMOC's vanity plate reads "STUD BOY." Eww.

Oh snap, now the robot is onstage with Y&T. Just when I was about to say that based on their level of sweatiness and the lack of decent camera angles this probably was a live performance. The robot sort of hop-skips toward the camera before hopping over it. My guess is the costume is made out of foam rubber -- it looks soft and squishy.

Now the robot is flying (aka superimposed) over the Y&T audience. We then see the girl and BMOC driving (aka also superimposed) at night. She's attempting to look less than thirty by blowing bubbles with her gum, while he's more or less continuing to look smug. Ooh, now the robot is flying (you know what I'm going to say by this point) over the city. All of this is interspersed with shots of various members of Y&T sweating and yelling.



The girl and BMOC suddenly find themselves at a stop sign, that is somehow also possibly in an alley, quite shocked and confronted with three uh... I guess they're supposed to be punks, but this is in the sense that Nic Cage in Valley Girl is supposed to be a punk. The girl makes ridiculous overacting faces, and the BMOC shrinks down in his seat as the "punks" size them up. Also, let me mention one of the "punks" is a chick wearing black lipstick and an eyepatch with a large "tattoo" that says "Search and Destroy" in the center of her back. Oooh, rough neighborhood.

The tallest punk reaches in and grabs the car keys, while the lady punk smiles at the wide-eyed girl. The BMOC gets out of the car only to be roughed up by the two guys. They then get the girl out of the car and start pushing her around -- aww, the tall guy even grabs her bow! She's powerless without it! The BMOC watches in horror and then runs away.

There's a weird moment where the girl gets thrown to the ground, and then she and the punk girl sort of look at each other knowingly. I kind of feel like that moment is the only time we sense any sort of real chemistry in this video. Then it's back to the robot flying around, apparently content to enjoy the power of flying (can you blame him?) and let the girl get hassled by the punks. No worries, as she then punches the guy punk with the weird eye makeup (it appears to spell out "BITE" -- seriously, where did they learn about punks for this video?). This then inexplicably leads to him taking out his aggression on the "STUD BOY" vanity plates.

The vandalism of private property finally somehow gains the robot's attention. Let me mention also that when the robot is "flying", all its parts don't fit together -- there appear to be big gaps in its body such that its head and arms are just floating above its torso. Heaven knows what green screen problems caused this to happen. He spots the alley and somehow magically sees a close-up of the girl being harassed in a little starburst/price sticker shape.



The punks' jaws drop as the robot comes bouncing out of some dry ice fog. The robot fights the punks, grabbing the tall one's fist in his lobster-claw-looking hands, then doing an Undertaker-esque choke slam on the one with the eye makeup and lifting him staight out of his boots (during this shot, we also get to see that the robot appears to be wearing um, men's dress shoes).

This all proves too much for the girl, who faints, leading to some shots of Y&T and their fans all looking especially excited. The robot grabs the girl up in his claw hands and carries her out of the alley. (Ooh, you know it's a bad part of town when someone has spraypainted "Rock" on the side of a building.)

Now for the best part of the video: She wakes up, sees the robot, and gets way more scared than when she was just being abandoned by her date and beaten up by the punks. I mean, it's a giant effing robot with metal teeth and claw hands, and she probably doesn't know what the "Y&T" on its chest means! She punches the robot in the chest until he puts her down, and then she runs away to -- around the corner. Yes, she runs like ten feet and then stops, as if the robot isn't about to turn the same corner too. And now the best part of the best part: THE ROBOT CRIES A SINGLE TEAR. We get a pretty ambiguous reaction shot of the girl, still leaning against the wall, but that robot tear is just the piece de resistance of the Y&T video oeuvre, if you'll allow my overuse of French pour une minute.

Next thing we know, we see the Walkman lying on the bed, totally unexploded, and the nerd sitting up in bed, exclaiming "whoa!" and touching his head and body. "Aw shucks, fell asleep listenin' to Y&T again!" But then, he realizes something -- the left lens on his glasses is broken! Sacre bleu, how could this be? It couldn't just be that he, I don't know, was taking a damn nap with glasses on. But then he pulls down part of his sheets, and finds what appears to be either the robot's shiny Y&T breastplate, or a really, really large Y&T guitar pick.



He smirks at it knowingly, but what the hell that proves, I have no idea. "Yeah, I did save the girl, but she hated that scary robot and had no idea it was me." How is that good news?! Come Monday morning, she's going to be back to hanging off STUD BOY, and he's going to be slamming himself into his locker.

But I guess, as the song implies, he will "keep on runnin'" in spite of the fact that the girl is now terrified of him instead of just ignoring/dissing him. That's what it's all about, right? Persistence in the face of setbacks.

And besides, he has reason to believe she'll come around. I mean, if there's one thing we've learned from 80s movies, it's that hot women love nerds. And if there's one thing we've learned from the 80s movie Heavy Metal, it's that if there's one thing hot women love more than nerds, it's robots.

Trust me -- this video is so bad, it makes me forget that "Don't Stop Runnin'" is actually a pretty decent song. Confusingly though, it's being told to a person who "wants another chance" with the song's ostensible narrator, which is weird. The lyrics fit most with the video if you construe them as being from the point of view of the girl, Susie, even though she does not seem to in any way want the nerd to "keep on runnin'" to try to "get next to" her, let alone "feel the ecstasy." So maybe between this and the robot tear, this video wasn't quite as inspirational as I thought. But it was fun, wasn't it?

Danzig, "Mother"

Mmm... Sacri-licious

THE VIDEO Danzig, "Mother," Danzig, 1988, Def American

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Not ab-ow-uht tuh see yo-our li-ight / but if you wanna find hell with me / I can sho-ow you whut it's luh-uh-ike / 'til you're bleeding!"

THE VERDICT I know, I know. There are actually a whole stocking full of metal versions of Christmas songs, from Twisted Sister's "Come All Ye Faithful" (more or less to the tune of "We're Not Gonna Take It") to Dokken's "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (by way of "Dream Warriors") to that "I Am Santa Claus" parody of "Iron Man" I remember being played on classic rock radio when I was growing up. Problem is, save for the last one, these are all really recent. And let's face it, people don't come to blogs like this (nor do I blog) to see what Dee Snider was doing in 2007. Instead, let's gather 'round the yule log (huh-huh, I said log) and listen to this darling tale told in the dulcet tones of Glenn Danzig.

Everyone in Danzig is huge -- they all look like that gigantic bodybuilder guitarist Alice Cooper used to have, or that other really ripped guitarist from Manowar. I wonder if they all had to be short though, to not make Danzig look bad. I've always felt like he'd be an amusing person to meet, not just because, as shall be seen below, I find him often hilarious (both unintentionally and intentionally), but also because he's my height, and while I'm a quite small girl, he's this massively ripped dude. And as such, he's surrounded himself with a bunch of other massively ripped dudes whose faces manage to stay obscured throughout this video, in spite of (well, more likely actually because of) it being strategically lit and in high contrast. What is it with spooky metal bands and high contrast black and white? Or with metal bands in general, I suppose.



But as per always, I digress. This video features mainly close-ups of Glenn Danzig's face and silly haircut as he bellows his way through this song, which has always been a favorite of mine. His super-deep voice is super-fun to sing along with, but unlike basically the entire Misfits catalog, this is slowed down enough to make it singable (and not too slow, like the sludgy "Dirty Black Summer"). Come to think, something about the tempo of this song is really ideal, as it is also really great to dance to. Is this what Danzig intended? Not sure, but its a lot of fun.

Anyway. We get face close-ups, which occasionally give Glenn a bit of a baby bird look. When he switches from "mother" to "father," he opens his eyes, and tries harder to make spooky faces. This is enhanced by the switch with the first chorus from shooting him straight on to shooting him from above, with his face now lit from beneath rather than from one side. Anyone who's ever held a flashlight under their chin at a slumber party is well aware of this trick. We also get to briefly see the drummer (Chuck Biscuits, who for the record is not dead) and guitarist (Jon Christ from Samhain), though again, not their faces.

Eventually, all this spooky face-making leads a bunch of hot women to show up, all staring intently at something off camera. We don't know what, though we do see a shadow of a cross on the wall behind them. We then see Danzig from a new angle, implying -- if we extrapolate from everyone's sight lines -- that he's talking to these women. We then see one of them up against a wall, with shadows crossing over her. We'll call this one Kim Basinger, not because she looks that much like her, but because for some reason, that's the association I make with her hair.



Then we see a second woman in the same position, only this one is, in my opinion, much much hotter. Amazing hair and makeup look that we will deem the Christina Applegate (though again, in my opinion, this girl is much hotter than Christina Applegate). She's got more of a spunky look to her, whereas Kim Basinger appears more alarmed.

Danzig swivels around so he's facing the camera for his close-up, and makes loads of baby bird faces as he delivers a power vocal. We also briefly see the guitarist, and Christina Applegate (remember, not the real one, just the lady who I'm claiming has a hair resemblance to her) making eyes at the camera. Next thing we know, Glenn's got a torch. This leads to a lot of screaming.

We then see, in silhouette, Glenn clearly standing on a box (or maybe the woman is kneeling?) and wearing finger extensions menacingly placing his hand on the head of a woman with bizarrely well-defined breasts. This is interspersed with shots of the Christina Applegate girl dancing (see? I told you this song is good for dancing!).

Then we see reaction shots of Glenn and the Kim Basinger lady, both with shafts of light falling across their eyes, followed by shots of just their eyes. Then we actually get to see a little more of Glenn's body and -- prepare yourselves -- he's not shirtless! It appears he has actually been wearing a sleeveless hoodie this whole time. Who knew. At this point in the video, the faces he's making are totally OOC. He's gone from baby bird to like, basking shark in terms of mouth-openness, and he keeps getting a little bit of an Elvis sneer lip-thing going. We then see him really high up and from far away -- is this supposed to make us think Glenn's tall?



And then ... ALTERNATE VERSION ALERT! If you're watching this video on MTV (back in the day) or Vh1 Classic (now), you'll see some close-ups of what appears to be the Christina Applegate lady lying on her back (you just see her head and shoulder), loads of Danzig yelling, and more of the silhouette spooky hands thing. However, if you're trying to watch this video on the internet now, the ONLY version you'll find is the original, which MTV rejected at the time (but which apparently everyone's down with now, since the edited version is unfindable).

In which case, here's what you'll see: Suddenly Glenn's body gets fully lit, and we see he's standing on a giant, upside-down star/pentagram thingy (there's some kind of additional symbol in the middle of it, but it's hard to see from where I am). We don't just see a woman's head lying down, instead we pull back from that shot to see she's lying on a blood-stained altar with a giant skull with devil horns up above it, wearing only a black bikini. Danzig and Christina Applegate are looking on with concern. Someone's hand claws the woman's stomach, then next thing you know, Danzig is hoisting up a white chicken by its feet, and a big spatter of blood appears on the woman's stomach. A woman's hand uses two fingers to draw an upside-down cross in the blood. Then inexplicably we get a shot of Christina Applegate lying on the table -- her outfit identifies her as not the same woman who was lying there a minute ago and instead the one who was standing next to Danzig, but Glenn's not going to let a little thing like continuity get him down. Then we see another lady (similar looking to the Kim Basinger one but not the same gal) tasting the bloody fingers and then making eyes at the camera -- eww.



What does all of this have to do with Christmas, you ask? Admittedly, not the most. Except that Glenn Danzig's love of blood landed him a prominent role in a Christmas-themed episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force -- thus landing him a prominent place in my heart (admittedly, not as if he didn't already sort of have one). If there is one quality I admire in people who appear to take themselves deeply seriously as does Danzig, it is the ability to then turn around and poke fun at themselves, and Danzig does to brilliant effect in "The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past From the Future." I mean really, after watching him actually pretend to sacrifice a chicken, what else would have logically come next? Let's hope it's collaborating with Shakira for real. Now that's something I wouldn't mind finding beneath my Christmas tree.

P.S.: Don't even tell me you don't know where the title of this post came from! My other obvious option was "I cannot live with that guy. He is so annoying. He is so frightening. And he doesn't wear a shirt." But I couldn't decide on the optimum way to condense it.

Def Leppard, "Rocket"

Hey, Remember the 70s?

THE VIDEO Def Leppard, "Rocket", Hysteria, 1987, Mercury

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Rocket! / Yeah-ah! / satelli-iii-iteoflo-ooo-ooove / Rocket! / Yeah-ah! / satelli-IIIIII-iteoflo-ooo-oooh-ooove

THE VERDICT In the spirit of the decade ending and all the reminiscences, nostalgia-fests, and best of lists we are likely to be subject to in this and the coming weeks, let us take a trip back through time courtesy of our friends in Def Leppard.

This video finds our boys playing in some kind of warehouse full of spotlights, TVs, and other assorted detritus, including all these bikes hanging up in some kind of weird sculptural arrangement-slash-something you'd find in a junk-filled garage. Combined with all the nostalgic stuff on the TVs, this video is less reminiscent of other metal videos (not especially shocking coming from Def Leppard at this point in their careers), but does remind one of broody, reminiscing videos from other 80s bands (think Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" and Simple Minds' "Don't You [Forget About Me]," both of which feature similar motifs). Playing with a bunch of old junk around you apparently implies you're thinking about your life, or something.

The only other metal video employing a similar motif that comes to mind is Great White's "Save Your Love" ("Rock N Roll Children" doesn't really count, as setting the scene in Dio's magical mystery junk shop is sort of central to it's plot). I guess Iron Maiden's "Wasted Years" is even more explicitly about reminiscing, but they only show photos of themselves (same goes for GNR's "Yesterdays"), so it's a bit different. Let's face it, at the time most of these boys were living for the moment and not really thinking too hard about this other stuff.

Then again, with all the tv monitors surrounding them -- showing newspaper headlines, stock photos, and most prominently, words from the song -- Def Lep may also have stumbled into some kind of undergraduate art project. Ooooh, or the Christmas party from Less than Zero! Though we don't see footage of the band on the TVs. We see Gary Glitter, Elton John, Freddy Mercury, David Bowie, the Beatles, Slade and other Brit glam rockers, mod fashion, Nixon (quite a bit), British pols, footballers, NME, and of course, actual rockets. Each verse the pictures shown on the screens tend to focus on one area (so music, politics, sports).



The best bit we get though is a quick clip of a very glam Phil Collen (and Rick Savage?). Somehow Joe Elliott appears to be their drummer! If only this part lasted longer or the video was better lit.

Anyway. On to another digression. Could they make a metal video in the 80s without spotlights? Much as Hype Williams would later make shiny stuff and fisheye lenses de rigeur in hiphop videos, so too did Wayne Isham make the spotlight one of the most prominent, and yet underrecognized motifs in heavy metal videos. Seriously, I should go back and tag all the videos I've written up that include spotlights, but that would be more or less all of them! But in particular, this sort of shadowy space filled with swinging spotlights is pure Isham.

I know, I know, the director on this video is Nigel Dick, but the spotlights are really Isham's thing. Plus Appetite for Destruction videos aside, Dick is more known for working with Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and Band Aid. (Not that Isham's exactly a metal purist himself, but I think given all his early work with Motley Crue, Metallica, Megadeth, etc., Isham is who we can really credit for all these dang spotlights. But for the record, he's worked with Backstreet and Britney too.) In any event, we'll forgive him.

Let's digress about the song for a moment. The falsetto harmonizing -- which, if like me you've watched Vh1's Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story multiple times you know Joe adopted first for "Bringin' on the Heartache" -- renders half the chorus for this song completely unintelligible. It sounds like "Rocket! Yea-ah! Sinalighnaloooone!" to the best of my transcription abilities.



As I would never have known had I not looked it up, what they're singing is "Rocket! Yeah! Satellite of love!" This warms my heart not as a possible Lou Reed reference but because it calls to mind the home of Joel, Tom Servo, Crow, Gypsy, and my personal favorite, Mike Nelson (though not at the same time as Joel, obviously). Given the show didn't start running even on public access in Minnesota until 1988, Def Lep are not making reference to it, but I'd be remiss without plugging MST3K, because I freaking love it. Mike Nelson, if you're reading this, call me.

But the strangest part of this song is the breakdown before the guitar solo, where they take the weird falsetto vocalizations and cut them up, rendering them truly unintelligible, and add in bongo-style drumming. All the better to be accused of backmasking, right boys? Which they do with the "awmapshawdaNewOrleans" at the beginning of this song ("we're fighting with the gods of war"). But seriously. Even though the whole album has Mutt Lange's fingerprints all over it, the two most bizarre and overproduced songs on Hysteria are this one and "Women" (which, as it happens, was shot in this same warehouse, just with different lighting).

However, the bombastic chorus also allows Joe Elliott to sort of mime convulsions as he sings. Apparently at some point someone told Joe to sing with his head cocked to the left, because it's leaning that way for pretty much the whole clip. Meanwhile Phil Collen (who totally looks like Riff Raff from Rocky Horror) and the sorely missed and much loved Steve Clarke engage in all kinds of windmill-style guitar antics. Both do this while wearing cropped jackets over bare chests, all the better to expose loads of flesh.

Long story short, it's all good. I'll take Def Lep's tour through the last 20-odd years over whatever "I Love the '00s" Vh1 is surely moments away from trotting out. Oh WOW. Nevermind. Apparently they put out I Love the New Millenium back in '08. Seriously. Seriously. This is why I'm stuck in the 80s people! Everything that comes after is just too embarrassing.

P.S.: This post is named for the genuinely hilarious Saturday Night Live skit of the same name starring Jim Breuer as Goat Boy and, in the iteration I have in mind, featuring a particularly spirited performance by Chris Kattan as David Lee Roth. Of course since they're psycho about everything, I can't find video online anywhere... but if you can ever catch this episode (the host is Pamela Anderson), you'll get where I'm coming from.

Keel, "Because the Night"

Shake It Like an Eighth Grader

THE VIDEO Keel, "Because the Night", The Final Frontier, 1986, Gold Mountain

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "[Because the night!] / belongs to lovers / [because the night!] / belongs to luhhh-ust / [because the night!] belongs to lovers / [because the night!] / belongs to uhhhh-us"

THE VERDICT Semi-embarrassing admission: In spite of the fact that allmusic neglects to mention Keel's cover of it, theirs is my favorite version of this song. It must also be mentioned that this is in spite of my being a tremendous Bruce Springsteen fan. I'm surprised Keel didn't opt for the more manly lyrics Bruce puts in. And yes, I get chills hearing Bruce sing it, especially going into that first chorus.

The same can't be said for the arguably more well-known (and ostensibly the original, though since she and the Boss co-wrote it, who knows) Patti Smith version, from which Keel takes the lyrics used here. Personally, I've always found her voice grating. I think it's also, however -- and this is no fault of Patti Smith's, since this happened way later -- it reminds me of the 10,000 Maniacs version, which was a staple of dances at my WASPy private middle school.

In spite of its much-vaunted proximity to New York, hip hop had not yet penetrated these whitest reaches of Connecticut, and thus our school dances included stuff like this. I wish I could remember what fast songs were played, because these were undoubtedly hilarious as well -- the only one I can remember was "Magic Carpet Ride." Yes, in the face of a musical landscape that was rapidly turning away from more or less standard guitar-oriented music (of which grunge was arguably the last gasp), the students at my middle school and the associated high school focused their energies on classic rock (particularly Zeppelin and Hendrix) and whatever metal was still around (the Use Your Illusion albums were more or less canonized; girls who wanted something less abrasive turned to the new, shorter-haired Bon Jovi).

The last dance of the night was always Zeppelin's "Stairway." This meant that by the time you'd finally ginned up the courage to ask someone to dance, you had to do it before "if there's a bustle in your hedgerow" because the song was only speeding up from there. It was the classic "Come Sail Away" problem -- dramatized in the first episode of Freaks and Geeks as well as in The Virgin Suicides. (I couldn't find good links for either but both are worth watching anyway.)



Thus if I associate "Because the Night" with one thing, it's either staring pathetically at or slow-dancing awkwardly with short, preppy boys in 1993 and 1994. Trust me, this was a hard association to break. But I can attribute it to a couple of things: Removing the piano motif at the beginning, punching up the fast/slow transitions with a total guitar assault, and Ron Keel's amazing vocal on this song.

I'm less a fan of the breathy harmonizing on the part of the rest of the band (though it definitely works for this style of lyrical metal). But Keel's voice! On this track it's got qualities I just don't hear in other Keel songs, and certainly not in his stuff when he was in Steeler. I think this cover is the first indication we have of where Ron Keel winds up going when he turns into Ronnie Lee Keel, country dude. It's a bit nonsensical, but in trying to come up with words to describe this vocal I keep hitting on things like smoky, honeyed, rich -- so more or less I'm describing barbecue (and Keel is of course from Tennessee!). Heaven knows I love barbecue, so this can't be a bad thing. It also may help to explain why whenever I hear the Keel version of this song, I am absolutely compelled to sing along.

But this is supposed to be a blog about videos. Sooo, what happens in this video? We get numerous spotlit shots of the band members, who are otherwise in complete darkness. I know that sounds like it would look like a thrash video, but trust me, it doesn't since details like their shirts or guitars keep being colored in with bright, very 80s hues. It's less thrash, and more those posters of kids kissing, which are apparently all the work of one woman.



We also get a subplot with Ron Keel, dressed very late 80s or very well, now in a big denim jacket, aviator shades, skinny jeans, and red leather gloves, following around a mysterious blonde who we never quite see. She swims across a pool in a leopard-print maillot, rollerskates along a boardwalk dressed like Debbie Gibson, and lies around a dramatically-lit apartment being sexy a la Tawny Kitaen.

As per the lyrics, Ron can only see her at night. But we have to wonder if the model/actress in this video ever actually saw him, since they're never in the same shot -- all the stuff we actually see at night basically consists of reaction shots of her face and then close-ups of hands fumbling with clothes. By the time the video ends, and we see her on her balcony watching the sun rise, she's alone again without Ron Keel. Quelle disappointment!

I would also be remiss to cover a Keel video without mentioning Marc Ferrari -- a talented guitarist, but also let me say quite the little hottie with that Bonnie Raitt streak in the front of his hair! Love it. Makes me want to put one in myself. Technically I had one circa 1996 or so, but that was a different time with different hair. In that regard at least, much like the 80s.

Dokken, "Just Got Lucky"

At Least 49 Years' Bad Luck

THE VIDEO Dokken, "Just Got Lucky", Tooth and Nail, 1984, Elektra

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "You were just using someone / and I was the ooo-oone! / she said 'you just got lucky' / I believed your deadly lies / you just got lucky / I've been hypno-ti-ized!"

THE VERDICT Deceptively simple, this is the video that made me fall in love with George Lynch. He is literally a beacon of hotness throughout this video, having the best hair of his career (his Breaking the Chains half-and-half hair is perfectly grown out) and glistening with sweat. His classic red t-shirt which simply says "Balls" (in Helvetica!) sums it up well.

What else is going on? Well, Jeff Pilson is seriously outdoing himself with the guitar face. That man could give a master class in rock star moves. Don Dokken is running around with bandannas tied to his legs a la Punky Brewster. As per usual, Don is furrowing his brow and making pouty faces at the camera, however in about half the shots here, he's doing it in a sort of low-budget house of mirrors. It's less like the band's playing in a funhouse, and more like they're playing in one of the bigger dressing rooms at Bloomingdale's. You half expect to see a pair of beat up, size 11 women's heels lying on the ground -- not because they belong to Don, but because they always have that in the dressing rooms at Bloomingdale's, as if those are really going to give you a better idea how those $300 jeans look.

But I digress. Don's doing his best to look hurt, because this is yet another Dokken song about the evilness of women. Yes, as any metal video will tell you, we are a serious threat to... what? I guess in this song's case, to male self-esteem? Not really sure.



This is mainly because the lyrics to this song don't make much sense unless you add a bunch of your own punctuation to turn them into more of a dramatic dialogue (sort of like how the woman echoes that one verse in "Breaking the Chains"). The whole song is about getting over someone you had a relationship with who was a completely bad idea. You're having some trouble doing it, but it has to happen.

However, you can only get this by adding a bunch of quotes. Without them, the song sounds kind of schizophrenic. So we wind up with: she said "you just got lucky" / [Don replies:] "I believed your deadly lies" / [again, she said:] "you just got lucky" / [Don replies:] "I've been hypno-ti-ized!"

Even with the quotes, however, it's hard to say why this is lucky. Is she saying he's lucky to even have been screwed over by her? (This is admittedly how I feel about some of my exes.) Or is she implying he's lucky he got out? This isn't my favorite Dokken song (that's "The Hunter"), but regardless, it's one of their most nonsensical, even among the often muddled lyrical imagery of their "damn you, woman!" songs (e.g. "Heaven Sent"). For their part, Dokken seem pretty unconcerned with luck, as they repeatedly break mirrors throughout this video, most often by throwing guitars through them.

What else goes on? Well, we get a lot of Don's face reflected in shards of mirror, and hardly any Mick Brown. And every time we make our way out of the hall of mirrors (by appearing to break them), we get live footage of Dokken (and at least half the time in the same outfits, but live, and much sweatier). These boys need some VO5, stat. Or some of that Pssst dry shampoo.



And just when you think it can't get any hotter -- George Lynch plays the guitar solo on top of a volcano. It's not erupting or anything, but if I remember correctly, it did take a helicopter to put him up there. It also doesn't exactly look inactive. And look at those... well, look at all of it. This was before he went all body-builder, and I much prefer this lankier look (shades of Warren DeMartini!). In any event, George on a frickin' volcano is not a bad way to cap things off.

On a semi-related note, tell me you have seen Dokken vs. Chicken. I know, the current lineup of Dokken only contains the original half of the band that doesn't really interest me -- as I always say, Jeff Pilson would seem like an incredibly hot and talented man were he not in a band with George Lynch, but I'm afraid for me Don and Mick just do not do it. Nonetheless, they're still performing -- with Don's former attorney (!?!) on guitar and Barry Sparks on bass.

Back to my point, they are apparently the centerpiece of a bizarre ad campaign from Norton that while I'm assuming it only runs outside the states, I can only conclude is intended to get me personally to purchase virus protection for my PC. I mean, who else is that obsessed with not only Dokken, but also chicken? And particularly fried chicken. If someone wises up and makes a commercial that involves George Lynch and fried chicken, I am in serious-ass trouble, because I am pretty sure that commercial would simultaneously activate so many pleasure centers in my brain that I would buy literally anything being sold with such a campaign.

P.S.: Thanks to Gareth C. for the suggestions for this post!