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