Iron Maiden, "Run to the Hills"

Another Awkward Thanksgiving...  

THE VIDEO Iron Maiden, "Run to the Hills," The Number of the Beast, 1982, Capitol 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Run to the hills / run for your liiii-iiii-iiives! / Run to the hills / run for your liiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiives!" 

THE VERDICT It's Thanksgiving again, and since I publish my posts on Thursday and Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday, well, you'll have to endure another Thanksgiving-related post. Naw, I like doing themed posts! Everyone's in the holiday mood anyway (okay, readers in the U.S. are in the holiday mood maybe), but I don't know. I just like it. It feels timely, even if I'm writing about videos that are more than twenty years old. 

https://ironmaiden.com/

As per last year, since there aren't really metal songs about the Puritans, I've gone with a native American theme yet again. But this year I decided to go a bit more overtly topical — instead of just "Cherokeeeeee! Ohh!" we get an actual song about colonization. I know, it's still not Thanksgiving per se, but we're getting closer. 'Cause really, think about it — if any metal band is going to have a song about colonization, it's going to be Iron Maiden. 

If I had to guess, given their interest in British history I would suppose they have a lot of songs about colonization. If this is as close as we get, this is as close as we get (though maybe next year I'll try to dig up something related to the Salem witch trials so it's at least closer to being about the right century). In any event though, I'm going straight to the obvious — "Run to the Hills," which, if not in my opinion one of their best songs, is certainly one of their best known songs. 

If you know one Iron Maiden song, it's probably "Run to the Hills." (If you know two songs you know this and "The Number of the Beast," if you know three it's those and the borderline-cheesy "Two Minutes to Midnight"). If you're under 21, I have a bad feeling you know these from Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band, but that's another story. 

This video is split fifty-fifty more or less between the band performing and an old movie. I'll get to the latter in a minute, but first let's talk about the band. This video is pretty low budget — yes, the band's on a stage, but it's completely dark around them. Even though it looks like a live setup, they don't even try to pretend there's a crowd.

 

Nothing much is going on with the stage itself — there's a neat row of Marshall amps lining the entire back of the stage, and there are rows of colored lights above (one color per row). It's all very tidy. In general though, it's pretty decontextualized — they don't try to convince us it's a concert, or that they're in an empty warehouse, or anything like that. 

One of the weirder things about the performance footage is who gets shown during it. I would break it down approximately as follows: Bruce Dickinson 70%; the about-to-leave-the-band Clive Burr a bizarre 15%; Adrian Smith 10%; Dave Murray 3%; Steve Harris 2%. 

I mean yeah, obviously it's going to be a lot of glamour shots of Bruce. I mean that hair. If I looked that good in bangs I'd have them all the time. And those layers! I mean no matter how much he sweats they have just perfect lift and separation. I have a similar length, color, and texture, and trust me, my hair doesn't look half that good most of the time when I'm just sitting around, let alone were I to be like, screaming my lungs out under a bunch of hot lights. 

Anyway, without going on too long about Bruce (those lips!), it makes sense they show him a lot. This album is his big debut, and this song really shows off his vocal range. Why there are such a large number of shots of then-drummer Clive Burr is a bit more curious. I mean, sure, they went to the trouble to set up a camera to the left of the drum kit, but nothing's really happening back there. It's a little weird. 

And speaking of a little weird — there are like ten shots of Adrian for every one shot of Steve or Dave! I mean Steve Harris wrote the damn song. And as I always say, Dave Murray looks like a friendly cat. Nonetheless, those two have an impossible time getting on camera in this video — in general, you'll only see Steve or Dave if at least one other person is in the shot, whereas like you'll see loads of Adrian Smith just standing there. 

The other most notable thing about this video is, of course, the fashion. I feel like these were their favorite outfits at the time, because you see a lot of old promo photos of the boys wearing this stuff. It's also all the same clothes as the ones we see in "The Number of the Beast". In particular, Steve Harris seems to have really liked that referee-looking vest he has on.

 

But okay, what most people remember about this video isn't the band's performance — it's the bizarre old movie that takes up half the video. So the song itself is a sort of pastiche of native American history — it explicitly references the Cree, but I think that's just 'cause it rhymes with "free." 

Other than that, it's nonspecific to any one tribe's experiences — western imagery, alcoholism, theft, rape, etc. — though you can find people who'll argue it's about one particular conflict or another. Anyway, given that the song takes on fairly serious subject matter, and given that there were only about a zillion movies made covering this sort of territory, who knows exactly how Maiden wound up with a weird parody. But let's go with it. 

The film we're seeing is actually a short from the early 20s called The Uncovered Wagon, which is a parody of a silent film called The Covered Wagon from the same year. 

The Covered Wagon is a pretty straightforward early Western — a wagon train goes west, native Americans attack, white people prevail. Oh, and there's a love triangle. It's based on a western novel of the same name from 1922. It must have been pretty popular, because The Uncovered Wagon isn't even the only parody of it. 

I can't find out much about The Uncovered Wagon beyond what we see in the video. It appears to be more or less a similar scenario, but done in a slapstick way. (The star, James Parrott, was better known for directing Laurel and Hardy shorts). Toward the beginning, we see an ersatz native American applying makeup from a tin labeled "rouge." Instead of horse-drawn wagons, the settlers are driving cars with canopies over them — and rather than riding horses, the tribesmen have bicycles. As they exchange fire, we see lots of goofy things happen — settlers yanking arrows out of their butts, the faux native Americans doing pratfalls, etc. 

Anyway, it's sort of a weird choice for such a serious song. I mean even though the song sounds kind of joyful or exuberant, if you listen to the lyrics it's like "we've already been screwed in every possible way, and we're probably all about to die." The lyrics don't really go with such a goofy movie. The movie clips remind me of Don Martin cartoons in MAD magazine — he often used Old West tropes. 

Who knows though. Maybe Maiden just picked it because it does seem to prominently feature several shots of actors dressed as native Americans literally running to the hills. 

Sort of like how I picked this video because it fits, however awkwardly, with it being Thanksgiving, and my annual "let's remember the Pilgrims were not the first U.S. residents" message.

The Cult, "Fire Woman"

Stop, Drop, and Rawk  

THE VIDEO The Cult, "Fire Woman," Sonic Temple, 1989, Reprise 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Fiiiiiiiiiiiiii-uuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, urrrrrr-uhhhhhh-urrrrrrrrrr / smoke she is ah-rise-ang / fi-urrr-uhh yeah / smokestack lightning" [Note: This was my best guess going purely by ear — I was honestly pretty surprised to look it up and find out these really are the words. Smokestack lightning?] 

THE VERDICT Don't even tell me you don't think this song is badass. From the second the guitar really kicks in to the first, "shake-shake-shake-shake-iyiyit!", it's really impossible to contemplate anything other than the fact that this song is badass. Yes, as we will discuss in a moment, the Cult are a super-weird band, but let us leave that aside for a moment and focus on the fact that we are about to rawk. 

This video is more or less a living, breathing version of the cover art for Sonic Temple. Lots of red, silhouettes of Billy Duffy, silhouettes of pagodas, and so on. Also as I mentioned, lots of rocking. Weirdly though, no fire whatsoever. I mean think how many metal songs that don't have fire in the name have fire in the videos! This entire song is about fire and there's nary a spark here. 

The Cult are on a weird little stage with some slanting ramps and an oddly-low ceiling that appears to be painted with maybe streaky clouds. It's hard to tell 'cause the lighting in this video is crazy — lots of red, and lots of having everything be completely in darkness and then suddenly bathed in overly-bright, blue-tinged light (Remember? The "Fix the Damn Light Shot").

 

I should also mention that there's steam or smoke or dry-ice fog or something along those lines shooting out of a couple of areas on the stage. Even though this is among the hokey-er "stages" I've seen in a video, we get a couple of really brief shots from the band's point of view that imply there's actually a crowd there. This even though they appear to be playing this in a sort of weird painted box a la Judas Priest's "Heading Out to the Highway." 

I love that Ian Astbury was the one man brave enough to wear bell bottoms in the 80s. Everyone else is in spandex and super-tight jeans, and he's like yeah, my leather pants are flared. And allow me to mention all the fringe hanging off them, and my silver medallion necklace. He exploits every inch of his visual resemblance to Jim Morrison just as he does his vocal resemblance, right down to the tendency toward fat. 

On the other hand though, when he puts on the giant hat with the skull on the front my thought is, "Is this guy friends with Glenn Danzig? 'Cause if not, he should be." Then again, we already know my thoughts on the Danzig-Morrison connection. Also, once Ian takes out the frickin' tambourine, we know he's more into the hippie stuff than the skulls. Although with the hat and the sunglasses, we're heading into a Mick Mars vibe. 

And actually, the more Ian Astbury walks around, and I get a good look at the hair — think goth Marcia Brady. And the heels. And the silver medallions embellishing the flared leather pants. Not to mention the length of the fringe on that vest. 

Yep, this is starting to add up to Cher. Think if 80s Cher had kept her clothes on, but still done the getting-really-into-black-leather thing. The weird set in this video is adding to the Cher vibe — it's starting to look like The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour but minus Sonny Bono and plus some smoke machines. 

Okay no, by the point at the end where he's crawling around on his stomach, it is like okay Ian Astbury. We get it. You are a lot like Jim Morrison. Why don't you just flash the crowd and crown yourself the Lizard King and call it a day?

 

I know I'm ribbing them a lot, but the reason you kind of have to love the Cult is because they solve what would otherwise be an unsolved mystery: If Jim Morrison hadn't gotten superfat and extra into drugs, and survived into the 80s, what would the Doors have sounded like? 

Well, they would have sounded like the Cult. Okay yes, with keyboards instead of a bassist, but still. 

Ooh, someone should totally do a cover of this song with keyboards in place of the bass! Keyboards would give this song a sort of faster, sexier "In-a-gadda-da-vida" vibe. I know it sounds like it might not work, but I feel like it would. 

Anyway though, point is this is a reason to love the Cult. They give us a window into an alternate universe where dead 60s icons live on, and we get to see what kind of music they would have made (and thus to some extent, can speculate what their reputations would be today had they kept on making music that might not have been um, their best). 

'Cause I mean think about it: The 80s did really weird things to the groups from the 60s and 70s that did survive (or at least survived with enough of their founding members intact). Think of the pop-ish directions taken by what then constituted Pink Floyd, or by members of The Who. 

Think of the Rolling Stones. Sure, they got a bit disco-ey with "Emotional Rescue," but this is topped by the depths of lameness they sunk to with drecch like "Mixed Emotions." (Apparently the 80s were a very emotional decade for Mick and Keith! But I'm sorry, that song just plain sucks.) 

I'm not saying the Rolling Stones would have been better if like, Keith Richards weren't apparently immortal (I mean if Jim Morrison's body could have handled that much junk he'd still be around), but like, doesn't it kind of diminish a great song like "Paint It Black" to see a cadaverous Mick Jagger sing it now? How many disappointing later albums does it take to take the shine off say Sticky Fingers? What I'm saying here is it might be better to have made half a dozen or fewer really great albums, and just have left it at that. 

Like okay if you couldn't get behind my Rolling Stones example, think of Led Zeppelin. Would we think of Zep as highly if they'd kept making albums into the 80s? Really? Okay, please go listen to Robert Plant's Now & Zen and then tell me for sure. Seriously. You're telling me you think the whole band being behind "Tall Cool One" wouldn't at all tarnish the legacy of ZOSO?

 

Okay, whatever. But point is, with Zep — as I would argue, with the Doors and the Cult — we actually get the best of both worlds. 

Why? Because in the 80s (and technically in the 70s, but this gets most explicit in the 80s) we have Whitesnake. If David Coverdale had one musical ambition, it was to be Robert Plant. Thus we get long, weird, awesome, start-and-stop filled songs like "Slow An' Easy" and "Still of the Night" that answer the question "What would Led Zeppelin have sounded like in the 80s." 

It's the same thing with the Cult. We can just be like yup, okay, here are the great albums the Doors made (admittedly, assuming we can ignore Ray Manzarek et al.'s more recent efforts to murk up their legacy), and we can just listen to the Cult to solve the mystery of what would they have sounded like in the 80s. Seriously, listen to the end of "Love Removal Machine" and tell me it isn't an 80s version of "L.A. Woman." And would the theoretical 80s Doors have written a weird song about a Warhol Factory girl? YUP. 

The really amazing thing about the Cult-Doors connection and the Led Zeppelin-Whitesnake connection is that not only do these bands solve what-would-they-sound-like-today questions — they also prove that being really persistent at being a weird derivative imitation works. 

Ian Astbury totally did become the lead singer of the Doors for a while. I mean yeah, like 25 years later, but still. Similarly, David Coverdale totally got to live his dreams and make an album with Jimmy Page that sounds more or less exactly like the new material Jimmy Page later went on to make with the actual Robert Plant. 

(Another example: ELO are basically the band the Beatles would have been if they hadn't gotten into drugs and broken up; Boom! In the 80s Jeff Lynne forms the Traveling Wilburys with a half-dozen other musical luminaries including George Harrison.) 

It's the damnedest thing, right? Somehow imitation — consistent, elaborate, effortful imitation — really does seem to flatter. I know the obvious metal example is it's like Ripper Owens getting to join Judas Priest, but going from a Judas Priest tribute band to being in Judas Priest is a little more direct. Then again, are the Cult really not a Doors tribute band, in some sense, even if they don't just play covers? 

Hmm. 

Tesla, "Need Your Lovin'"

Too Soon?  

THE VIDEO Tesla, "Need Your Lovin'", Bust a Nut, 1994, Geffen 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Ooh, I need your lovin' / without you baby, love don't mean nothin' / ooooh I need you lovin' / 'sgot to be your lovin' or nothin'!" 

THE VERDICT This clip was recommended to me by a faithful reader (they exist!) and let me say, what a recommendation. As he mentioned, I don't think MTV ever bothered to air this one, though this kind of tongue-in-cheek stuff is totally the bread and butter of Vh1 Classic. 

Why wouldn't MTV have liked this? (I mean besides because they were too busy playing "The Sign" and crap from the Reality Bites soundtrack.) Well because Tesla — who we all know are a real "were they ever really metal or did they just get painted with that brush because of the long hair" kind of band — are doing it up right here with a send-up of all the cliches of heavy metal videos. 

Yes, you heard me right. It's a meta-video. (Cut to me salivating a la Homer Simpson over doughnuts — actually this is more or less how I react to doughnuts myself, but anyway.) Anyway, the whole video is Tesla demonstrating — with snarky labels — all of the stereotypical shots of heavy metal videos! 

Let's play along, shall we? I'll take you through the highlights. By which I mean ALL OF IT. Prepare for a seriously lengthy post, people! 

The Black and White with the Color Blue Left In Shot: Dude! I talk about this all the time! I would have to call this "The Kim Anderson Shot"— but remember, I don't mean the gal from the "Girlschool" video, I mean the woman who takes the weird black and white photos of toddlers in old-timey clothes and colors in just parts of them (e.g., coloring the roses pink). 

We can think of about a zillion videos that are offenders in this department, but what comes to mind right away for me are "The Hunter" (Dokken), "Headed for a Heartbreak" (Winger), and "Don't Close Your Eyes" (Kix). 

The 80s Power Rock Shot: All they've done for this one is added a wall of Marshall amps behind them, but it gets the point across. The obvious referent here is actually to the reference to this cliche in This is Spinal Tap (though also think in "Bitch School" when Nigel Tufnel plays a guitar made to look like a Marshall amp in front of a gigantic Marshall amp). 

But obviously, the reference has to have a referent, so let's think about something like the Vinnie Vincent Invasion's "Boyz Are Gonna Rock."

 

The Blown-Out Color Shot: Here we see Tesla with the contrast levels upped, so that colors appear distortedly bright and whites are eye-popping. Tesla are quick with this one, 'cause I think of it as not really coming into play until the '90s. It's also probably more popular in non-metal videos than in metal videos. Nonetheless, Faster Pussycat's cover of "You're So Vain"? L.A. Guns' "Ballad of Jayne"? For both of those, the entire video is shot in this style! 

The GEE! How'd They Do THAT Shot: For this, we see Tesla superimposed upon a lightning-filled sky, but think of really anything absurd that happens in an 80s video involving "special" effects. Dokken standing in front of chains that explode in "Breaking the Chains" comes to mind, as does the evil future robot queen shooting lasers in Queensryche's "Queen of the Reich." 

The TV Shot from a TV Shot: This sounds more complicated than it is — basically, it's filming a television, so the colors look all weird and there are those little lines across it. Guns N' Roses are the primary offenders in this category. They use this to great effect in "Welcome to the Jungle," but then in "Patience" they go all meta, with Axl watching Axl on TV watch Axl on TV. 

The Performance in an Open Field for No Reason Shot: This is another visual cliche that I associate less with heavy metal videos and actually more with alternative videos (think the shots of the band in "Black Hole Sun" or "No Rain"). 

Still, metal videos are full of "what is the band doing there stuff." For some reason, a couple of thrash examples come to mind. Sepultura's "Territory" video — WTF is the band doing in that mud pit? I mean I guess it looks cool, but I don't know, it's always seemed kind of awkward to me. The other example — even though it's a badass video — is Slayer's "Seasons in the Abyss." WTF are they doing at the pyramids! It never ceases to shock and amaze me that Slayer were given the budget to shoot a video in Egypt. Visually impressive? Yes. Necessary? Uhhh. 

Thee Beauty Shot: This one cracks me up every time — I love the pretentious extra "e" on it. Ultra-close-ups of the hawt lead singer's face are again, pretty common to all videos, but come on! What heavy metal power ballad video doesn't offend in this department? 

Think of "18 and Life" or "I Remember You" — Sebastian Bach looks freakin' candlelit. Or "I Saw Red" or "Heaven." Like half of what happens in those videos is Jani Lane singing soulfully to the camera from about 6 inches in front of it. Mike Tramp is the other obvious offender. "When the Children Cry" shows more close-ups of his baby face than it does of any actual babies!

 

Babes for No Reason Shot: Again, this is more or less every shot of many videos! But the way they show it here, which is just that there are porn-star-lookin' women pawing the band while they play, brings a couple of specific videos to mind. Danzig's "She Rides" for sure — the band seems fully oblivious to the women's presence, but it's the same idea. 

The other types of videos that are really guilty of this are those that use the "hanging out watching the boys play" motif. Think Great White's "Once Bitten, Twice Shy," where Bobbie Brown and all her galpals sit around watching Jack White wheeze that one out. 

Gratuitous Sex Shot: It's true, it's true! But this is what gets a lot of readers to this site, sorry to say. I would sum this shot up as "There Will Be Boobs." With the red halter top and the white background here, Tesla are definitely channeling Warrant's "Cherry Pie." 

The Artsie Fartsie Shot: This is another one where if they're thinking just about metal videos, they're gunning for a specific one. With the luminous colors, weird lighting, and inexplicable wind blowing through Jeff Keith's hair, they're clearly calling out Queensryche's "Silent Lucidity." 

The Fix the Damn Light Shot: Okay I relate to this one WAY too much! This is exactly what I was talking about last week with "Foreclosure of a Dream" — the darkness, then spotlights, then suddenly everything's so bright you can't see a darn thing is so overdone in metal videos! 

It's kind of hard to think of videos that don't incorporate spotlights. Tesla takes this even further by setting this part of the video in exactly the kind of random, empty metal warehouse favored by this kind of video (viz. Saxon's "Ride Like the Wind"). 

Babe Struts Past Old-Timer: If the sight of Tesla rolling up to a rural gas station in a classic car doesn't make you laugh, this may not be the site for you. Seriously. This whole sequence is hilarious and amazing. 

I think they are trying to call out Aerosmith's "Crazy" here (though the timing is a little tight), but plenty of metal videos exploit the men-looking-at-hot-women-in-hot-cars thing. "Blondes in Black Cars" and "Hot Love" come to mind right away. You also see a variant of this in Cinderella's "Coming Home," where it's a hot guy coming up to a rural gas station and being noticed by a woman working there. Tesla helpfully point out that this should be shot from a "low angle for largeness." 

Sensuous Open Mouth Shot: This is yet another where it's like pretty much any video we can name that has women in it will fit. I also like that apparently Tesla spell "booty" with an ie. Don't worry, it's a shot of a woman's butt, not a baby's sock (bootie). 

Boy Lust Shot: Continuing the sequence at the gas station, this might be the most amazing part of this video — Tesla calling out the inevitable shots of the men in the band gaping at the women in the video as if to be like, "It's okay viewer. We're feelin' it too." Bon Jovi's antics in "In and Out of Love" are a terrific example of this. 

The Money Shot: Ew, no! It's just the hot gas station lady pouring a bucket of water on herself. But be real, Tesla didn't make this one up. 

Who else gets water poured on them in heavy metal videos? One of the gals in Great White's "Stick It" pours a coffee pot full of water over herself. Bobbie Brown gets it with a firehose in "Cherry Pie." And literally every woman in KISS' "Who Wants to Be Lonely?" gets drenched in water. 

I enjoy that Tesla clarify that this is money literally — "increased record sales." Not to mention my increased site hits from people who think they might find boobs here. 

Spooky Skull and Snake Ritual Shot: I like this, 'cause it's more of a throwback to the older stuff. All the candelabras (not to mention the snake!) remind me of GNR's "Patience," though I think we're meant more to be reminded of early W.A.S.P. or Mötley Crüe. 

It's a Hard Life on the Road Shot: I want to hug them for this one, which let's remember I identified as a cliche of power ballad videos back when I wrote about "Home Sweet Home." Tesla does this just right with the sequence of shots: Through the windshield looking at the road ahead, random shot of the driver, shots of the band on the bus.

 

The Classic Off the Tour Bus Shot: Ditto this one! Think the Scorpions' "I'm Leaving You" or Ratt's "Wanted Man" or W.A.S.P.'s "Blind in Texas" or any of the other ten zillion heavy metal videos that show the the band members disembarking from the tour bus one by one. 

The Walking Down an Empty Road for No Reason Shot: "Heaven" and "Little Fighter" for sure! I feel like I wouldn't have necessarily come up with this one on my own, but it's a good one. I like it for the whole "act like you don't care thing." 

It reminds me of the South Park where Cartman starts a Christian rock group and uses a similar thought process to art direct their album cover (can I mention if you haven't seen this episode that it also "features" Metallica). 

A couple of these I identified with less. Cliches of music videos, sure. But cliches from metal videos? Not so much. 

"The Performance Against White Background Shot" and the "Let's STRETCH the Artist Shot" are familiar, but not from metal videos. And Tesla don't call themselves out on another shot that they use throughout this video — "The Black and White Behind-the-Scenes Shot." 

Come on guys, you know this one! Everyone sitting around backstage, jamming on acoustic guitars and hamming it up with each other? Shooting it in black and white instead of color to emphasize that they band are just "regular guys" and totally down to earth. We might also call this "The You Could Have a Beer With Us Shot," and Tesla are totally guilty of abusing it in this video. 

They're even upping the ante on it, 'cause this looks like it's one of the band member's rec room or something. I mean sure, it's meant to contrast with the contrived nature of the other scenes in the video. Tesla play this up not only with all the different shots, but also by showing things like the makeup artist touching up the band, or a crew member using a light meter to check a shot. 

The thing is though — it's too late! They've already pulled back the curtain! You can't just reveal every cliche of heavy metal videos and then act like "No, this really is just us in Tommy Skeoch's garage." We all know the garage stuff is every bit as fake as the other stuff. 

I also want to mention that everyone in Tesla looks sort of... wet? I want to say wet, even though they aren't covered in water. But something about Tesla in the 90s looks like Tesla in the 80s after getting locked out of the house in a bad rainstorm. 

Everyone looks very grumpy and has very flat hair. And Troy Luccketta doesn't have that badass mullet anymore! He's traded it in for a goatee look that's much more run of the mill. Also Jeff Keith appears to have lost weight, if that's even humanly possible. He looks like an even-skinnier Carly Simon. 

Despite the '90s not appearing to treat Tesla well, this is a great video. I mean one, it's a genius concept, and much more well-executed than most other parody videos. It helps give a little something extra to the song, which while serviceable doesn't stand out among Tesla songs of this ilk. 

But two, this video has been so good to me! I mean it's like a video that keeps on giving, in that every moment in it reminds me of like, ten other videos. It's a free-association bonanza! And if it's not clear, if there's one thing I love (besides metal) it's free-associating. And free-associating about metal? Come on, does it get better than that?

Megadeth, "Foreclosure of a Dream"

American Dreamin'  

THE VIDEO Megadeth, "Foreclosure of a Dream," Countdown to Extinction, 1992, Capitol 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Foreclosure of a dream / those visions never seen / until all is lost, personal holocaust / foreclosure of a dream" 

THE VERDICT Given that it's election week (though by the time I've put this up Election Day will be past us, and as I write this now it's still a few weeks away), I figured that yes, I would go all political on you this week. 

I don't like to do it — mainly because metal is (believe it or not, despite all the PMRC antics!) a very conservative genre, and I am emphatically not conservative. But given everything that's going on, I figured a more subdued mood might be appropriate. 

Hence, I decided to turn to Megadeth, as out of every metal rocker of whose politics I am aware, Dave Mustaine's are closest to mine. [NOTE FROM 2020: Let's remember that I wrote this blog post in 2010, before Dave Mustaine lost his freaking mind. I can't even bring myself to link to his FOX interviews post-Trump. Just recall that back in 2010, to me he was still the guy who covered the DNC for MTV News.] 

I mean face it, the other choices are like Ted Nugent and Gene Simmons, and they're pretty far right. If I had to guess what other metalheads might be on the left, I'd have to go with the guys in Anthrax.

But for real, it turns out I haven't written about a Megadeth video for the past five years. Can we also mention that Dave's gorgeous (still!) and from the San Diego area? But okay, okay, I know. I said I was going to try to be more serious this week. But for real, that hair! Those lips! Can we mention also that he owns horses? 

 Okay, I'm really stopping now, because we live in depressing-ass times [NOTE: Again, I wrote this in 2010, which from the POV of 2020 looks like a banner year], and this is one depressing-ass video. Videos like this one are the reason why authors who write about heavy metal always have to be like "Well, it's mostly apolitical except" and then mention Megadeth. 

So what, exactly do we have here? This is a song that, unfortunately, probably way too many people can relate to right about now. Though I think Megadeth are describing a more general, metaphorical foreclosure of the American dream, the video actually begins by dramatizing an actual, non-metaphorical foreclosure. We see an older white couple — think an up-to-date "American Gothic" — sitting by as their home and possessions are auctioned off.

 

They're sitting in a black armchair that is, for whatever reason, the key visual motif in this video. Dave's sitting in it too the first time we see him, and as we move through the video, we see more and more different Americans sitting in the chair in different settings. 

Dave's got a goatee in this video, and lord knows I am not a fan of facial hair, but I can ignore it. Why? Because by god does that man have some amazing non-facial hair on his head. 

Anyway, who else is in the chair? A trio of Black women beside a bombed-out tenement. A couple of Native American dudes who have for some reason brought a tipee to a strip mall. Some white people on Fremont Street in Vegas. An old white lady in a vacant lot. They seem to like the Vegas location though — we keep cutting back to it, first just to the neon lights, then to a bunch of tourists taking photos. 

In case it's not obvious how foreclosures wind up happening (or where credit card debt comes from), we see a rancher-looking guy sitting in front of a sign that reads "BUY Now PAY Later." Hmm, maybe that's the metaphor of this video — we bought into the American Dream, and now we're paying for it? Though given what happens later in the video, I would actually guess Megadeth are chastising us for having bought into twelve years' worth of Reaganomics. 

I always can't get over how high budget this video is for Megadeth, especially given the late date. Despite the whole grunge thing, it's clear their label really believed in them. Goodness knows I did at the time, desperately as I tried to hide it! (It was definitely not cool to still be into metal at my ultra-preppy middle school, with the exception of Bon Jovi who got a pass.)

 

I mean in general, Megadeth's few videos seem more professionally done than those of many other bands. But in particular, given that this is the 90s, their label is really still putting money behind them. I mean just the number of actors in this video is humongous compared to your average metal clip. Not to mention the number of different locations where parts of this video were shot — even if they aren't flying the same people (or the same chair!) around, hiring a crew in a dozen cities isn't exactly cheap. 

In addition to the chair stuff, we see Megadeth playing the song in a weird space not unlike where they play in the "Hangar 18" video. Grated metal floor, really dark, metal walls, with random bluish spotlights highlighting the band members as they play. 

The spotlights turning on and off backlight them and as per the usual in this kind of video, make it a little hard to see anyone except Dave Mustaine. I mean based on his silhouette, Marty Friedman could be Jake E. Lee for all we can tell. The weird camera angles (up through the floor, down from the ceiling) don't exactly help the situation. 

The spotlights do help them, I guess, to transition between scenes. Often a spotlight will bleach out the screen, and then next thing you know instead of looking at Dave Ellefson (who really you can barely see in this video he's so backlit) you're looking at someone in the chair. 

Seriously, everywhere from Vegas to Mt. Rushmore to the White House to the Grand Canyon! There's also a pretty long sequence involving the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial — so again, the treatment of Vietnam veterans upon returning home, another instance of people being sold out by the government. (See also Poison, "Something to Believe In.") 

Hmm, what isn't Dave Mustaine getting at with this song? Seriously. Dave even gets all dramatic and does the Undertaker's throat-slitting gesture at this part. (I know, that's been around way before the Undertaker and has wider applicability, but whatever, it makes me think of the Undertaker!) 

Toward the end of this song, we get a spoken word interlude courtesy of George H.W. Bush — the "read my lips, no new taxes" thing. We see Bush on a TV in the window of a pawn shop, where two guys are walking out who appear to have just bought the armchair from this video.

 

This rings a little weird for me. I mean, I get it — the whole point of this song is promises broken, right? The American dream has become tarnished, or possibly we are delinquent in our payments toward it, or whatever. But I don't know. 

Based on what I know of Mustaine's politics [See all notes above!], he would favor some amount of taxation as necessary for allowing the state to provide services and for alleviating inequality. Then again, he probably would also favor a progressive tax that taxes the wealthy more heavily than the types of people they show in this video. 

Anyway, even though it's a) a catchy campaign phrase and b) something Bush senior reneged on, it doesn't work as well for me as say, Ministry's George H.W. Bush sampling in "N.W.O." ("a new world order," "what we are looking at is good and evil, right and wrong"). Yes, in many ways the "N.W.O." video (which isn't on YouTube?!) is a retread of Megadeth's own "Peace Sells" video, but the point is, I think the Bush stuff is used to better effect there. 

Long story short, I'm not 100% sure what's going on here. It's political commentary, yes, but let's face it — it's political commentary in a music video, and this is no "Who Cares Wins" (in other words, it's not like "let me explain this social problem to you"). 

At the end of the video, Dave Mustaine gets out of the chair. What does that mean? Move to Canada? Interestingly now, if you look at the lyrics, it would be really, really easy to turn this song into a song about bailouts. And before you go all crazy on me, let's remember what president got the whole bailout ball rolling. (Hint: It wasn't Obama.) 

P.S.: The national debt clock in the video says our national debt is $4,018,392,803. How quaint! As of my writing this, it's $13,605,571,600,000-ish dollars. Yeah the last six digits were going up so quickly I couldn't even keep pace with it long enough to finish typing the number. I'm not very good at adjusting for inflation, but so far as I can tell the 1992 amount of debt from this video would still be just $6,068,286,642. in 2010 dollars. Um... yikes. 

P.P.S.: Since I keep commenting from 2020, I might as well mention that the national debt as I'm writing this is about $26.6 trillion dollars, so that's roughly double what it was when I wrote this post almost 10 exactly years ago (not accounting for inflation, which is just... I can't).