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.