THE VIDEO Warrant, "Sometimes She Cries," Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich, 1989, Columbia
SAMPLE LYRIC "(Sometimes she cries!) / when she's alone at ni-ight / (sometimes she weeps!) / oh, when she's feeling cold and we-ee-eeak"
THE VERDICT I don't want to like this song. Really, I don't. I know in my heart that this one is really cheesy. Damn you, Warrant! Why can't I quit you? Seriously, their ability to make me utterly love songs I feel I should by all rights absolutely loathe tells me that Warrant are, quite possibly, musical geniuses. (Then again, "Cherry Pie" pretty much tells me this all on its own, so.)
I feel like "Sometimes She Cries" is the forgotten Warrant power ballad. I mean "Heaven" is the one everyone knows, even if they aren't into metal. And "I Saw Red" is, while much less frequently heard, still a lot more well-known. What is it that people don't like about "Sometimes She Cries"? It's not quite as good as either of the other two songs, but it's still decent. So what's the problem here?
I think it might be the content. This is a pretty unusual song for heavy metal, even for power ballads — it's a narrative song about a woman, but not about like, her sexy homicide record, or her secret sexy side, or really anything sexy. Nope, it's about a woman who's been unlucky in love, and encouraging her to stay strong.
Fascinating (okay, to me) fact about this song: There seems to be very little agreement on what the lyrics exactly are. I have always heard the verses as starting with "and she." As in, "and she don't think, she's pretty no more." But I've found versions that claim it's a woman's name — Lisa seems to be the most popular option, followed by Mercy, then Marcy, then Melissa. Which is weird, 'cause Lisa? I don't hear that long e sound at all in there.
Well, whatever her name is, the song — and this video — is mostly about her. Like the song, I feel like this video is really unconventional territory for a metal power ballad. I mean for one, it's winter. There's not snow, but people are dressed throughout the video (okay, with a notable exception, as we'll see) like it's cold out, and there are no leaves on the trees. Now the thing about winter is, it means no filmy, sheer garments, no bikinis, in general, very little bare skin. Thus, weird for a metal video.
The other thing that's extremely unusual about this video is it shows a family. Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa has a kid. This is not a part of the hot metal chick experience that generally gets portrayed in videos. Metal videos tend to focus more on, you know, where babies come from than they do on actual babies. I feel like this is probably another reason why this song is less popular.
I mean, as I've discussed at length, there's a reason why power ballad videos always seem to demonstrate a compulsion to show that despite the fact that the band is singing a slow song now, in general they are still rocking. "Sometimes She Cries" I think tilts too far past that balance. It is hard to still see Warrant as really rocking in this one, unlike in say "Heaven," which has the obligatory slow-mo concert action footage.
Anyway, the video. Well we first see Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa walking around on her property. Okay spoiler alert, one major reason I love this video (and always have) is because it clearly takes place in my homeland of Connecticut.
Why do I say this? Many reasons, as we'll see.
But indicator one for me is that Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa lives in an old saltbox colonial house that appears to have a huge amount of acreage, yet be set right next to the road. It also has a large barn set fairly close to the house. Hell-ooo, Connecticut.
I should also mention that right off the bat we can see that Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa is an unconventional metal video heroine. For one, she has short hair. Now admittedly, it looks like she could have had a long-straight-hair-and-bangs haircut and just chopped it to be chin-length, but still.
Normally the only short hair you see in metal videos is teased, sprayed, and accompanied by dramatic makeup. This woman is rocking zero hair product and very natural makeup, if any. She's also bundled up in a big jacket and a scarf.
Most of the video alternates between shots of the Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa narrative and of the band playing the song in her barn. Yes, I know. Her narrative is in black and white, and the band are in color.
At first we mostly see Jani Lane, sitting alone on a barrel. For some reason, possibly to try to prove they are still rockin', he is wearing a Rob Halford-esque leatherman outfit. Little leather hat with chains, sleeveless leather vest with no shirt under it, cowboy boots, the whole deal. It's already weird, but the thing that makes it weirder is that he's wearing just a vest even though it's so cold in there you can see their breath in some shots.
The rest of Warrant are arrayed about the barn. When we see Jani with them, he's standing and sort of dancing around, sans barrel. We mostly see Joey Allen and Erik Turner silhouetted in front of the barn door, and Jerry Dixon is barely in this video. He gets like a few hair tosses in and that's it.
Drummer Steven Sweet is the most prominently displayed member of Warrant after Jani, but that's because he's in the background for a lot of the close-ups of Jani singing. Still, we can see him pretty well, and enjoy the fact that he makes these like kissy faces the whole time he drums.
But the Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa plot takes up most of the video. We sort of see it out of order, with the more plot-advancing bits interspersed between a lot of shots of her moodily staring out at the frozen winter landscape.
After her walking through the field, we see her sitting inside, staring pensively out the window while holding a toddler.
Then we get a flashback to an earlier time — you can tell because the kid is now like an infant — and her husband packing up and leaving her. Why? We don't know. How she can afford to heat this gigantic old home in winter even though she doesn't seem to work, just walks around and stares at stuff? Even more of a mystery.
Anyway, Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa stares out the window and watches him leave. Then we see her looking out the windows of the kitchen or dining room, peeking through venetian blinds to see if he's coming back. The table's set with lit candles and two place settings, but sorry sweetie, I think you're eating alone. Well, maybe one of the glasses of wine is for the baby. Okay, probably not.
For the first chorus shots of Warrant rocking out are interspersed with close-ups of Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa making concerned faces and walking around with her baby. We then see her walking around her field by herself, making me wonder who's watching the baby. Did she leave the baby with Warrant?
The next big plot bit we get shows Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa in bed with another man, who looks way rougher than her ultra-preppy husband. He's sneaking out in the middle of the night while she's asleep. She realizes he's gone and like rolls over and looks all moody. Seriously honey, are you that surprised? I mean you have a kid. Mr. One-Night-Stand is not about to step up to that plate.
An amazing part of the video comes next as we finally see Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa in color. She walks to the window, and sees Warrant playing the song out in her barn. Like as she spots Jani, she turns from black and white to color. Even more amazing is the fact that even though it's nighttime, and she appears to live alone in like, a pretty remote rural area, she does not appear at all perturbed that her barn is infested with Warrant.
As the song sort of escalates, we see her husband looking vaguely perturbed and writing a letter, and then we see Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa reading the letter in a giant winter coat. It pleases her greatly, and we see a bunch of shots of her playing with her kid.
Let's mention now that even though she does not appear to have aged a day, her kid now looks to be in nursery school.
They play on a tire swing and roll around on the hard, frozen ground together. I should mention that this is what happens during the guitar solo. See what I meant above now? Nothing says "we rock" like a mom and her kid playing together.
Next comes one of my favorite moments in this video, because for me it incontrovertibly proves my they-are-in-Connecticut hypothesis. Her husband calls her. Okay not only is he wearing an offensively preppy sweater — he is calling from a SNET payphone! SNET = Southern New England Telephone. This is the phone service we had when I was growing up.
I remember watching this video at the time and being stoked about recognizing SNET in it. I know, so random, but whatever, it's usually pretty much impossible to figure out where videos were filmed, so I take what I can get and enjoy it.
After a few pensive moments spent standing beside her now apparently Warrant-less barn, we see Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa hanging out clothes to dry on the line. This despite the fact that it is obviously hella cold out, and that her washing will freeze. (This is a moment in this video that even watching it back in the day always made no sense to me.)
Adding to the confusion — her husband drives up, looking like he just arrived from a Ralph Lauren ad, and she is totally psyched to see him.
I'm sorry Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa, did you forget how he abandoned you with an infant, and then it took him like four years to even write you a letter?
The video ends with them hugging in the driveway, but maybe we can imagine like, a sequel where she bitches him out for that. 'Cause seriously, it's great the family's reunited and all, but there are clearly still some issues here.
Ooh wait, how could I forget! The last last thing we see after their reunion is Warrant all walking away through her field together. I love this. Like they roosted in her barn playing this song until Lisa/Mercy/Marcy/Melissa and her husband got back together, and now their work is done so they can leave. It's so cheesy that it works.
P.S. from the future (it's 2020 now): After I posted this, I got an email from someone who was on the set of this video. It was shot in western Connecticut! This person said I think their dad knew or worked with the people whose house it was, and they were like "Hey, you're a teenager! A band is shooting a video here, that's pretty cool, right?" This person was not a Warrant fan, but was like okay I'll go, and years later found this post while trying to find info on the video. The other memory this correspondent shared with me was that the band was very low energy, and only talked to them to be like, "Hey, you're a teenager! You probably know where to get drugs around here, right?" Yeah, no drugs were obtained.