Scorpions, "Big City Nights"

Summer Tour, Makes Me Feel Fine  

THE VIDEO Scorpions, "Big City Nights," World Wide Live, 1985, Mercury 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Big city! / Big city nights! / you keep me run-nin!" 

THE VERDICT Last year I made a concerted effort to do summertime videos, and back then I included this one from the Scorpions 'cause it's amazingly cheesy and less well-known. But thinking today about what would be a good summertime video, this Scorps classic of course came to me right away. 

I mean for sure, "Big City Nights" is a great song. Even more than other Scorpions tunes for me, it's chock full of great almost-nonsense lyrics that are nonetheless very evocative. I'd say that "a long sweet minute" is one of my favorite expressions in all of heavy metal, and who knows what they're even talking about! Nonetheless, I would totally name my hypothetical memoir that. 

I also appreciate that it's cool to hear a "touring is rad" song for a change, instead of the constant "touring is sooo hard, you guys" whine-fests we usually get. We know, we know, new city, same faces, riding around on the bus, pretending you miss some girlfriend/wife back home while you defile groupies. We get it. 

"Big City Nights" actually makes it seem like touring is pretty cool. As does this video, made for their World Wide Live album/home video. It's shot a little bit all over the place, but mostly in Southern California. Two Los Angeles dates, a Costa Mesa date, and one at the San Diego Sports Arena! (All in April 1984.) 

The behind-the-scenes stuff though appears to have been shot all over the place — you clearly see the Scorps on several different continents, and weirdly the only shots where you can definitely tell where they are in the U.S. are in Illinois (at the Rosemont Horizon).

 

You know the performance shots in this video have a lot from the Cali segments though, since at the end Klaus Meine thanks California and says California keeps them "run-in-in-in-in-in-in." This makes me assume the beach scenes are in California, even if the skimpiness of the bathing suits and the level of tanning in these scenes makes me think Brazil. Then again, it was the 80s. These were the years of baby oil, not sunblock. 

In general, I feel like the "Big City Nights" video is most memorable for being full of amazing 80s babes. I like that (also as per live video cliche) they cut together the footage of random women with random shots of the Scorpions playing live so it appears that, e.g., Matthias Jabs is reacting with a lecherous grin to a woman winking at the camera in a totally different place. 

In addition to the beach babes (did they even know they'd wind up in a Scorpions video?), we also get to see the chicks who appear to be in the Scorpions' entourage. In particular there's this one woman who looks like a very 80s, very tarted up Sandra Bullock who shows up in all the WWL vids. She appears to be Herman Rarebell's girlfriend, and pops up as the sexy pool player in this one. I like though the woman in the background, reading House & Garden magazine while dressed like a dominatrix. 

Though I feel like the bikini footage is kind of the most notable element of this clip, "Big City Nights" still does have tour video cliches. Think: the view through the front window of bus, autograph signings, arena shots, sweaty fans, over-enthusiastic women making their way onto the stage, the band making their way to the stage, roadies testing equipment, hanging out backstage wearing towels, male fans who look like their passion in singing along is about to make them explode. I mean that guy toward the end is really excited to be singing along with this song.

 

And babes and other cliches aside, the thing we see the most is lots of shots of the Scorpions goofing around — they always seem like fun and friendly guys in their videos, who've got a good sense of humor about themselves. 

They're all constantly horsing around though, whether they're waiting around a hotel lobby or boarding a plane. I mean you can't get a camera near Rudy Schenker without him making a silly face. Weirdly we see Klaus Meine kind of the least in this footage, but he's always up to something, usually dancing. In one shot he's dancing with a flamenco dancer, in another, with a belly dancer. 

And then of course, there is the actual live footage of the band. I like the WWL stage set — it looks like a giant stereo from the 80s. Like think of the stereo that gets destroyed in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. It's sort of a lot of horizontal black stuff, but then the glowing colors — shading from red to yellow to green — look like equalizer bars. 

You don't really see stereos looking like that any more do you? Hell, these days everything is just like, a big speaker with an iPod dock stuck on the top of it. I wonder if bands these days do stage sets that look like that (I mean hell, you know I don't know the answer to that one). 

P.S.: It's as un-metal as it gets, but don't act like you don't get the reference in this post's title.

Scorpions, "I'm Leaving You"

A League of Their Own

THE VIDEO Scorpions, "I'm Leaving You," Love at First Sting, 1984, Mercury

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Ooh, girl, I'm leaving you / yes, I'm leaving you / I've got to go to tonight" (repeat ad nauseam)

THE VERDICT It's almost the fourth of July, so I felt an all-out patriotism-fest was in order. Yes, the Scorpions are German. But this WTF-fest of a video feels like it could only have been made in the USA. There's no apple pie or fireworks (the latter of which, yes, invented by the Chinese, but heavily associated with Independence Day, right?). But what this video lacks in apple pie and fireworks, it makes up for with everything it does have. It's not movie footage, it just feels like you're watching some long lost "late night comedy" from the 80s (as Netflix so charmingly euphemizes it).

The Scorpions' ridiculously adorable old tour bus (not their real tour bus, I'm going to venture) rolls into the town of Bedford, which the sign announces to us has a population of a mere 405. The bus appears to break down or run out of gas or something pretty much right away, which is lucky for the Scorpions, since about half this town's population (or okay about 1/25th of it) is a klutzy ladies' softball league that plays braless in rompers. We're talking uniforms made out of hight-waisted hotpants connected to halter tops, people. If American Apparel hasn't brought this back yet, they will soon. (FYI, they more or less have, without the collar. So I'm sure a collar version is on its way.)

Anyway, these skinny white women, who appear to range in age from about 15 to about 40, are terrible athletes. It probably doesn't help them that they're being heckled by local good ol' boys, or that there's a dog running around in the outfield. One lady is so distracted by seeing the Scorps' bus roll by that she fails to notice the ball laying by her feet, even though we see another lady yell "Get the ball!"



Following their game, all the ladies pile into a diner and enjoy a giant meal of what looks like hamburgers. They all freak out and press against the window, as it's right outside said diner that the Scorpions' bus comes to a halt, and the denizens of Deutschland pile out looking like rock gods. (Come on, it was the 80s people, this was how we thought it was cool to look.) Herman Rarebell is wearing black leather pants and a black leather jacket with no shirt. Francis Buchholz is also sporting black leather pants, but with a sleeveless tee. Rudy Schenker has on the same outfit, but Matthias Jabs steps it up in leopard-print pants, a white tank top, and a jean jacket. Klaus Meine makes it off the bus last, in black leather pants and a red shirt unbuttoned much to far for my comfort.

The Scorpions all pose around the bus, while the women continue to excitedly jam their faces at the window to get a better look. Weirdly, the Scorpions are very well reflected in the window, so I don't think the band can see in. One of the ladies makes an "I'm getting an idea" face as one of the local boys sort of stumbles past the Scorpions. She then says "come on" to the other gals in the restaurant.

Next we get a "getting ready" montage, always one of my favorites in any movie, but particularly 80s movies. This being a "late night comedy," it's also a prime opportunity to show the girls running around in teddies. They all keep running across a porch past a guy who looks like he's in his twenties but is clearly meant to be an old man -- gray wig, reading the newspaper on the porch, dressed like George Costanza's dad. Why couldn't they just cast an actual old man? That's just one of the mysteries of this video. Anyway, he stares after them as they run back and forth. As one of them finishes putting on perfume, we get a close-up of her vanity table and see -- ew!! -- an actual scorpion zipping around.

No sooner do the Scorpions arrive in their hotel rooms (okay, it looks like they're staying more at a bed and breakfast or a boarding house than a hotel), the ladies are all over them, asking them to sign copies of their records. Every time one of them sits down or enters a room, ladies are popping out of closets, climbing through the windows, and crawling from under the bed to get autographs and to take pictures of them with cameras with those old-time flash cubes -- remember those? The things that looked sort of like stacks of light bulbs, and you got to use each of the light bulbs like once? I also enjoy that apparently Matthias and Herman have to share a room, but no one else does.



Next thing we know, the fake-old-man guy is fake-limping down the street with a shotgun. We see the ladies talking to each other in the boarding house hallway, and running back and forth between the rooms, when suddenly the fake-old dude shows up brandishing his shotgun and fake-limping even more ridiculously (he's basically pogoing on his left leg). Um, are we meant to believe all of these girls are his daughters? He chases some of the girls through the rooms, threatening the Scorpions.

Meanwhile, this one lady is walking down the hall, dropping actual, insect scorpions onto the floor. What?! As she drops each one, we see sort of a semi-transparent shot of each of the band members whipping around to face the camera dramatically superimposed over the shot of the insect walking on the floor. Ummm... are we meant to believe the scorpions are the Scorpions? Is this a magical transformation sequence? Or is this lady just trying to like, get a bunch of the girls' feet all swollen up from stings? Maybe she's on a rival softball team. That doesn't make much sense though, because these girls' softball team was incredible horrible.

She turns around and looks pleased with herself once she's dropped all the bugs, who are crawling into the different rooms (no one seems to have closed their doors). It's either this or the guitar solo that makes Rudy suddenly jump up, grab his guitar and run out of the room. The girls are displeased by this.

The rest of the Scorpions follow suit, and they all meet up downstairs in the lobby, where for the first time in the video, we actually see them with instruments playing the song. The girls all run down after them, and pile up on the stairs watching them play. We then get a weird second meet-the-band sequence featuring each member of the Scorpions, in profile in front of some venetian blinds, singing directly to a different one of the women. Matthias and Herman seem to have had some luck in their double room, as their girls are most enthusiastic, while Francis' one just looks pissed.



Without warning, the Scorpions fade and disappear from the room, and we see the women -- now looking much less fresh-faced and all-American, and much more like heavily made-up concert-goers, looking pouty and depressed. Suddenly the lady who was dropping all the scorpions appears in the middle of the lobby (where, for some reason, all of the instruments except the drums have disappeared along with the band). The girls look exasperated with her, and she makes a sassy face in return before spinning on her heel and also evaporating into thin air.

What, what, what!?!? This video is the Scorpions' weirdest by far, I have to say, and they are known to do some weird stuff in their videos. I think it's taking this sort of mundane realistic presence -- they blow into town, ruin all the women, and leave -- and adding the insects and disappearing and stuff, which makes it totally bizarre. Okay, I mean not that the like, sexy women's softball league wasn't kind of weird to begin with. But it wasn't supernatural!

P.S.: I know, this one's not at the beach, but it still feels like a summertime video to me. It also reminds me strongly of one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes, Zombie Nightmare. Seriously, click that link! You can watch the whole thing. The parallels are there, I'm telling you. Baseball? Yup. Babes? Check. WTFery? Can't check this enough times.

Scorpions, "No One Like You"

Escape from... San Francisco?


THE VIDEO Scorpions, "No One Like You," Blackout, 1982, Mercury

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SAMPLE LYRICS "There's no one like you-ouu / I can't wait for the nights with you / I imag-ine the things we'll doo-ooo / I just wanna be lafffffed by youuu-ouuuu / no on like you-ouuuuu!"

THE VERDICT Though the Scorpions often had really bizarre cover art (like this NSFW one, or this other one, which is more or less Spinal Tap's original idea for Smell the Glove), the Scorps generally had enough good taste not to recreate their album covers in their videos... at least until this one, which starts off weird and only gets weirder.

Before we get too far into the video, let me mention that "No One Like You" is a totally badass song. The guitar riff at the beginning sounds like the tryout version of "Rock You Like a Hurricane," and Klaus Meine's slightly weird were-they-translated-from-German lyrics are as compelling as ever, as is his delivery. I mean, "girl, there are really no vords strong eee-naah-aaff / to dee-scribe all my lahng-eengs for lafffff" rules, and Klaus honestly sounds straight-up sexy on "ooh babe, I just need you like nev-ar be-for-ore." As we shall see, this isn't the case, but it's a great vocal.

So what's going on here? Well, for one, we're talking about the original video, not the World Wide Live version where they're traveling around Asia. What we've got here is some kind of island prison -- possibly Alcatraz, probably somewhere in Europe -- where Klaus appears to be on death row. He's waiting around for a visit from his lady, who bears a strong resemblance to Beverly D'Angelo in National Lampoon's European Vacation (admittedly, the hat helps a lot).



He's got a pic of her hanging in his cell, along with an American flag -- uhh, what's up with that? Well, maybe it belongs to the guy he shares his cell with, who looks about 90. But whatever, there are a lot of things that are a bit off about this prison. I mean, one of the guards is a little person. Nothing against, but like, don't prison guards seem like the kind of job that would have a height requirement?

If you were hoping to see anyone else in the band, look fast -- as Klaus gets marched down the hall, that's all you'll see of Matthias, Herman, or Francis, they're the guys giving him the thumbs-up from behind bars. In the meantime, his lady friend is making her way out by boat. Whether it's San Francisco or Europe, I don't think that shark is really there, and heck, I'm no ichthyologist but that first fin looks like a dolphin to me.

Anyway, as soon as the lady gets into the prison, they let her loose on Klaus, making me want to scream "NO TOUCHING!" Klaus' especially long hair in this video distracts me, as does how tall this woman is compared to him. Watching this video you have to have the same suspension of belief you have during Krokus videos (especially this one), though a little less since Klaus is a great vocalist.

This lovely little moment gets broken up by the re-enactment of the album cover, wherein Rudolf Schenker shows up, clad in white and inexplicably with forks over his eyes, screaming and smashing a guitar. Why the heck are there forks over his eyes? How did he get out of his cell? And which came first, the bizarro cover art or the concept for this video?

And believe it or not, that is not the weirdest part of this video. No, that's still to come, when suddenly we cut from Klaus in bed to Klaus in the chair with the priest by his side -- and the woman, dressed in leather, throwing some kind of switch that causes a bunch of flames to shoot up. Wait, what?!



Just when you think things can't devolve any further, we get more shots of Klaus in bed. I never needed to see his chest hair. Is it shaved into that shape a la Nic Cage in Valley Girl? Or does it just grow that way? These are questions I never wanted to ask. Similarly, seeing his bikini briefs, not something I wanted.

But the real coda is that when he covers his face with his hands, we can see he's wearing a wedding band. Uhh, buddy, that is not a dream you want to be having about your spouse! Luckily, he looks out the window and verifies that he just has a lovely prison view, and so no, he's not himself imprisoned.

Still though... between this, all the afore-mentioned album covers, and well, all their other videos (blowing up the ladies' futuristic castle in "Rhythm of Love"?!), the Scorps' relationship to women is, let's just say, conflicted at best. Not that we can't say this for almost every other heavy metal group, of course.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking this is Alcatraz. Not because of any actual ability of mine to verify this, but really because it reminds me a lot of the Testament video for "Over the Wall."

P.S.: Also obviously, since it's almost Valentine's Day, I had to do a love song, and so this post is for my partner, who there truly is no one like.

Scorpions, "The Rhythm of Love"

Babes! In! Spaaaaaace!


THE VIDEO Scorpions, “The Rhythm of Love,” Savage Amusement, 1988, Polydor

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC “Ze rhythm of love! / [keeps me dancing on the road] / ze rhythm of love! / [got the groove that hits the bone] / ze rhythm of love / [is the game I’m looking for] / ze rhythm of love / [is the heartbeat of my soooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuullll]”

EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION The camera pans through a depopulated, futuristic urban landscape of oddly shaped buildings (think the Space Needle meets Blade Runner), some of which periodically shoot flames. They’re all done in dark, drab colors but lit by a reddish orange sunset (or smog-filled sky, hard to tell). A crappy looking plane (I guess it’s supposed to be a space shuttle, but from this angle it looks like a fighter plane) comes in from the bottom left and flies between the buildings toward a big mountain (or pyramid maybe) type thing in the background.

A futuristic-looking brunette (her clothes are like Paco Rabanne in the 80s) steps out to look at it, and it zooms on toward this mountain-type thing, which is basically like a mountain but covered in uhhh… covered in the stuff the Terminator is made out of. Not the liquidy silver stuff, but the like, wires and cables and robot stuff. It’s topped off by a super-skinny castle, sort of like an anorexic version of the Emerald City (and also uh, gray and not green). The plane heads straight for that as the sky turns blue-gray and lightning flashes. As the plane gets closer, random plumes of flame shoot up on different parts of the mountain.



Another future babe in a black catsuit thing walks along, lost in thought but still managing to touch herself provocatively. She walks past a window through which the orange sky is visible as she unzips her catsuit. The plane settles down to land on a little landing pad by a rectangular opening in the mountain, but we only see that for two seconds cause as Klaus Meine starts to sing, we see a random shot of a babe mussing her hair with parted lips.

The Scorpions are silhouetted and backlit as they enter the weird opening, then that lady starts sort of dancing a little bit, Tawny Kitaen-style. The Scorps are performing as per usual, but the actual stage appears to be made up of futuristic looking wires, pipes, etc (think a really crappy, like an untalented 13-year-old’s imitation of an H.R. Giger drawing).

Oh wow, they just showed two shots of women in succession that made me laugh out loud. It’s a little hard to tell what was happening cause they were severely cropped and lasted two seconds each, but in the first a woman sort of exposed her cleavage while talking on the phone, and in the second a blonde brandished a gold whip while making what was almost a parody of a sexy face.

We then see a bunch of the Scorps in succession: Klaus, Rudy (with absurdly teased hair), blonde guy I can’t remember the name of. Then we see that the dancing woman is actually sort of bobbing back and forth in front of a mirror while she continues to unzip her catsuit, followed by Matthias who is so into the music (already!) that he has his eyes closed. Then a backlit shot of a woman taking off a bra. Wow.



Oh wow. Again. Wow. As the music picks up a little, suddenly the floor in front of the Scorpions’ stage is covered in crawling, bikini-clad women. There’s a bunch more of different shots of the band members (including Herman) then—amazing—a more pulled back shot of the blonde, she actually appears to be dressed as some kind of futuristic Little Bo Peep. The thing I’d ID’d as a whip appears to be that giant hook that you use on a sheep (god knows how, but I’ve seen them a lot in cartoons). Oh wow, they keep showing her interspersed with shots of Klaus, she’s like playing with her jewelry or something but like…was this her first video or something? The faces she makes are priceless. The brunette’s hair gets blown by a fan one more time, then it’s the chorus.

The various band members nod firmly as Klaus shrieks “ze rhythm of lav!” and we see the brunette dancing around silhouetted behind an orange screen. She’s taking off a men’s shirt, showing that even in the year 3000 or whatever strippers have not gotten that much more creative. The Scorpions' onstage antics (kicking, singing into the same mic) are causing the women on the floor (who I can now see are in torn-up, what I always think of as Les Mis-style outfits) to crawl more furiously. Wow.

Okay, the woman in gold is wearing an enormous cone bra (think what Gautier made for Madonna, but in like a DD) that is covered in gold rope. It looks like she’s wearing a couple of beehives, but I guess this is what we will think is sexy in the future. The woman behind the screen finally struggled her way out of that shirt, and we get a bunch of reaction shots of women making sexy eyes at the camera (which reminds me of Zoolander). Also, I’ve just figured out that the jewelry-type thing one of the women keeps fiddling with is a large pendant shaped like a scorpion.



Okay, verse again, so now one of the women is taking a shower. Matthias (eyes still closed) smiles to himself, and Rudy—between the teased hair and the inevitable porn star mustache—I can’t even bring myself to comment. He’s doing this entire song grinning and leaning forward while standing with legs akimbo. The woman behind the screen is interacting more with the stool she’s got back there now (sorry, forgot to mention—there’s also a pole she keeps grabbing).

In the other room, that one brunette is still in front of a fan, and still engaged in sexy struggle with the zipper on that catsuit. We see more of the Scorpions, then more of the heinous blonde lady, then Klaus mimes the “don’t you close your eyes” line Dio-style, by waving his hands with fingers apart in front of his face. He actually looks like a version of Dio with more delicate features, come to think. Ooh there was a really brief shot of a woman petting a white cat in there—subtlety, always the Scorpions’ strength.

Oh wow! Jeez, they went all out for this one. Okay, there are a bunch of poorly lit boob shots leading up to the chorus, but there is one amazing shot where two of the Les Mis dancers knock their butts together in front of the bass drum. It happens for two seconds, but it is worth the two seconds it takes to rewind and pause. Anyway. Now the brunette is getting into a red sportscar for some reason, and here’s the blonde again—she’s like sitting in some sort of throne, and the thing she’s holding is actually just a bunch of rope. Sigh. She also has an incredibly foolish looking crown thing on her head.



The brunette pulls her legs into the car and touches herself some more for the second chorus. We also see another woman who is silhouetted in blue light and dancing around and playing with her hair. Flash pots have started to go off behind the Scorpions’ stage. One of the Les Mis dancers shakes her ass, and the blonde lady continues to try to make the right face. All the Scorpions continue to punctuate the song with their chins, and also by jabbing their guitars. Now larger explosions are happening on either side of the stage. All of the band members sing along.

For the guitar solo, the camera pans past the torsos of women in very 80s-style bikinis. Matthias dances around like crazy and there are lots of explosions, and for some reason they also show a lot of shots of Herman (everyone else appears to have left the stage in some of the shots). Haha, the women in front of the stage are waving their fists in the air. Oh wow, there was just quite the butt shot. They are only showing these for like not even half a second each. Now the brunette is all the way in the car, but she is sticking her legs (she’s wearing stockings and black heels) out the driver’s side window and rubbing them.



As the vocals kick in again, explosions abound, and that main brunette makes faces at the camera. Whoa, more butts! And now the blonde is sort of rubbing herself with the rope. The brunette keeps covering parts of her face with her hair. Lots of sexy reaction shots (eyes go wide, touch mouth with hand) of the women are interspersed with lots of unsexy reaction shots of the Scorpions. Oh man, now they have all the Les Mis dancers shaking their butts in a row (and the camera is showing only their butts).

There’s also a brief shot of I think the brunette wearing a minidress and walking away from the camera carrying something, it’s unclear what but she is outside. She appears to be attaching whatever it is to the bottom of the Scorpions’ plane. They won’t stop showing the blonde woman. The Scorpions walk away, and we see them in silhouette again (they put Klaus in the middle so he looks especially short).

The Scorpions then sort of evaporate (disappear anyway), and we see their plane lift off. Oh, but that lady’s bomb drops off of their plane -- sorry, forgot to mention that on second viewing, realized she was attaching a bomb to the bottom of their spacecraft in the previous shot. So as the song winds down with the quiet singing part, the ladies’ mountain palace explodes. It’s weird because this whole video had been looking mostly like crappy computer animation, but in this scene it looks like they are blowing up a model. Actually in this scene the whole cityscape looks much less ornate, so maybe they are blowing up a model. The Scorpions definitely very computer-generated plane then flies away as the future babes’ mountain palace burns.

THE VERDICT So I actually wrote the description of this video literally more than a year ago -- in July 2006. That’s crazy. I thought doing what I do now I would have way more time to blog, but apparently being chained to a desk in an office is way better for that kind of productivity than basically having all the time on earth to do whatever the hell you want.

Never the less, this thing has been going on too long for me to give up now, so I’m back. I’m working on fixing up the way this thing looks -- I’m still not so hot with the CSS, but I’m working on it. Or I will be anyway. I still heart the metal, and no matter how many times I move away from it, I always find my way back -- let’s face it, I listen to a lot of different stuff, but this is the only music I consistently like. I never don’t feel like listening to it. Even filthy, filthy tracks like this one.

So, in spite of how exhaustive my description is, I left myself (a year ago) no notes as to the verdict! Well no, actually -- I left a couple. They are these: “Okay uhh, someone watched Heavy Metal a few too many times.” And “One of the most awesome Jonny Quest episodes is where Race kills a scorpion with a whip.” In trying to label this video -- as much as I hate on Blogger, I love the labeling feature -- I realized there is like, nothing that isn’t in this video.

I mean jeez, they’re in friggin’ space, and then all the sudden the brunette is feeling herself up in a car. A car! Not a like, hovercar or anything, just a car. Why is the sports car in space? There are explosions, spaceships, women in every sort of costume, fire, the friggin’ car… I mean really. The Scorpions gave it all they had on this one. Like every Scorpions song, if you only listen to the parts you can understand (basically, “ze rhythm of love!” screamed over and over again), you think it’s kind of romantic (or something), but if you actually look up the less intelligible lyrics, you realize that, like every Scorpions song, it’s hella dirty (“an exploding shot of pleasure / is what I’ve got for you”). Ewwww! I just don’t want to find that beat I’m apparently looking for with Klaus Meine, sorry but true.

P.S.: Like Pigs! In! Spaaaaace!

Scorpions, "Rock You Like a Hurricane"

Cage Match!

THE VIDEO Scorpions, "Rock You Like a Hurricane," Love at First Sting 1984, Mercury

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "More days to come / new places to go / I've got to leave / it's time for ah shoooooooow / Here I am / Rock you like a hurricane / amamamamamamammamamamamah!"

EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION Okay, this one starts off by throwing a lot of information our way very rapidly, so bear with me and we'll try to get through it, since it's mostly pretty badass stuff. We've got heavily made-up babes shaking a cage, another one kind of slapping her hand down, drums being struck, more cage rattling, more babes, more cage, more babes, a jaguar or a leopard, one of the babes swiping at her face and creating instant new wave makeup, cage rattling, a jaguar and a panther, the band playing, the jaguar (I think it's a jaguar anyway) walking with its leash visible, drummer Herman Rarebell, a bunch of folks I'd describe as cheesy Hanna Barbera villains (they look like crappy frog people wearing nuns' habits stolen from the one of HB's truly pathetic space cartoons, say Pussycats in Outer Space or Yogi's Space Race) standing over a glowing cauldron then running away from a flash of light, Matthias Jabs rocking out, more cage rattling, more band, more panther, more face scratching, still more cage rattling, Rudolf Schenker makes a scary face, more babes walk toward the camera, cage, babes, panther roars, babe slaps something again, people try to reach their hands through the cage and ...Phew! We've finally made it up to where the song actually starts (about 40 seconds in, but who's counting).

So we know we're in some kind of alien world where big cats and women in kabuki/Adam Ant style makeup and wigs (they're definitely supposed to be hot, but they always make me think of that other Teutonic terror Nina Hagen) run wild and the Scorpions are forced to play in cages. Also, there's that trio of weird baddies, a frequently occurring motif in heavy metal videos (Think the hooded weirdos in "Rock of Ages" or the cat-eyed robed people in "Holy Diver." Is this an allusion to the witches in Shakespeare's Hamlet? Or just something someone did once in the early 80s, and then everyone else decided it was supercool?).

Anyway, we get a better sense of where we are as the song starts. We see a reddish-purple cave dripping with stalactites and lit both from torches and a greenish glowing fog on the floor. There are a bunch of big tubes (I know I describe everything this way, but for real, they do look like a human size Habitrail) splayed out also. Round lights in the middle of the tubes start pulsing, and as Klaus Meine begins singing, his tube raises straight up (did I mention also the tubes have blue neon floors, not unlike that of a tanning bed). We start cutting back and forth between Klaus and performance footage of the Scorps as a bewigged lady who is also wearing a cat mask that appears to be made of foil lets him out of his pod. She puts her hands on his shoulders and he kind of shrugs her off, then we're with the badly costumed nuns/witches/whatevers. They're shaking their fingers over their big cauldron, and we can kind of see that their faces are just like plain black masks but their eyes are like giant bug eyes made of vertical strips of mirrored material.

Klaus walks by them through a forest of spiky "trees" made from wrapping paper tubes spray-painted silver (I'm so certain about this because I could swear that when I was in second grade a teacher tried to buy these for the set of our play "The Jabberwocky" from a PBS auction). He walks by the dudes with the cauldron, which makes the cauldron light up and they run away, as do some more of them who I guess were in the background before but I couldn't see them.



As the first chorus kicks up, we finally really see the Scorpions performing the song in a giant cage. As per all other videos involving giant cages, the cage has no top or bottom and is actually more like a fence of large panels (they look like the doors of jail cells) that are somehow tied together so that the whole thing moves as if jointed. Klaus runs along the front and high-fives a bunch of hands that are sticking through, then runs by what appears to be a person strung up by their feet hanging in the middle of the cage (wha...?).

They all rock out while a first row of oddly made up ladies (they all have giant black wigs on with white faces except for a wide stripe of red that goes through their eyes) rock the cage and a second row, further back, wave their arms around. Okay, now I see how the Scorpions got into the cage -- there is a door at the back behind the drummer, lit in bright blue. So even though these ladies imprisoned the Scorpions in those pods, once they got out of those pods, they appeared to be the entertainment for those ladies in some kind of larger prison (since now the Scorps appear to be in charge -- I mean, these future alien babes or whatever they are can't get at them through the bars).

The whole second verse we're still with the Scorps rocking out in the cage. Matthias makes a weird face, the women stick their hands into the cage, and it's edited together so that someone's always doing something dramatic (like swinging a guitar) on the beat. Same for the second chorus -- it's basically the same stuff, although Klaus is now making a point of like, running up to the cage to taunt the women so they'll all stick their hands through, then running away. And in fact, as Matthias gears up for and goes into the guitar solo, he goes ahead and backs up all the way against the cage so that they are able to grab him (and get him in sort of a headlock) as he imperviously rages on, dishing up a heaping helping of guitar face.

As Klaus reprises the opening, we see a bunch of the women walk through a foggy hall lit by torches (but somehow, the light in there is still very blue). We can now for the first time get a really good look at how long their hair is (butt-length, but impossible thick all the way to the ends) and how scantily they're clad (also very; red tube tops and loin cloths plus some random strips of fabric). We randomly see a very sick or dead looking man's face all tied up with something (possibly the dude we saw hanging upside down in that one shot earlier?). The girls head back into the room with the pods, and as Klaus starts singing, "the night is coming / I have to gooo" for the second time, one of the ladies shaking the cage bars finally (and somewhat explosively) breaking through them as the band rocks out. All she does once in the cage though is kind of wave her arms around, since for some reason it's suddenly pretty windy in there.



Now the band also runs down the foggy hallway (my favorite part of this is when Matthias gently tosses his guitar to someone standing mm, my guess would be like two feet off screen), but yeah, they all do this like slow jog. A pod closes first on Francis Buchholz then on one of the ladies (I've always found this kind of discomforting as it snaps shut on her hair), then on another lady, then on Matthias, then another lady, then on probably Rudolf, then another lady (I could have sworn there were only five pods before, but whatever), then on Herman, then another lady. Last we see Klaus, in his pod (which is still standing up) saying, "Here I am" with other ladies sexily arrayed among the other pods.

THE VERDICT Explicating the many mysteries of this video was one of my inspirations in beginning this site, so I will do my best now that I finally have it. It combines two video genres I love: Trapped in pods (a la Def Leppard's "Foolin'" and of course most infamously, Spinal Tap) and trapped in a cage (see everything from Mötley Crüe's "Looks That Kill" to Nine Inch Nails' "Wish" to most Megadeth videos). Of course in this case, as in many other videos involving cages, the Scorps don't seem to mind being held in said cage, it is, after all, protecting them from the swarms of alien babes (and the panther) outside. It then definitely falls into what I have elsewhere here referred to as the preadolescent stage of heavy metal videos, with women as sexy yet scary captors/captives. You just don't get the feeling anyone's up to anything frisky in those pods, you know?

That said, this is obviously one of my personal faves and a total classic, even if I'm not sure who's imprisoning whom or what it's really about or where the convention of having random robed people who only show up at the beginning of your video and serve no real purpose comes from. It still totally rocks out -- it's the kind of song you like would hear when you'd been driving for hours and then feel totally revived after you heard it. And of course I have to say that it also has for me in recent years the great tie-in with my favorite episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force entitled "The Last One," in which all of the villains from all of the previous episodes get together to try to defeat the Aqua Teens. Ignignokt leads the meeting and when he calls roll he says something like, "If you are present, you shall say 'Here,' and it will stand for, 'Here I am, rock you like a hurricane.'" Then of course all the villains start saying it, which I find hilarious. Someday I will so make a t-shirt that says "Here I Am" on the front and "Rock You Like a Hurricane" on the back. That would be so totally badass.

Okay so I obviously like the song, but what about the video? Well, even though as I've alluded above I find it has enormous similarities to many, many other videos of the era, I still really like this video. What makes it so memorable? I think it has to do with the charisma of the Scorpions themselves. I mean, editing the thing together so that something cool's always happening every time the drums are hit helps, but it's really their enthusiastic showmanship that sells this video. Even when you can't see them that well, the band members are constantly moving around and rocking it out, and no matter who's being shown during the chorus, they're yelling, "Rock You Like a Hurricane." They have an enthusiasm not unlike that of Poison, who we all know I find to be particularly affable gents. And even though my bf always argues that "wanting everyone to be 'nice guys'" isn't a particularly helpful way to create one's taste, I say whatever. I'm a sucker for nice guys (and for Nikki Sixx).