THE VIDEO L.A. Guns, "The Ballad of Jayne," Cocked & Loaded, 1989, Polydor
SAMPLE LYRIC "Now it all seems funny / kinda lahk a dream / things ain't always what they seem / what a shayyyy-ayyyy-aaaaaame / what happened to Jay-ayne"
THE VERDICT What is it about metal bands and ill-fated blondes? Actually, I guess I shouldn't ask what it is about metal bands. I mean sure, there are metal songs about everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Edie Sedgwick. But it's more of an American phenomenon. We're sort of obsessed. Still, these gals seem to have a real hold on metal bands. I don't know much about them, but my guess is that given metal's previous track record, Steel Panther are currently working on a song about Anna Nicole Smith (and be forewarned, that last link is way more depressing than titillating).
But of course you know L.A. Guns aren't going to say the umpteenth goodbye to Norma Jean. Instead, they go with Jayne Mansfield, who was sort of the Anna Nicole Smith of her day. I had never heard of her until I was in high school, when I checked out a book from the public library called The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste. If I am remembering correctly, Jayne had her own entry, but if not, she was definitely mentioned in the section on death cars. (I also remember this book as the first place I encountered the idea of "dancing water.")
Does the video reference Jayne Mansfield at all? Weirdly no. We just get a couple of shots of a fairly generic-looking brunette walking around. But oh the place she's walking around! L.A. Guns have rented themselves the grounds of some ridiculous mansion (I'm bummed I've been unable to track down the exact location).
They aren't anywhere near a house, but that doesn't mean they don't have a gazebo with a stained-glass roof, tons of stone lions and other various statuary, assorted topiaries, and a ginormous swimming pool with a tiled bottom. I should also mention that all of it is wrapped in enormous swags of red fabric.
Oh yeah, and let's not forget the strings! You know a metal band is getting down to business when strings get involved. You'd think this would be a case where it's like, Guns N' Roses made it safe for everyone else, but this video pre-dates the Use Your Illusion albums and videos. Maybe Whitesnake made violins safe for metal.
Anyway, they've got a good half-dozen or so super old white guys playing the strings on one side of the pool. Most notable is the one with the huuuuuge muttonchop sideburns and the handlebar moustache. Not sure what his deal is, but he's all over this video — he's in it way more than the foxy brunette, and probably than Mick Cripps too.
Aesthetically though this video is such a sign of things to come, with the super-saturated, high-contrast colors. I've lately gotten really into the Instagram app, and this video reminds me of that — it's like they shot whole segments with the "Lomo-fi" filter. (Okay, really, they probably shot it with whatever lomo-fi is meant to imitate.) But really, it's impressive that this video is still technically in the 80s, 'cause this is kind of where everyone's heading. Maybe the L.A. Guns made Yves Klein blue safe for everyone!
Okay, but let's talk about the other aesthetic elements of this video. L.A. Guns look less badass here than they do in their other videos, but they still bring it, especially my fave Kelly Nickels. The little black leather gloves and mirrored glasses are really working with his sassy bass moves.
Phil Lewis is commendable in this video, too, though. He doesn't often look good (e.g., when he's wearing the weird kimono-type top), but when he does look good, he looks very, very good. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. When he's all shirtless with the roses. This is a look I can get behind!
Unlike yes, the beginning of the video, where he's stuck partway between the Mad Hatter as played by Tom Petty and Kate Hudson's exBlack Crowes' lead singer Chris Robinson.
Steve Riley, of course, not so much. I really like that his bass drum just says "Steve Riley." He's not that famous of a drummer. It's more that it feels like he's too temporary to get an actual L.A. Guns logo on his bass. Also, he apparently got the memo that everyone was supposed to dress in red, black, or denim, but decided that a red cowboy shirt was the right way to go. Oh Steve.
This is a weird song, in that it's a little bit of a snoozefest, but at the same time it's an exceptional vocal from Phil Lewis. And the harmonies they do, especially in the final verse, are gorgeous. Phil seems like he's really into it in the video too, leaning on Tracii and really belting it out.
I know, I know, a bunch of other times he's just sitting around in a stupid hat staring at falling rose petals. But the other times guys, the other times!
So why'd I pick this video for this week? Well, it's gonna sound kind of morbid, but I just can't shake Jani Lane from my mind, and it's not much of a stretch to change this song into "The Ballad of Jani." Yeah, he was older than me, but he was just so... not old. And unlike say, Kevin DuBrow, he didn't have an extensive resume of substance abuse. Or at least, no more than your average rock n roller.
I just keep thinking about it.
It's cliche to say Jani's death makes me reflect on and appreciate life more (a lot of other stuff has gone on much closer to me this year that has made me think about that). But still, it's kind of true — it just feels like such a waste. I mean we're talking about the man who wrote "Cherry Pie"! We're just not about to get another "Cherry Pie." Everyone else is freaking out about Steve Jobs, and don't get me wrong, I love my iMac, numerous iPods, and iPhone... but I mean come on you guys, it's Cherry effing Pie!
THE VIDEO Tesla, "What You Give," Psychotic Supper, 1991, Geffen
SAMPLE LYRIC "It's not what you got / it's what you give / it's not the life you choose / it's the one you live"
THE VERDICT Okay, so I know that very little happens in this video. It's pretty much just Tesla playing the song in what appears to be the Blair Witch's house. In the whole beginning part when Jeff Keith is kind of by himself in another area, sort of half in shadow and tangled up in wires, I keep expecting he's going to come into the main room and see Brian Wheat just standing there facing into the corner. Jeff does have his eyes closed until like, halfway into this video, so maybe he's scared.
Seriously, what is it about these sort of unfinished spaces — whether warehouses or barns — that metal video directors decided telegraphs a certain kind of authenticity? And I mean, are Tesla the kind of band that even needs to bother with that? I mean no one looks at Troy Luccketta and is like "That guy's trying too hard. What a poseur."
I don't know, maybe they were trying to counterbalance Frank Hannon's elaborately crocheted sweater. (Yes, my other hobby — approximately as non-metal as you can get — is crochet.) I kind of think that Jeff rocking the denim-vest-over-leather-jacket look does enough of that, but whatever.
Anyway, this week the video's not really what I want to talk about (and nooo, for once I don't want to tell a long anecdote about myself either!). I actually want to talk about this song, which I freaking love.
Well, I halfway do. I love the verse, and hate the chorus, which is actually pretty common for me. In the case of "What You Give," it's just that it goes way too Hallmark with all the rhyming.
But I think the bigger offense is just repetition — jeepers jolly, they repeat the chorus just ad nauseam toward the end of the song, in an increasingly frantic way. About the only song that I enjoy this in is "Cherry Pie."
Here though, if sheer repetitiveness hasn't already worn you down, the part where Tommy Skeoch screams it in a guttural voice will. Ew. It's like cheese squared.
But the rest of the song! Oh the rest of the song. It's the kind of thing I want to doodle in ballpoint pen in the margins of every notebook I own! "I feel so lonely and I know I'm not the only one / to carry on this way / I love you so much I lose track of time! / Lose track of the days." I mean this is what you want love to be like, people.
Okay, maybe not the loneliness part. But no, I don't think it's like, an existential loneliness song. It's more of a temporarily-apart-via-circumstances-somewhat-beyond-our-control song.
And then when they reprise the beginning, and turn it into the second person — "You're the one, that makes me happy / oh yeah bay-bee! / you're the one always on my mind" etc. I. Can't. Even. Deal.
"Why can't forever be, forever and nothin' more?" That is exactly the kind of lyrical nothing — a sort of vague profundity that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense — that instantly makes me feel seventeen again in like, the best way possible.
And yet.
And yet.
It turns out the whole dang song is about a dog! Sigh. For real Tesla? Yes, for real. Or at least, according to Jeff in the little intro to "What You Give" on Time's Makin' Changes.
Now don't get me wrong. I love dogs. I have a dog. She's eight. She is very giving, though I would also say she takes quite a bit too. I just... I don't want this song to be about a dog.
Now Guns N Roses' "Used to Love Her," that's a song that well, I'm not stoked it's purportedly about a dog, but I guess that's better than it being totally misogynistic? I guess this is one of those times where I don't want to know what the song's really about, and just want to have my own interpretation of it.
Weirdly, way back in the day this was one of the most common arguments made against music videos — that seeing a specific visual would supersede whatever the listener just related the music to on their own, in their head.
I don't think I really get this with videos — since at least they're related to the songs — but I will say, having a song be prominently featured in a movie, a commercial, or (the ultimate personal-association-killer) a commercial for a movie really does it.
But has it ever done it for a metal song for me? Hmm, I'm gonna have to think about this one. I think Tesla are safe though, at least from that fate.
P.S.: I know it's a stretch, but I was going for a Freaks and Geeks reference.
THE VIDEO Enuff Z'nuff, "Fly High Michelle," Enuff Z'nuff, 1989, Atlantic
SAMPLE LYRIC "Why'd you have to give it up? / (Fly high Michelle) / Well you was just a little girl / (Fly high Michelle) / I'll never look into your blue eyes / (Fly high Michelle)"
THE VERDICT Okay people, I'm warning you now: I'm mad stressed out this week what with school starting again and all, and so I have seriously poured myself like a Big Gulp of haterade for this one (and I'm using my SummerSlam Slurpee straws!).
Enuff Z'nuff fans, back away from your computers (or just look at the pretty pictures. Ooh, rainbows!).
So the faithful reader who suggested this is right that the "cutting edge graphics of rainbows, doves and lightning" in this video "should never go ignored."
In fact, as you watch this video they are pretty much impossible to ignore — you can barely see the dang band! There are rainbows, doves, balloons, and clouds flying around everywhere. It's like a Lisa Frank notebook exploded. Or like they designed it based on the Trapper Keeper I got circa 1986.
I know. It's a sad song. I shouldn't be making fun of a song that Donnie Vie actually wrote about a friend's suicide. But I'm sorry, it's just an awful, drippy, monotonous song, and all the CGI rainbows in the world can't change that.
If you want to listen to a metal song about suicide, just go straight to "Don't Close Your Eyes." If you want to listen to a metal song about someone named Michelle, why not "My Michelle"?
I mean jeepers jolly, Enuff Z'nuff are just not a very good band.
Now I know plenty of people out there will disagree with me. Allmusic, for example, describe Poison and Warrant as "disposable" but Enuff Z'nuff as merely "mispackaged power pop." They act like the entire mainstream of metal was the sort of weird aberration (referring to it as the "ill-fated hair-metal craze"), and like Enuff Z'nuff are somehow on the level of Cheap Trick.
There are soo many bands that got "mispackaged" as metal at the time, basically due to the musicians being white, male, and having hair that was longer than chin-length. And yes, there are some where the level of "mispackaging" is debatable, and the talent is definitely not (Tesla are the perfect example of this). Others though are just terrible bands, and I'm sorry, but Enuff Z'nuff is one of them.
Or what about Bad English? Put on leather jackets and tease up your hair all you want John Waite, you're still the dude who's most known for "Missing You." (You know, "I ain't missing you at all!")
And I mean, Neal Schon? Journey have some great songs, but Journey ain't metal. Long story short, I know I like some cheesy stuff, but "When I See You Smile" makes me want to projectile vomit.
Another prime suspect: I don't care if Billy Sheehan's the bassist. Mr. Big are a brutally awful band, and another perfect example of a "lumped in" or "mispackaged" or whatever you want to call it situation.
Actually, if I could guess what band Mr. Big most wanted to be, I'd have to guess Tesla (I mean "Green-Tinted Sixties Mind"?). Instead though, they are whining about waiting in line to be with a girl. It's not even sloppy seconds here, it's like filthy fifths! Ew! And I'm sorry, but lines like "build up your confidence, so you can be on top for once" are basically just guaranteed panty-droppers for girls with low self-esteem. (Sorry, I warned you I was in a dark mood!)
Oh my gosh, I got so into this rant I totally forgot about the video. It's weird too, because I generally hate arguments about what "is" and "isn't" metal, 'cause overall, in case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty inclusive. I'll go glam, I'll do thrash, I like lyrical, I like speed. But yeah, I guess what I hate is bad, guitar-based pop by long-haired guys that confuses people into thinking it's metal.
Long story short, I freakin' hate Extreme. (That should get me some hate mail. But seriously, one of my greatest fears is that I'll be trapped in a confined space and "Hole Hearted" will be playing on repeat. If I were like, in one of those Saw movies, that would be the thing that happened to me. I'd destroy myself trying to escape Gary Cherone!)
Okay, video, video, video. Basically, we are in a rainy, computer-generated sort-of New York City (there does appear to be something like the Empire State building and the Chrysler building, but no WTC).
Everything is in black and white until Donnie Vie drops his goofy John Lennon glasses, which suddenly begin sprouting rainbows.
Though we see the band getting onto a tour bus, next thing we know they're playing the song on a cloud. And naturally, a model-type girl with straight blond hair and a neon green dress is picking up the glasses and putting them on. That's when things start getting really nuts.
Rainbows are shooting every which way, the same dove keeps flying across the frame, and the clouds are genuinely obscuring what's going on. Yeah, we get close-ups of Donnie's face, and Chip Z'nuff impersonating Like a Virgin-era Madonna, but that's about it.
Oh wait, until all the balloons. Somehow, the girl with the glasses gets hold of a bunch of balloons, and they take her up into the sky above the city. Balloons start flying freakin' everywhere! The girl floats past the band's cloud, and Donnie tries to grab her, but she just keeps going. This makes things get a bit darker, and lightning starts shooting all over the place.
And how did I forget to mention the giant full moon that is in the background of virtually every shot? Guess I'm just being lazy.
Okay.
So I know I made like, the same points I made last time I talked about Enuff Z'nuff. But I think that's 'cause sometimes enough is enough! And after that gigundo "November Rain" post, I'm still a bit spent. I'll be back in the swing of things soon enough though, just you wait.
P.S.: When I'm in this kind of mood, you should probably read the whole post to yourself in the voice of Carl from ATHF.
THE VIDEO Guns N Roses, "November Rain," Use Your Illusion I, 1991, Geffen
SAMPLE LYRIC "So if you wanna love me / then darlin' don't refrain / Or I'll just end up walkin' / in the cold November rain"
THE VERDICT I know. I've always said this is a pretty depressing wedding song -slash- video -- I mean, the bride dies. But come on, what metal song/video is more associated with weddings than this one? Umm, none of them. So yes, I have a confession to make. Okay well one, obviously, I'm married now, so congratulations to me. (Also if you're reading this now, it's 2020, and I've been divorced for a few years, so... updated the title on this post.)
But two — I walked down the aisle to "November Rain." Yes, that's right. We sprung for having the pianist learn a new song just for us. And it was by Guns N Roses. If I didn't have enough metal cred for you before, I best have it now.
Hilariously, they wound up just straight playing the song. As soon as I heard the piano at the beginning, standing there with my dad, I just burst into tears. I was like, "Dang, this dude is a really good pianist!" (And to be clear, he'd already played a different song for my husband and our family members to walk in to, like on the piano.)
But then the flute and strings and whatnot came in, and I just burst out laughing. I laughed so hard (while also crying) I had to just stand there at the beginning of the aisle for a few seconds to recompose myself. And of course, right as I made it to my husband I hear my mom say, "What is this awful, cheesy song?" Ah, weddings. But now it's OVER! I'm officially hitched, and can officially kick back.
And can blog about the "November Rain" video. (Fear not, except for this paragraph, I wrote this a while ago -- as you read this, I'm on my honeymoon! I mean dude, I have my limits.)
This is an epic video. And to make it even more epic, I have done quite a bit of research for you, with a bit of help from The Language of Fear. WTH is that, you ask? Well, it's just the book of Del James short stories that contains, "Without You," the story that the Use Your Illusion video trilogy is based on.
We are finally going to learn what really is going on in "November Rain," and also what really would have been going on in the video for "Estranged" if Axl and Stephanie hadn't broken up. (Come to think, that is actually probably why the making-of video is subtitled "Part IV of the Trilogy!!!" — part 3, which concludes the story and explains "November Rain," was never made.)
And speaking of makings-of, I also watched Makin' F@*!ing Videos Part II: November Rain to prepare for this (it's a long title, so hereafter I'm referring to it as "MFV"). Spoiler alert: It's a zillion times less interesting than the The Making of "Estranged": Part IV of the Trilogy!!!, and reveals a lot less about where and how the video was made, despite the fact that it cost them a cold $1.5 million to make it (which would be about $2.4 million in 2010 dollars, just to put that in perspective).
So I did even more research, to find out more about video locations etc. Long story short, I am hoping to make this the definitive account of "November Rain." We are going to get to the bottom of the meaning, the mystery, all of it. Also, this is going to be the longest post ever.
I mean face it, "November Rain" is a monstrosity of a video. It's incredibly long — nine minutes plus — so I am going to do a bit of condensing and just note that all the narrative elements are set against Guns N Roses performing in a large concert hall in L.A. with 1,500 extras, an entire orchestra, and of course some foxy backup singers in skintight lace dresses.
Axl has gone all Elton John, sitting at a ginormous piano and wearing little round glasses with colored lenses. The rest of the band is, you know, putting up with the fact that they are stuck doing this insane video for this completely over-the-top song.
Based on how much they all loved making the video for "Estranged," I'm sure they were all stoked to do this one.
And per "MFV", indeed, they weren't. Nobody besides Axl and Del seems to like the song too much — surprise! — it's hard to play, just like "Estranged". Matt Sorum's sort of circumspect, but is clearly like, Slash and Duff hate this. Duff keeps kind of talking around it, like well it's a more "gentle" song than they're used to playing, or having a 130-piece orchestra is something "we're not used to." Axl of course keeps saying the whole video went "very, very smoothly."
The more interesting thing we learn from "MFV" is that the visual reference to Elton John is probably intentional. Surprisingly, Axl loves Sir Elton — it kind of makes me wonder if it being "hard to hold a candle in the cold November Rain" has any relation to "Candle in the Wind."
Matt Sorum talks a bunch in "MFV" about how Axl really wanted the drums in "November Rain" to sound like Nigel Olsson-style drum fills. He mentions "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" as a specific reference, and notes this is the only time Axl ever really gave him direction on drum stuff.
So weird, right? Though less weird when we remember that Axl and Elton totally duetted this song way back in 1992 at the MTV Video Music Awards. They did the whole yin-and-yang pianos thing and everything!
Gosh, seeing that again made me remember what a big deal the VMAs were to me growing up. Before we had cable, I would make my aunt tape them on VHS so I could watch them. Also, what is with Elton John doing duets with noted homophobes? In any event, Axl talks about this during "MFV" as being among the most nervous he's ever been during a performance.
Anyway, back to the video. So one other interesting thing is that this video was actually performed live, rather than mimed and lip-synched as per usual. Axl talks a bunch about how the video was this great excuse for them to get to book an orchestra, and play with them. "MFV" shows the orchestra playing the ending of the song without GNR accompanying them, and the audience appears legitimately really into it.
It also shows the band playing a kickass rendition of "Dead Horse" for all the extras (they basically watched a really long concert where "November Rain" was played numerous times), who are of course dressed in black tie. Note that the extras in the performance/concert sequences seem to have been much happier than the other extras. You also have to love the flutist in the bustier — such a metal touch to add to the orchestra.
So where do we start? Well, with what's actually the only part of this video that's reminiscent of "Without You," the Del James short story we will discuss at length momentarily. Axl pops some pills and goes to bed in a blue-lit room, implying that everything that happens in this video is actually his memories, not anything that's currently happening now (which as we'll see, makes sense with the short story). First though, he dreams of himself playing piano in his Elton John outfit, inside of a tiny church in the middle of nowhere.
And what does he dream of first? His wedding to Stephanie Seymour! Okay, so much to say here. First, had I done a bit more research, had a lot more money, and been Catholic, I could have totally had the wedding from "November Rain." (Now, thanks to my research and blogging, you can have it! Just keep reading!)
The ceremony was shot at St. Brendan Catholic Church in Los Angeles. It's in loads of stuff, but most notably (for me anyway), the rectory next door is the building Brenda claims is her sorority house in the pilot episode of Beverly Hills 90210. It's a really beautiful church, and incredibly tasteful for southern California. They've got swags of white flowers lining the aisle, and candles everywhere — it's actually kind of a gorgeous ceremony.
But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.
We need to back up to Stephanie Seymour, 'cause this is amazing. Now I'd always assumed her and Axl's relationship pre-dated her starring in these videos. In actuality, it was her being cast in these videos that started the relationship!
According to "MFV," Del spotted her on the cover of Cosmopolitan, where apparently she seemed "really down to earth." He remembers her as wearing some sort of 60s-ish, hippie-style shirt, but the only Stephanie Seymour Cosmo cover I could find that would be even remotely the right time period has her in a pretty severe white bathing suit. Could it have been this issue of Elle? Nah, too late. This Vogue cover isn't right either.
Okay, Del probably just misremembered what she was wearing, but whatever.
In any event, Stephanie says she had never wanted to be a rock video girl, claiming "I've had people ask me to do videos and I never was interested, until Guns N Roses asked me to do one."
Axl felt the casting decision for the trilogy was important, and that it needed to be an actress-type who would be "motivated" to do the video, which was not just a "tits and ass video." Steph's beyond gorgeous (still is today, lucky girl!) but comes off as a bit dopey in her (brief) interview segments.
She's most famous here though for coming down the aisle in that totally over-the-top Carmela Sutera gown (side note: the designer seems to be out of the biz as of this year, I can't find anything she designed post 2010). It's sort of the wedding dress equivalent of a mullet, though in the industry they call that a hi-lo hem (high in the front, low in the back... so yeah, a mullet!). She has an enormous train and an enormous veil. I think my favorite part of her whole attire though is the bow on top of her head. It's very 90s, but actually very sweet.
Based on "MFV," they legit filmed a wedding. The guy officiating is a friend of Axl's, who it turned out had actually officiated at St. Brendan before. He seems like a total sweetie based on "MFV," and is one of the better actors in the video.
In "MFV", we see that they actually did it all up, vows and everything. He says, "Stephanie and Axl, you have come here freely and without reservation, to give yourselves to one another, each, in love and harmony, in marriage. Will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your days?" That would be really weird to act out with someone you were just dating. Especially given how the video turns out.
It seems the indoor church scenes were shot at night — everyone is exhausted and miserable. The people in the pews keep laying down, and even the musicians are resting their heads on their instruments. The interviewer in "MFV" keeps asking the guys in GNR what they think their role in the wedding is. None are sure, though Matt Sorum guesses he's an usher. Duff doesn't realize he's meant to be holding the rings until right before they shoot it.
Most hilariously, the woman sitting with Gilby complains vociferously that she thinks no one stood up for her when she walked down the aisle, and Dizzy tries to console her by saying "There's nothing wrong with a sit-down wedding." Despite the late hour, the guys seem way happier and more like they're still friends than they do by the time they're making "Estranged."
But okay, wait, mid-wedding, Axl has a sort of moment of reverie — jeepers, is this a dream within a dream? — where he recalls good times with Steph and the guys at the Rainbow Bar & Grill. We don't see this in "MFV," though they mention an aborted scene at Damiano's — can you imagine if "November Rain" had had a freakin' pizza parlor scene?!? Well, it almost did, but for some reason the location was scrapped at the last minute, and they wound up using the good ol' Rainbow.
They don't show it at all in "MFV" though, so I'm wondering if this is actually extra footage from "Don't Cry" that they've repurposed here. It's got the same look, with the band and their girlfriends hanging out and joking around. Also kids, don't smoke, even if Stephanie Seymour makes it look un-buh-lievably glamorous.
Anyway, Axl gets his head back in the game for the ring exchange, which as we all remember is made hilarious by the antics of Slash, who is apparently the ring bearer in the wedding. The priest asks for the rings, but Slash, patting his pockets, doesn't have them. Luckily, with a wink, Duff produces them — who knows why, but on his pinky. Slash hands the priest the rings, then straight-up leaves the wedding. Oh-kay.
He leaves, of course, to play the solo, which finds him somehow exiting a tiny church in the middle of nowhere, dressed in completely different clothes. He's gone from his church attire — tophat, open white blousey shirt, black jacket, etc. — to his solo attire — hatless, chaps, etc. Slash somehow manages to smoke through the entire solo despite it being extremely windy.
Also, in addition to the different clothes, again, he's in a totally different place — this was shot in a little Old West-style church in New Mexico built as part of a movie set for Silverado. (I'm assuming this is also where Axl is in the one random shot where he appears to be walking through an Old West ghost town.) They had wanted to shoot the solo in a field of long grass or flowers, which to me honestly would seem really weird, but since it was winter, this is where they wound up.
But oh yeah, back to the wedding. Of course we get a gratuitously open-mouthed kiss, then Axl and Stephanie run down the front steps of the church while their friends and family throw rice and flower petals. They get into the back of a car, and while Axl looks stoked, Stephanie looks even more like she wants to cry, puke, or both than she did when they were coming down the aisle.
She's got her game face on though by the time they hit the reception, which my research has uncovered was shot at the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. Available for weddings and other events — see, you can have your own "November Rain" wedding! (It's also where they shot the Axl bedroom scenes, if you're wondering.)
Stephanie has changed into a skintight off-the-shoulder black velvet gown for the reception, which makes her look unbelievably skinny. Axl has swapped for a metallic blue coat that is, amazingly, even uglier than the bizarro frockcoat he wore for the ceremony. No worries though, that thing is still represented in the incredibly accurate cake topper atop their ginormous five-tier wedding cake.
At first, everyone's super-happy at the reception. Everyone's toasting each other, Axl's feeding Stephanie frosting, old people are dancing, little kids are running around, Riki Rachtman is happy to be there. (And in real life, it seems like again the reception was one of the easier parts of this video to film — the extras seem happy, and the band are goofing around, playing with the reception band's instruments. I should also mention the reception band are the Capitol Homeboyz — scroll down to #14 for a peek.)
But next thing you know, everything's going wrong — and weirdly, despite this being the part of the video I most wanted to know about, "MFV" doesn't talk about it at all.
But yeah, it starts raining. I mean pouring. And for some reason, this makes everyone absolutely panic. Everyone's running around like crazy, Duff is hiding under the head table, but what absolutely nails it is the guy who jumps sideways through the wedding cake. WTF is that?! What part of getting out of the rain makes this level of cake destruction necessary? Shouldn't someone have been trying to carry the cake inside? Jeez, it's like "MacArthur Park" all over again. (You know, "someone left the cake out in the rain.")
Still, the final shot of this sequence — of the totally destroyed reception table — is ridiculously well art-directed. Congrats, Andy Morahan.
Then next thing you know, everything's really gone to hell. The song's gotten all dark, and Stephanie's dead! She's in a casket that's sort of like a quarter open, with half her face showing. Also I'm not sure, but she might be rewearing that wedding dress in there. Axl is all sweaty and penitent.
Per "MFV," Stephanie was actually the only one who didn't mind this part of the shoot (another overnight one, using St. Brendan again). Why? because she fell asleep in the coffin and pretty much missed the whole shoot. Axl says it was "pretty creepy" to see her in there. Also, it's not clear why the other guys in GNR aren't the pallbearers, and why instead it looks like Joe Friday is.
And of course, it starts to rain at her funeral, too. But this time, everyone holds it together and just like, busts out umbrellas. No one's jumping through a giant floral arrangement or anything like that. Eventually, the funeral wraps up, and everyone leaves except Axl, who's kneeling beside her grave in the rain. But then wait — Axl's clutching his pillow in the blue-lit bedroom back at Greystone.
So see? It's all been a dream. Or a memory? We won't know until, well, we'll know in two seconds, when I finally start talking about "Without You."
But before then, I need to mention the last significant bit of the video (a bit out of order, but I'm trying to keep things semi-organized) — Stephanie's alive again, and tossing her bouquet off the terrace at Greystone. As it flies through the air, the roses turn from white to red, and we see it as the red rose bouquet that's laying on her casket in the open grave. As the video ends though, the raindrops on the casket leak the color out of the flowers, making them white once more.
Okay, so if this video is actually just the wind-up to what was supposed to happen in "Estranged,"what was supposed to happen in "Estranged"?? Patience, patience (though let me also say if you've actually read this far, good on you!) We need a bit of history first.
So Del James first met GNR back in like 1985, through some sort of convoluted story where basically they wind up crashing together in LA. Axl was actually already working on "November Rain" on the piano at that point, but they wound up putting "Sweet Child O' Mine" on Appetite for Destruction instead, since Axl felt it wasn't finished enough (i.e. since no one else could understand what he was trying to do). Such the artiste, as per usual. In "MFV," he mentions that Tommy Lee's piano work in "Home Sweet Home" really inspired him to go with his piano visions.
Around this same time, Del James started working on drafts of what would become "Without You." It was inspired by Axl's relationship with then-girlfriend (and later wife) Erin Everly. The story actually wasn't written completely when "November Rain" came out — Axl says "November Rain" is more just about his own life — but it does pre-date "Estranged," which was very much inspired by "Without You."
In "MFV," both Axl and Del say "Estranged" is Axl's attempt to write the song within the story. Though they really hedge on this in the "Making of Estranged," in "MFV" it's very obvious they intend that video to depict "Without You" — Axl says, "And if budget allows, we'll film the next parts of the story." Del claims they had considered making an entire movie, but that the video trilogy will instead be a condensed version.
Okay, so finally, here's the story! "Without You" is about an Axl-manque, Mayne Mann, who finds fame with a band called Suicide Shift, and now fronts his own group. It's basically the story of his love for a beautiful woman named Elizabeth Aston, who again is based on Erin Everly.
Mayne loves Elizabeth, but leading the rock 'n' roll lifestyle leads to problems with fidelity, and she's the jealous type (probably hence the catfight scene in "Don't Cry"). Mayne struggles to tell her how he really feels, but it's hard, and long story short, he winds up doing so with a song called "Without You," which he bases on something she says to him (basically that she can't live with him, but she can't live without him — wait, isn't that a U2 song?!).
Most of the story is taken up with one morning in Mayne's life. It starts with him having a nightmare vision of Elizabeth, with the song playing in the background — probably what the nightmare scene in "November Rain" alludes to. Mayne wakes up to find himself in his trashed condo, which he proceeds to get trashed in and to continue the trashing of as he struggles with his memories of Elizabeth. There's a lot of drinking (alternating beer and whiskey), some smoking, a good amount of coke, and plenty of smack. Breakfast of champions! In any event, this is what we can guess is just beginning to happen at the end of "November Rain," when Axl wakes up all sweaty.
In any event, I know what you're all waiting for — how did Elizabeth/Stephanie Seymour die? — so here's the big reveal.
Following an especially blatant episode of infidelity, Mayne is desperately trying to get Elizabeth to come to his concert in L.A. She doesn't show up, so he decides to go to her apartment and surprise her. She won't answer her phone, so he barges in — and finds that she has shot herself in the head while playing "Without You" on repeat. Hence the only partially-opened casket in "November Rain" — I think we're meant to believe much of her head is now missing.
So what does this mean would have happened in "Estranged"? My best guess is we would have seen the infidelity more clearly dramatized than in "Don't Cry" (though there is a lot of fighting in that one). We also would have gotten to watch Axl trash an apartment, smash guitars and platinum records, throw a stereo through the windshield of a Bentley, and make it rain hundreds for a crowd of people gathered below.
But I think the most dramatic moment would have been the big finale — which Del alludes to in "MFV." Mayne has been avoiding ever hearing, let alone playing, "Without You," because his memories of Elizabeth are too painful. But at the bottom of his spiral, he sits down at his piano, high and bloodied, and plays it, soulfully and passionately... as his condo burns to the ground around him, 'cause he dropped a still-burning cigarette on the ground in the bedroom. Dram-a!!!!
According to the Axl-penned preface (written in 1993 and more or less just a hagiography of Del), Del introduced this story to him in draft form by claiming he had just written the story of his best friend's (i.e., Axl's) death. Again, he wrote it in the mid-80s, before Appetite came out, and according to Axl, many aspects of it came true (mainly the over-the-top multi-platinum success bits).
Axl says "Estranged" is his "Without You," a song he is haunted by. He confirms that "November Rain" is more the set-up for the story "Without You," and that "Estranged" was going to be the filming of the story itself, except that Stephanie Seymour had "other plans."
So does this bode well for my marriage? Ummm, well, if we're going to be literalists no, not so much. (And yeah, now this is me talking in 2020 again, can't believe I wrote all that back in 2011! But it was hard to hold a candle... my marriage ended several years ago.)
THE VIDEO Stryper, "Honestly," To Hell With the Devil, 1986, Hollywood
SAMPLE LYRIC "Calllllll on meee, and I'll be there for you-oooooooh-oooh / I'm a friend who allllllll-ways will be tru-ooooooooh-ooooh / And I love you can't you see-eeeeeeee / that I can say I luh-uh-uh-uh-uuuuuuuuve youuuuuuuuuu hon-on-est-lee-eeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeee"
THE VERDICT Okay, here's video #2 in my wedding theme month. How the heck is Stryper relevant, given that my fiance and I aren't religious at all? Well, given that I'm a bit slow on the uptake on this kind of stuff, for a really long time I just thought this would be a really nice like, wedding first dance song.
I mean, it's a bit sappy incredibly sappy, and it's all the kind of promises you'd want to make, and really everything you'd want in a life partner, right?
Okay, except that it's not being narrated from the point of view of like, a husband or wife or whatever. This song is actually a God's eye point of view.
And I don't mean like, an omniscient narrator kind of thing. I mean literally, this song is like, the Lord or Jesus or whomever telling people He is always going to be there for them, a friend who'll always be true, etc. If you're a believer, it's a reassuring message, for sure.
And if you wanted to use this as a message to your spouse, as I would, it's got a lovely message.
Even if I think I'm the only person I know who can get through this song without complaining of torture. What can I say, I guess I have a cheesy streak. Okay, I have a cheesy streak like the size of Wisconsin.
In any event, we aren't having a legit reception or anything like that, so we'll just have to talk about this video here.
The video sort of takes us through the whole process of the song, from start to finish. We begin really at the beginning, with Michael Sweet composing the song at the piano. Why these parts are in black and white, I'm not sure. Like, it's a reenactment? The "oh no, look how hard this is!" part of an infomercial?
Then we move on to the band practicing the song together. Are they practicing in a garage? Or is this the usual metal video cliche of the empty warehouse, because this is a really big garage. They also seem to have some yellow and black-painted risers in there. Maybe it's like an airplane hangar, where all their stuff is waiting to be shipped off for their tour? Hmm, I'm not thinking the acoustics are probably that good in there.
You know I have to say, in their way, Stryper have great style, with all the skinny jeans and hats and sweatpants. Robert Sweet just about has better Farrah Fawcett hair than Farrah herself did, it's perfect! You look at how they're dressed in this video, and aside from the big-shouldered jackets, it's all stuff that would totally play now.
Okay, re-focusing. Probably the most notable aspect of this video is the 'behind the scenes' footage of them getting ready to leave for their tour. This is one of the only metal videos (if not the only one) that includes wives and babies in real time, as part of the video, not as just like, maybe one photo in the midst of a huge photo montage.
They also show them kissing their wives/girlfriends a lot, which is really unusual in metal videos. They usually want to make the band members seem available to any ladies who might be watching. The exception to this is women in videos who the band members are really dating — viz. all the open-mouthed Tawny Kitaen-David Coverdale action in Whitesnake videos.
This kissing is not like that, trust.
I like too that these bits show Stryper to have a sense of humor. We get some jokey footage of them — Rob tosses an umbrella in a suitcase, Oz Fox just sticks an entire dresser drawer into his luggage. Then a white limo picks them all up and they go to the airport, showing us their passports. We even follow them into the plane — and not like, their own personal plane either (or like the helicopter they have in "Always There For You"). Stryper is flying coach!
So Stryper have gone to London, where they're on the marquee of the Hammersmith Odeon. Instead of the usual footage of them like, pensively staring out the windows of their tour bus or sitting around exhausted in hotels, Stryper actually take advantage of their traveling. The boys go out and sightsee a bit, hitting the usual tourist spots — Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace. I especially love when they walk by a poster for their concert, and it's right next to a giganticThompson Twins poster.
We also get to peek backstage, and this backstage footage is likewise not your usual backstage footage. There's nary a groupie in sight, and no one sprays anyone with beer. Instead, they've got out their Bibles, and they do a prayer circle.
Moving forward in the sort of life cycle of the song, we then see them practicing on their stage set in their regular clothes. Then at the end Stryper are actually live in their full black and yellow regalia on the set, though at the last minute we're back with Michael and his piano. Hmm, that was pretty straightforward.
Okay, strap yourselves in for a huge tangent (see, at least this week I saved it for the end!).
Growing up, there was this hole-in-the-wall mom and pop shop a little ways from my house that was called the Corner Store. It was abundantly not on a corner, so who knows. But it was basically like a convenience store minus the gas station. It was very small, and sold like candy, and Wonder Bread, and stuff like that.
It had a couple of arcade games on the back wall, and it had an incredibly distinct smell — I can't describe it, but if I smelled it anywhere else I would identify it as this. Sort of a mix of loose change, soft serve ice cream, and comic books (which they also sold, on a rack near the counter).
I think I remember buying Garbage Pail Kids cards there too, but I might be conflating that with a memory of walking home with my parents from either the annual town Tag Sale or the annual town carnival and finding a long trail of Garbage Pail Kids cards along the side of the road and picking them all up. (In other news: Do I still have all those Garbage Pail Kids cards? Hellllll yeah I do!)
Anyway: Why this long digression? Okay, 'cause in addition to the aforementioned annual events my town held, there's also an annual Memorial Day Parade which is very like, small town America-y. All the local fire trucks drive down the street, and like, the oldest veterans and the selectmen ride through town in convertibles, and so on and so forth. People throw penny candy from the backs of flatbed trucks, and you run into the street and pick it up. (Well they used to, they aren't allowed to do that anymore because safety or whatever. Lame.)
Okay, I swear I'm getting to the connection soon! So one year, I marched in the Memorial Day Parade as a Girl Scout. I was a Brownie, so this would've been 1987 or 1988. And it was unbelievably hot that year, just scorching. But I made it through the whole parade, sweating under my stupid little felt Brownie beanie.
When I'd walked the whole parade route, my mom met me (probably at the local high school), and we walked home. On the way though, we stopped at the Corner Store, 'cause she wanted to buy me a soft-serve ice cream cone for being good and all and sweating it out in the parade.
So while the old man behind the counter (and it was literally just one old man who worked there, always) was getting my ice cream, I remember looking up at the wall behind the counter, where there were posters for sale, the kind you can win at carnivals, you know, where they're sort of mounted on cardboard and in these gold plastic frames. And right smack-dab in the middle above the counter was this big ol' Stryper poster, of them in all their black and yellow regalia.
Now, today I would be like foaming at the mouth to get that poster, but at the time my little seven- or eight-year-old self was like, "Who the heck is gonna buy that poster?"
Okay, that was an incredibly long and not especially relevant digression.
But that is part of why I write this blog — so many parts of my life are somehow wrapped up in metal, and the littlest things, like seeing Stryper in all their yellow and black concert gear, can conjure up all these memories. I mean shoot, I can't remember the last time I thought about the Corner Store. That place closed in like 1989 or 1990, I think it's a realtor's office now.
I could go on and on about this stuff. Also, I do.
P.S.: Did you know that unlike metal bands who jokingly claim their names are acronyms (Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot) or who others claim are acronyms (Kids/Knights In Satan's Service), Stryper actually is an acronym? "Salvation Through Redemption Yielding Peace, Encouragement, and Righteousness." And also yielding lots of striped clothing!
THE VIDEO Cinderella, "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)", Long Cold Winter, 1988, Mercury
SAMPLE LYRIC "Don't know whatchu got / 'til it's gawwww-aaawwwwwwwn / don't know what it ii-is / I did so wraw-awww-awwwwwwwng / never know what I got / it's just this sawww-awwwwwng"
THE VERDICT What better song with which to end power ballads month than with the best song about things ending ever? It's the very last day of March, so that means power ballads month is coming to a close. Bust out those lighters (no cell phones, people, this is an 80s-centric site!), find a make-out partner, and let's finish it out with a bang.
There's a reason why "Don't Know What You Got" is in approximately nine-million montages — usually of jubilant metal mayhem, like hair band members spraying each other with beer backstage or being jumped on by women in bikinis. It's poignant, it's heartbreaking, it's absolutely pitch-perfect. Like Roy says in the episode of The Office when they think the Scranton branch is closing: "You know that Cinderella song, 'You Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)'? That pretty much says it better than how I know how to say it... in words."
It's so true! This song is absolutely gorgeous. I can point to about a million parts of it — well okay, it's not that long a song. I can point to several parts of it that are just incredible.
Everything about the lyrics, pretty much — "I can't make you feel, what you felt so long ago," I mean who hasn't felt that with someone at some time, wishing you could recapture something ephemeral. And the pre-chorus, with the building guitar and the ultra-growly Tom Keifer vocal ("if we take some time, to think it over bay-bay") is amazing too.
And then the chorus itself! I know I often complain about the choruses in metal ballads — there's a fine line between perfect and maudlin here, and Cinderella manage to brilliantly toe that line.
I feel like it's also sort of the last gasp of the really glam Cinderella we all came to know and love with Night Songs. "Don't Know What You Got" is the only one of the four videos from Long Cold Winter that really shows us glam Cinderella ("The Last Mile" comes in second place). Let's face it — at this point, even though it's only 1988 (!), the guys have toned down the amount of hair product, they've mainly abandoned the colorful coats and cutaway pants, and I mean lace? Good luck finding much lace in Long Cold Winter videos.
But in the "Don't Know What You Got" video, we still get a glimpse of glam. Every member of the band is isolated from one another in an open, outdoor space, which makes me feel a little nervous —why aren't they together? But it does make for a fairly magisterial visual. The camera zooms past them, flies over them, spins around them – it kind of goes with the soaring vocals and guitars in this song.
Tom Keifer is playing a freaking grand piano outdoors, for one. But two, he's wearing a long black and red coat, with a matching headband, and tons of silver jewelry. When he's playing piano, you can see he has a giant ring on like every finger. The black patches on his coat appear to be sequined, which is a great choice. It's very Steven Tyler circa Permanent Vacation. It's a little hard to tell, but he might also be wearing not just leather pants, but chaps (they guys are often backlit in this video, so it's hard to identify some of this stuff).
The other guys aren't working quite as hard to keep the glam flag flying. Jeff LaBar is playing a guitar with Marilyn Monroe's face on it. He's wearing a long black duster coat, a white shirt, and maybe yellowish or cream-colored pants, with a black belt and black cowboy boots.
Fred Coury is the hardest to see, since he's seated behind the drums, and we often kind of spin past him. He's wearing black, that's for sure.
Eric Brittingham has on an open white shirt that's knotted at the waist, and a coat that's a similar cut to Tom's, but in black. He's also wearing what appears to be a giant shark-tooth necklace. Eric comes in second-glammiest, but it's mainly on the strength of his hair.
It should be noted though that Tom also has a less glam outfit. For the later sequences in the video when he's playing the guitar by what looks like an abandoned house, he switches to a Richie Sambora hat (one of those cowboy hats that's flat on top — I don't know the real name, but Richie Sambora always wears them), and a long, black, Western-style coat with some fringe. No, Tom! Keep glam alive!
Likely due to a mental bias from "Gypsy Road" taking place in Mexico, I've long thought this video to be in Mexico as well. The overhead shots where you're flying over the band and can see the pools of water remind me of being way south in Baja California. On the way to San Ignacio, there are all these crazy salt lakes, where the water has turned all these different colors because of the minerals. They're really neat to see — it's just miles and miles of road with nothing but barren land and these colorful salt lakes. I know here probably a lot of the water's colors are coming from, you know, the sunset being reflected in the water, but still.
Turns out however this video was shot much closer to home — they're at California's Mono Lake, which is almost due east from San Francisco (a little north of there) — close-ish to the border with Nevada, not crazy far from Tahoe but not super-close to it either. Probably closest to Yosemite. I've never been there, but clearly now that I know this Cinderella video was filmed there, I need to go.
I was right about one thing in my intuitions about its appearance from overhead in this video — Mono Lake is a salt lake. It also, as you can see from the video, has all kinds of amazing geological stuff happening. Apparently there are volcanic hills around it, and the crazy-looking columns of rock you can see sprouting out of the middle of the lake are made out of something called tufa, which is a type of limestone made by the salt deposits. In addition to being featured in this video, you can also see them in some of the album art from Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here (no, not the pic of the man on fire).
I'm not sure if the bits with Tom at the abandoned house-slash-ghost town are also there, but one can assume it's nearby. Boom! And I found it. My best guess for where Tom is during the guitar solo is Bodie, California, which is a ghost town close to Mono Lake.
I can't find anything where I'm 110% certain, but the general look and geography of it appear correct — a bunch of old-looking wooden homes arrayed about a mountain ridge. No one else has made this claim about this video before, but I'm going to go with it.
Ooh, I love feeling that I've discovered something.
And I love the end of this video, with all the members of Cinderella finally in the same place, standing in a row silhouetted against the lake, which is reflecting the vivid colors of the sunset. Even though I always feel bad for Fred Coury when he has to just clap or slap his thighs 'cause there aren't drums there, this still looks good.
Call me cheesy, but seeing things silhouetted in black against a vivid sunset — or really anything — just gets me. I don't mean like iPod ads. I mean like when I'm driving in the evening, even though I've lived in California for years now, if I see palm trees silhouetted black against the sky, it still gives me a little thrill. Similarly, you can't hear this song and not get a chill, 'cause it's so darn good, and it just hits home.
(I know probably everyone doesn't feel this way, but if you're reading this website, I feel it's safe to assume you do too! Or at least hopefully my one reader who I know loves Cinderella does.)
THE VIDEO Pretty Boy Floyd, "I Wanna Be With You," Leather Boyz with Electric Toyz, 1989, MCA
SAMPLE LYRIC "I wanna be-eee with you-oooh / I wanna be with you-ooh! / I wanna be-eee with you-oooh" (repeat endlessly)
THE VERDICT I've been doing mostly well-known, everyone-can-sing-along power ballads so far, so I decided to throw in one lesser-known track. Now if you've been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that the last time I talked about a Pretty Boy Floyd video, it took quite a beating.
If that upset or distressed you in any way, you should probably stop reading right now, 'cause spoiler alert: This song is horrible. But it's so amazing in its awfulness that I have to talk about it.
Recall that Pretty Boy Floyd claim to be "dirty glam," and to have styled their look and sound after Mötley Crüe. Now spend a minute thinking about how awesome Mötley Crüe are, especially like Shout at the Devil. Once you feel you have sufficiently reacquainted yourself with how badass the Crüe are, listen to this song. I mean seriously, listen to it. Make yourself do it.
Good lord. Listen to it.
I mean even just the beginning: "As I was walking out of class / the other day at school / I saw you."
One: We're supposed to believe these guys are in high school?!?!
Two: We're supposed to believe these guys are badass, dirty, raunchy rockers when they are singing about stuff like this?
I mean sure, on the one hand, if it's like "Yeah, I'm a gross twenty-something dude hanging around the high school picking up underage chicks," I guess that seems sort of like, LA Guns-ish. But based on the rest of the song, that's not what's happening here. No, it's something much lamer. "I don't live too far / we could walk down to the park / if you got nothing else to do." Seriously, this sounds like Milhouse trying to ask out Lisa Simpson!
The video more or less acts this out. Well, sort of. It's all in black and white, and one shot fades into the next really quickly.
Complicating matters further, there's some serious spotlight abuse going on. The spotlights keep shining directly into the camera, making it even harder than normal to tell who's who, since everyone in this band looks like Nadir D'Priest (except for Vinnie Chas [RIP] who as I've pointed out before looks like a glam double for Warrant's Joey Allen. But he's barely in this video, so).
They also keep throwing in crazy shots for no reason. Like there's a really long shot of drummer Kari Kane that's basically from the point of view of one of the cymbals. WTF is the point of that?
Anyway, Pretty Boy Floyd are standing around on these risers that are covered in spotlights. Singer Steve 'Sex' Summers (say that five times fast) is looking extra like a lady. I don't know if it's his big Carly Simon hat, or his little gloves, or just his like, smoky eye look, but the whole package does not fit with the everyone-firing-tommy-guns intro to the video.
And of course, we're supposed to believe that the girl in the video wants to "be with" him. She's a super-wholesome-looking blonde, very much not your usual metal video gal. She kind of reminds me of Victoria Jackson, the comedian with the breathy voice who used to be on SNL in the late 80s/early 90s —probably best remembered as the lady who had all those extra fingers.
Anyway yeah, they literally act out the song in the video. Stevecalls her from the video — like right there, in the middle of all the risers and spotlights, there's a freakin' payphone. While Kristy Majors rocks out in the background, he coos this song's ridiculous lyrics to her.
She's lying on her bedroom floor reading a magazine, and seeming more genuinely like a high school girl than most of the women you see in metal videos (though to be clear, she seems way older than high-school age).
I also need to point out that everyone but Steve seems to think this is a wayyyyy more intense song than it is. Kristy machine-guns his guitar and throws punches at the camera, Vinnie thrashes around and glares intensely, and Kari looks like he is competing in a "Make Your Best Tommy Lee Face" contest.
Seriously, his mouth is open in that sort of fake "Oh no!" pout the whole time — then again, his nickname was 'The Mouth.' I should also mention the enormous amount of drumstick spinning going on, like way more than you need for a song like this. I mean this is a drippy, slow-ass song.
Anyway, of course toward the end of the song, the girl shows up at the video. Steve leaves with her, acting awfully bashful for someone whose nickname is 'Sex'. The other guys are left to just sit there with all the spotlights, but then look — she called all her friends! Yeah, they look more like, you know, not-super-young single moms than like high school students, but whatever. It's still enough to get Kari to do a double-take. High school girls for everyone!
They all leave, but the spotlights are still going. What, is this just like, where Pretty Boy Floyd hang out? They never do any meta-stuff, like showing cameras, the fact that they're making a video or whatever. Likewise, the girls don't seem like, impressed or interested by the band's whole setup.
Does this mean all these spotlights and crap are actually in like, Kristy's mom's basement or something? You know actually, that would make sense.
Oh man. I kind of alluded to it before, but seriously guys, this song is awful. Why does Steve suddenly have a Madonna-esque British accent? And the freaking chimes every time the verse begins again? This is verging on being physically painful. Could anyone have done this song and made it into a good one? Possibly Stryper, but the lyrics seem a little too risque for them.
I talked about this at length the other time I talked about Pretty Boy Floyd, but here it's even more apparent. They think they're doing a whole "dirty glam," sleazy Mötley Crüe thing, but come on. You're asking high school girls to take a walk in the park with you! And you actually mean a walk in the park, it's not like, a gross metaphor for some weird sex act.
But alongside all these wholesome lyrics, we've got all kinds of black leather, draggy makeup, and the lascivious nicknames. This makes the whole situation even less realistic, if that's possible.
I mean, I can't imagine my high school self sitting in my high school bedroom, and my mom like yelling up to me, "Honey, Sex is on the phone!" Or like, "The Mouth called while you were in the shower." And then to have him call and screech "I wanna be with you-ouuu!" into the phone? Sorry, but no. Just... no.
THE VIDEO Lita Ford feat. Ozzy Osbourne, "Close My Eyes Forever," Lita, 1988, RCA
SAMPLE LYRIC "If I close my eyes forever / will it all remain unchay-aynged? / If I close my eyes forever / will it all remain the sayyyy-ayyy-ayyyy-ayyyme"
THE VERDICT Spoiler alert: I freakin' love this song. I mean the queen of metal meets the prince of darkness? This is like the heavy metal version of "Islands in the Stream." There aren't a lot of metal duets out there — it's really just this and "Everything You Do (You're Sexing Me)", so obviously "Close My Eyes Forever" wins that contest.
This song is a little weird in that at the time it's really the only power ballad for either of these artists. I can't really think of another song Lita does that's in this style. Ozzy obviously will go on to go much further sonically in this direction, with like "Mama, I'm Coming Home", but lyrically, he doesn't really have love songs.
In a way that makes it too bad they didn't do this song later — I feel like he got more into really singing, whereas in this song he's sort of doing an exaggerated version of his usual creepy Ozzy voice.
I feel like a lot of people aren't too into this song, particularly hardcore Ozzy partisans. But for me, it's a great one.
I don't know, something about the sentiment really gets to me. I feel like I've had times in various relationships when I wished I could just stop time, and stay right where we were. I feel like this song really gets at that well for me.
At the same time though, this was a song I liked better when I understood the lyrics less. In my head, it was pretty romantic — I had always heard it as "warm and dark embrace," and so when one of my karaoke video games informed me it was "warm and darkened grave," it was a bit unsettling. All the sort of goth parts in this song feel like they're trying a little too hard — I mean cobwebs on your eyes? Gee-ross.
Something tells me the sort of darker aspects are Ozzy-slash-Ozzy's management trying to make sure it doesn't seem like he's gone soft. I mean yes, at this point Sharon Osbourne is also Lita's manager, so clearly she orchestrated this, but at the same time, you know she's keeping track of everyone's interests here.
But even if you ignore the lyrics, it's still a great song. I really like Lita's solo in it, and the way the song just sort of builds and builds. There's kind of a chorus, but it's really more of just a repeated motif. The last part ("I know I've been so hard on you-ou") is definitely a favorite for me — the more I think about it, this is the Lita Ford song I like best.
And oh yeah, the video! The video's all right too. Not the most happens — I get the feeling Lita and Ozzy were never actually in the same place. We mostly see them apart, and sometimes the image of one is superimposed on top of the other, but that's about it.
It's mainly them singing the song in an empty, dark space with just a few random props. There's a blue velvet curtain, a random archway, a window set high in one wall, and then hanging mics. That's pretty much it.
We see more of Lita than of Ozzy, probably because she looks absolutely gorgeous in this video. She's wearing a great outfit — purple boots, artfully shredded jeans layered over sparkly black tights, and a couple of different embellished black leather jackets (the jackets switch along with her guitars). Her hair is amazing, and she's painted her nails blue.
Ozzy is harder to see. We mostly only see his face, and a lot of times it's only partially lit to create exaggerated shadows and make him look spooky. He's wearing a black jacket with sort of textured embroidery on it, but otherwise, he's a bit hard to see.
We only really see Ozzy actually standing there in the very last shot, when suddenly he and Lita appear to be in the same space. Or at least, they're made to look that way — like I said, based on the way this video was shot, I don't think they were ever actually together for this shoot.
Regardless! I love this song, and a lot of other folks did too — this song went to #8 on Billboard's Hot 100 (by contrast, "Kiss Me Deadly" peaked at #12). Still you know, it's not for everyone. And if you read this blog often, you can probably guess who I mean.
Yep, Beavis and Butt-head rip this song a new one when they watch the video, and to this day I can't watch this video without thinking about what they have to say about it (particularly the "monster faces" comments).
They check it out during the season 5 episode "Choke", which is hard for me to watch due to its heavy ick-factor, but which also contains some amazing insights into B&B-H's relationship. My favorite part is when the 911 operator tells Beavis, "Sir, if you want to save your friend's life, you must administer the Heimlich maneuver" and Beavis says "He's not really my friend." Anyway, here's what they have to say about this video, which they pick up already in progress:
Beavis: "Whoa, check it out, Butt-head, it's Ozzy!" Butt-head: "Yeah! ... Uh, why's he whining? Beavis: "Yeah, yeah, what's going on here? (both stammer and laugh for a while) Boy, this isn't very good." Butt-head: "Yeah. Ozzy shouldn'ta done this." Beavis: "Yeah really." Butt-head: "Eh, maybe this is Meatloaf." Beavis: "You know who I think this is, Butt-head? I think this is the Indigo Girls." Butt-head: "Oh yeah!" (both laugh)
They watch the video silently for a while, during which time Butt-head looks over vaguely incredulously at Beavis, and they make eye contact for a second. I love it when they have little moments like that.
Beavis: "Whoa, check it out, he's making one of those monster faces!" Butt-head: "Yeah. Monster face and wuss music do not go together. It's like, you may've scared somebody with that face twenty years ago, but now you just look like some old fart." Beavis: "Um, oh yeah. Um. You're being kind of hard on Ozzy, Butt-head." Butt-head: (laughing) "I'm being what Ozzy?" Beavis: "Hard on Ozzy! (pause - both laugh) Oh yeah. Yeah."
I dunno. In a way the boys' hatred of the song kind of just adds for the song to me. Although again, as they sort of also obliquely point out, there is this weird tension between like, the scary Ozzy everyone's known to this point, and then the softer side of Ozzy we start to see here. I wish they'd gone back and done this song over around the time of No More Tears so Ozzy really could've gone all in.
I think in general, I wish there were more metal duets. Like could you imagine a Doro Pesch/Ronnie James Dio duet? Omg and they could've called themselves Dorodio. Or Dioro. That would have ruled. Maybe what I need is just someone to duet with, and I can just turn whatever metal song I want into a duet. Hmm.
P.S.: I know it's not metal-related, but come on, don't tell me you didn't see this movie!
If you found this page, surely you can complete that Cinderella lyric. This is a website I lovingly maintained off and on from around 2005 to around 2011.
Broken links abound, as do references to failed relationships. And I haven’t checked the email address related to this account in probably eight years, though I had some kickass correspondents back when I kept it up.
Also yeah, back when I started this, you could barely find these anywhere outside of VH1 Classic and old VHS tapes... now I'm going through and adding the actual YouTube videos, since it's the future and all the videos are belong to us.
