Self-tutoring about music videos: the tutor mentions one he’s long considered.

In yesterday’s post I mention “Kiss You (when it’s dangerous)”, circa ’85, by the band from Ottawa, Eight Seconds. It’s a song I remember from then, but I’ve grown to like much more since.

“Kiss You (when it’s dangerous)” caught my attention when I first saw it on CBC’s Video Hits back in ’85 or ’86. As I mention yesterday, music videos were relatively new back then. Many (or most) tried to tell a story, with varying success.

In my opinion, “Kiss You (when it’s dangerous)”‘s video shows that the band Eight Seconds were ahead of their time in understanding the music video medium. In about four minutes, the video tells a coherent, haunting story:

The band members (as explorers), searching a forest in the dark, enter a clearing, at whose center is a white square platform raised above ground by a set of stairs. On top of the platform, on a stone slab, lies a priestess in white, apparently dead.

But for the body of the priestess, the area is deserted, possibly for some years: the explorers brush leaves and dirt from the staircase and platform, and discover musical instruments among the debris. They start playing. Soon, the body of the priestess disappears, in a flash of light. Yet we see her – with three others – looking on, perhaps from another dimension.

The rainy season comes while the band continues to play. Then comes the summer, and you can see the band members struggling with the heat as they play. A priestess appears among them sometimes, and can be embraced and kissed. She’s not the same one they discovered on the slab. Yet, like her, she can disappear in an instant.

Leaves blow around and lie thickly on the platform steps: fall has arrived. A different priestess is present.

The four priestesses appear in their other dimension, all in white. Their leader has snow in her hand, which she lets fall. The priestesses now desert the band, who continue playing, struggling in the snow and cold. Eventually the band succumb to the cold and we see them lying under the snow. The winter(?) priestess returns to survey the scene. In the snow, the instruments lie in ways similar to how they were found at the start of the video.

Apparently the clearing with the platform is cursed somehow: those who find it can’t leave, but are compelled to stay and play the instruments. Perhaps the priestesses help sustain them through spring, summer, and fall, but when winter arrives, the priestesses finally desert them so they yield to the cold. When new people arrive, they will find the instruments, so the cycle will recommence.

I think the video tells a clever, haunting story, reaching to viewers on a much different level than many videos.

Source:

YouTube