Stay - A Transformative Music Video
Quick Thoughts: Stay (1991)
A look at a romantic British pop-rock song and its music video.
I have recently become unintentionally fascinated by Shakespeare's Sister's song and music video, Stay. The song is their most popular and, upon release, it hit No. 1 in the UK charts and remained there for 8 consecutive weeks. In the end of 1991 it was as the fourth best selling single, coming in below the likes of Whitney Huston's I Will Always Love You, and both the song and music video won Brit awards.
I have always known this song because it was played in my home as I grew up, but I knew it as just a love song. I then assumed it was about someone wanting to leave a relationship or something of the sort. However, sitting down and watching the music video recently, an entirely new song was revealed to me.
First and foremost, the music video gives the song a rather clear (albeit, simple) narrative about alien love and abduction. This clarifies the repetition of "your own world". The narrative device here comes from the 1953 film, Cat-Women of the Moon. This is seemingly a shlocky, 3D, independent, 50s sci-fi film about attractive women from space and astronauts. I have not seen the film and so I can only provide prejudice based on the whole genre of sci-fi film this is said to have birthed: the soft-core alien-Amazonian sexploitation film. We have talked about movies of this sort in the end of the week shorts - films such as Nude On The Moon, Zeta One, The Astounding She-Monster, Slave-Girls From Infinity, etc. Why this movie was chosen as inspiration for this music video is lost upon me, but I have to say that I appreciate the melodrama that it provides.
It was the heightened and ridiculous drama over a comatosed body that gave the lyrics of this song more heft to me. I cannot then help but point to it as a great example of a transformative music video, a video that do not just provide spectacle or a weak attempt at sound-montage, but a narrative that reveals greater depth in the lyrics. I have such an urge to point this out as Stay skates a line between utter trash and weird brilliance that is uncanny and intriguing. (The editing, the absurd performances, the facial expressions, the awkward conflict, the hollow characters... all too much). That said, my mind wanders as I watch and listen and I feel there is something of greater interest about this music video - something about a dark and light female persona stood before a suicidal lover, about destructive love - but, I will not hazard to analyse the music video so closely as I fear being a little too pretentious.
I write about this today and leave this short post openly, however, to ask you about your reaction to this music video. Do you know this song and music video? Paying close attention to the music video, do you feel the song morphing in some way? If so, how?
Previous post:
Beau Travail - Losing Light And Drowning
Next post:
End Of The Week Shorts #75
More from me:
amazon.com/auth/danielslack
A look at a romantic British pop-rock song and its music video.
I have recently become unintentionally fascinated by Shakespeare's Sister's song and music video, Stay. The song is their most popular and, upon release, it hit No. 1 in the UK charts and remained there for 8 consecutive weeks. In the end of 1991 it was as the fourth best selling single, coming in below the likes of Whitney Huston's I Will Always Love You, and both the song and music video won Brit awards.
I have always known this song because it was played in my home as I grew up, but I knew it as just a love song. I then assumed it was about someone wanting to leave a relationship or something of the sort. However, sitting down and watching the music video recently, an entirely new song was revealed to me.
First and foremost, the music video gives the song a rather clear (albeit, simple) narrative about alien love and abduction. This clarifies the repetition of "your own world". The narrative device here comes from the 1953 film, Cat-Women of the Moon. This is seemingly a shlocky, 3D, independent, 50s sci-fi film about attractive women from space and astronauts. I have not seen the film and so I can only provide prejudice based on the whole genre of sci-fi film this is said to have birthed: the soft-core alien-Amazonian sexploitation film. We have talked about movies of this sort in the end of the week shorts - films such as Nude On The Moon, Zeta One, The Astounding She-Monster, Slave-Girls From Infinity, etc. Why this movie was chosen as inspiration for this music video is lost upon me, but I have to say that I appreciate the melodrama that it provides.
It was the heightened and ridiculous drama over a comatosed body that gave the lyrics of this song more heft to me. I cannot then help but point to it as a great example of a transformative music video, a video that do not just provide spectacle or a weak attempt at sound-montage, but a narrative that reveals greater depth in the lyrics. I have such an urge to point this out as Stay skates a line between utter trash and weird brilliance that is uncanny and intriguing. (The editing, the absurd performances, the facial expressions, the awkward conflict, the hollow characters... all too much). That said, my mind wanders as I watch and listen and I feel there is something of greater interest about this music video - something about a dark and light female persona stood before a suicidal lover, about destructive love - but, I will not hazard to analyse the music video so closely as I fear being a little too pretentious.
I write about this today and leave this short post openly, however, to ask you about your reaction to this music video. Do you know this song and music video? Paying close attention to the music video, do you feel the song morphing in some way? If so, how?
Previous post:
Beau Travail - Losing Light And Drowning
Next post:
End Of The Week Shorts #75
More from me:
amazon.com/auth/danielslack
