“Psycho Killer”: A New Music Video for a 50-Year-Old Song
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” is a phrase I love that is apparently of unknown provenance, but may be based on a similar line, “Talking about music is like singing about economics.”
Usually this phrase is meant to illustrate the futility of capturing the ineffable qualities and emotional depth of music, but I also kinda think that someone dancing about architecture could be pretty interesting too, and so I like to take this quote actually as permission to create whatever I want about whatever I want.
One of the reasons I think this way is because when people mash up a few different mediums, like for example when someone makes a short film with a certain song as a soundtrack and calls it a music video, new mediums with their own interesting layers of style and genre and meaning are created.
This week, the band Talking Heads debuted a brand-new music video for the song “Psycho Killer,” which was originally released in 1977. It stars Saoirse Ronan of Lady Bird and Atonement and Little Women and a lot more, and in the video her character is shown going through a repetitive daily routine via clips cut from 13 scenes and some 300 shots as described by director Mike Mills.
I think this music video rules. Here it is:
I love this music video for several reasons, including these:
It flips the traditional video cycle on its head
Music videos have always been created with different levels of artistic ambition, but almost invariably they have been used to promote new music, and I just love that this release is an unexpected celebration of a song that I have a long pre-existing relationship with.
It seems that the band is also interested in seeing how the video helps them look at their own song in a new way, saying in a press release that I can’t find anywhere but that is quoted in many places, “This video makes the song better. We LOVE what this video is NOT—it’s not literal, creepy, bloody, physically violent or obvious.”
I also think the fact that Saoirse Ronan had her own connection to the band, reportedly that she got married with the song “This Must Be the Place” as her soundtrack, lends added complexity to the video. About the experience, she said, “To simply be mentioned in the same breath as Talking Heads is hands down one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me.”
Speaking of Saoirse…
Saoirse Ronan is SO GOOD at physical acting
To me, Saoirse shows that “acting about music” is its own unique art form, likely a close relative to the interpretive dancing, which does occasionally happen in the Kind & Funny loft, and I think she gives a masterful demonstration of the physical nature of acting.
I don’t exactly get how an actor does this, but Saoirse conveying such a range of emotions through silent physical expression is so clearly impressive.
It was also great timing for me personally to notice this in depth, because I just watched Bryan Cranston do a similarly impressive physical acting job in the last episode of “The Studio” season 1, where he went full Weekend at Bernie’s (after going partial Venom in the penultimate episode).
In this case, the consistent pulse of the song aligned with the repetitive motif and the rapid camera cuts provide a playground for Saoirse’s talent, and she seems to be having a lot of fun exploring it!
Talking Heads never stop being inspirational
From their start at the Rhode Island School of Design to performing with Olivia Rodrigo last week, this band has always seemed to me to be the type of artists that I like most, namely those who have an “anyone can (and should) make art” perspective as well as a perpetual drive to explore creativity through collaboration.
I was in New York recently and found that the artists I talked to were not at all elitist, and instead were incredibly encouraging as we discussed my fledgling drawing efforts. They were much more focused on exploration than judgment, I think because they probably know so much about how much fun it is to explore one’s own creative passions, and I enjoyed hearing them say things like “Humans have been drawing for thousands of years, it’s some of the oldest shit we do,” and “Every child draws, just some people stop.”
I think too many artists gatekeep creativity. I think too many of us stop ourselves from doing creative things because of self-judgment, either about results or about whether it’s “worth” spending our time on it. And I think too many people are way, way too judgmental, narrow minded, and critical about art, ideas, and people in general, and that their opinions get in our way far too often.
To see Talking Heads, with an average age of 75, asking some creative people to repurpose old music into a new short film is just really cool cool idea, and I love what came out of that collaborative spirit.
So I say that if you want to write about music, or dance about architecture, or draw about fascism, or sing about economics, or create something else uniquely your own, then you have implicit permission to try it out, because making art is fun and natural (and extra fun if you share either the process or the product with someone else).
Have fun!
Would you like Kind & Funny to make a music video for you? I bet we could do it. jed@kindandfunny.com.