"Playing around" with a Johnny Cash rhythm he put words to while working on his "Nebraska" album in 1982, Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" was intended to be on "Nebraska" but instead became the fourth single off his 1984 album, "Born in the USA". Released in February of 1985, "I'm On Fire" reached number six on the Billboard Top100 chart. The simple rock-a-billy snare drum beat and the train whistle like chorus of the song has been stuck in my head ever since.
The video for the song is arguably more memorable than the song itself.
What there is of a plot in the video for "I'm On Fire" involves an auto mechanic, played by Springsteen in his first acting role in a video, who has gotten the eye of a wealthy, married woman who lives "out in the hills". She purportedly brings her car to him frequently for repairs but it's obvious she's looking for more than to just have it serviced by him. While we never see Springsteen actually working on her car, we do see her leave him with more than just the keys to it.
Incidentally, back when the video first came out there was a rumor that the woman in the video was played by Michelle Pfeifer; there's nothing I can find now that can corroborates that. The producer of the video, Michelle Renzi, is the voice of the woman and "her" legs are those of a model.
MTV was in its infancy in the mid 1980's and music videos with the cinematic quality of "I'm On Fire" were few and far between. Most of the better videos back then were "performance videos" and those involving a plot, even one as simple as the one in "I'm On Fire", many times came across cliched and absurd at best, cloying and/or amateurish at worst. "I'm On Fire" was different and was so well received that it won an MTV Award for "Best Male Video" at their second annual MTV awards ceremony.
"Her" car is a 1956 Ford Thunderbird. Legend has it this is the same '56 Thunderbird Suzanne Sommers drove in "American Graffiti".
If there was any Thunderbird that remotely comes close to living up to its magnificent name it was these first generation, two-passenger, 1955-1957's.
Ford's answer to Chevrolet's 1953 Corvette, the two-passenger Thunderbirds have a graceful femininity and understated sensuality testosterone drenched Corvettes, even in 1953-1954 six-cylinder guise, did not have. Had the producers of the video cast a '56 Corvette instead of a '56 Thunderbird it would been a distraction to the video's focus about the unrequited desire the man and the woman in the video have for each other.
The Thunderbird in the video a simultaneously blunt yet subtle soaking wet phallic symbol. Seriously, could "she" have driven anything else?
It's a shame Ford had to muddle the original Thunderbird and make it a four-passenger automobile come 1958. Had Ford continued to go tire to tire with the Corvette I'd like to believe both companies would have two-passenger sports cars today. Or at least we'd have had a longer period of time when they both had sports cars.
Back in the 1950's The Ford Motor Company was in a different place financially than GM was and despite the two-passenger Thunderbird out selling Corvette by a hundred to one, it wasn't profitable; Ford felt could ill afford a model that was little more than an "image-car". The 1958 four-passenger or "Square Bird" made great business sense selling more than four times better than the previous model did, but it ruined any serendipitous romanticism the two-passenger cars had. It was just a car.
If there's any knock on the video, it's when Springsteen's character decides to not ring the woman's doorbell. As far as the plot goes it was without a doubt for the best but it's still a tough putt to believe than any single man in his mid-thirties wouldn't jump at the opportunity to spend "quality time" with a woman of means who makes a pass at them. I hypothesize that the character's chaste was more in line with what Springsteen and his management team wanted his fans to believe of his moral fiber other than anything based in reality. At the end of the day, as entertaining as some music videos can be, they are first and foremost marketing platforms for artists and their music. Image being everything and Springsteen's image as carefully crafted and protected as it was, and still is, at the height of stardom, portraying an adulterer in a video for one of his songs might not have been best for single and album sales. Hard to argue with the formula seeing how well "Born in the USA" sold.
Springsteen has recorded twelve studio albums since "Born in the USA" with none of them achieving anywhere near the commercial success of "Born in the USA". Many of them better balanced and for more nuanced works of art than the calculated "radio-friendly" hit driven "Born in the USA" was.
Same is true of the Ford Thunderbird. Ford may have had better selling Thunderbird's than the two-passenger models but none of them came close to matching what they, sublimely, were.
The video for the song is arguably more memorable than the song itself.
What there is of a plot in the video for "I'm On Fire" involves an auto mechanic, played by Springsteen in his first acting role in a video, who has gotten the eye of a wealthy, married woman who lives "out in the hills". She purportedly brings her car to him frequently for repairs but it's obvious she's looking for more than to just have it serviced by him. While we never see Springsteen actually working on her car, we do see her leave him with more than just the keys to it.
Incidentally, back when the video first came out there was a rumor that the woman in the video was played by Michelle Pfeifer; there's nothing I can find now that can corroborates that. The producer of the video, Michelle Renzi, is the voice of the woman and "her" legs are those of a model.
MTV was in its infancy in the mid 1980's and music videos with the cinematic quality of "I'm On Fire" were few and far between. Most of the better videos back then were "performance videos" and those involving a plot, even one as simple as the one in "I'm On Fire", many times came across cliched and absurd at best, cloying and/or amateurish at worst. "I'm On Fire" was different and was so well received that it won an MTV Award for "Best Male Video" at their second annual MTV awards ceremony.
"Her" car is a 1956 Ford Thunderbird. Legend has it this is the same '56 Thunderbird Suzanne Sommers drove in "American Graffiti".
If there was any Thunderbird that remotely comes close to living up to its magnificent name it was these first generation, two-passenger, 1955-1957's.
Ford's answer to Chevrolet's 1953 Corvette, the two-passenger Thunderbirds have a graceful femininity and understated sensuality testosterone drenched Corvettes, even in 1953-1954 six-cylinder guise, did not have. Had the producers of the video cast a '56 Corvette instead of a '56 Thunderbird it would been a distraction to the video's focus about the unrequited desire the man and the woman in the video have for each other.
The Thunderbird in the video a simultaneously blunt yet subtle soaking wet phallic symbol. Seriously, could "she" have driven anything else?
It's a shame Ford had to muddle the original Thunderbird and make it a four-passenger automobile come 1958. Had Ford continued to go tire to tire with the Corvette I'd like to believe both companies would have two-passenger sports cars today. Or at least we'd have had a longer period of time when they both had sports cars.
Back in the 1950's The Ford Motor Company was in a different place financially than GM was and despite the two-passenger Thunderbird out selling Corvette by a hundred to one, it wasn't profitable; Ford felt could ill afford a model that was little more than an "image-car". The 1958 four-passenger or "Square Bird" made great business sense selling more than four times better than the previous model did, but it ruined any serendipitous romanticism the two-passenger cars had. It was just a car.
If there's any knock on the video, it's when Springsteen's character decides to not ring the woman's doorbell. As far as the plot goes it was without a doubt for the best but it's still a tough putt to believe than any single man in his mid-thirties wouldn't jump at the opportunity to spend "quality time" with a woman of means who makes a pass at them. I hypothesize that the character's chaste was more in line with what Springsteen and his management team wanted his fans to believe of his moral fiber other than anything based in reality. At the end of the day, as entertaining as some music videos can be, they are first and foremost marketing platforms for artists and their music. Image being everything and Springsteen's image as carefully crafted and protected as it was, and still is, at the height of stardom, portraying an adulterer in a video for one of his songs might not have been best for single and album sales. Hard to argue with the formula seeing how well "Born in the USA" sold.
Springsteen has recorded twelve studio albums since "Born in the USA" with none of them achieving anywhere near the commercial success of "Born in the USA". Many of them better balanced and for more nuanced works of art than the calculated "radio-friendly" hit driven "Born in the USA" was.
No comments:
Post a Comment