Music Video #34 (Day 4 of 2008)

Happy Independence Day! Welcome to Tork's Blog! (*PUNCH!*) Today's music video is by Mathew Good Band and it is called Strange Days. Enjoy the next four and half minutes.


Oh, so we went from creepy happy to just plain sad. So that's your little game, huh?

We start with a dreary blue-filtered look at some guy's shoes. This guy walks around and sees gloomy things like someone working at an electronics store. We simulatenously see newspaper clippings from around the world of the first moon landings. Meanwhile some brunette goes to work while a vagrant sits leans on a building. She REJECTS! his plea for money. Sorry, I was thinking how funny it would be if she rejected him like they were playing basketball.

Now we're in a park. We see a cute little girl throwing feed to pigeons. A man is bending over and watching. The girl's mom turns around and sees what's happening, and gets really angry for some reason. Since the guy is now gone, I thought it might be because she was talking to a stranger, but I'm not sure. She's REALLY angry, almost slapping the child hard when pulling her arm back. Guy sees the rocket in the air, and starts to hang out with the earlier hooded vagrant. Song and video is still gloomy.

We get a flashback to an older man in his house chasing after the hooded guy. I'm guessing that this guy is hoody's father. Bearded unwashed hair guy helps hoody escape.

Next up is a blonde woman running from the law. She gets caught. Some stuff drop out of her purse. Not so unwashed hair guy kicks the stuff into the sewer. I'm sure she appreciates that. He lifts a newspaper and we see the moon conspiracy on the front page. Thanks FOX for airing that nonsense. Oh wait, the newspaper is held by some other guy. He enters into an elevator with the brunette. She bends over and changes her shoes, and he takes the opportunity the check the hell out of her. He's not very good at it. Just use your eyes, dope. He gets caught, naturally.

Brunette exits the elevator just in time to REEEEJECT the vagrant again. She goes to talk to some other woman. Guy from elevator gets into a van because he delivers mail. Brunette stupidly backs into the street in the path of the van. Vagrant sees this and runs to rescue her. The vagrant pushes her out of the way and then stands still for about two minutes so the van can hit him. Or something like that. We cut to night, so it can be even more gloomy. Brunette is crying. Paramedics zip up a body bag. Vagrant gets to watch his body being zipped up. Some guy can see his soul stand there. I didn't quite get who he was. Our final shot is of some girl skipping into a white light. This video was shot in 2000, which we could have guessed giving the earlier conspiracy theory.

Looking at the lyrics, it's just as gloomy as the music video. I'm not really seeing anything deep about this song. It's giving me a "to be or not to be" vibe. This song doesn't even talk about the strange days. It just lets us know that they're gone and so is the person who the singer is addressing. Sorry, Lita, but it just sounds like a really defeated person is singing and that's it.


The song is ok, but not really my thing. The music video is ok thematically, except for that damn conspiracy junk. Is that the lie that the song talks about? Just go look at the bad astronomy website which debunks the special. Maybe the music video is about how junk thinking can mess up lives.

The awesome part about the video is the elevator. Not because of the leering but because it was one of the few parts of the video that wasn't blue. Thank you elevator! I use elevators a lot because they're neat.