Music Video #94 (Day 3 of 2010)

Today's video marks the return of Annie Lennox. This video is "Walking on Broken Glass." I've heard the song before but wasn't aware that she was the one who sang it.



"Ow! Ow! OW! OW! Because she's walking on broken glass, get it!?"

The video takes place in the fop era. That means the men wear white wigs and the women fan the hell out of themselves. I'm glad I was born in another time period. I'm going to sit next to the air conditioner as I type this in my tshirt and jeans.

Anyway, Annie is dressed in red with her hair wrapped in a towel or something. Some guy she's sitting next to is annoying her. Then we get a quick succession of other people dressed in 18th century fashion. One of the women shows her leg off a little...no wait, that's a man. Friggen late 18th century! Also, calm down with the fan, Annie. Yeesh.

Someone enters the ballroom. He has facial hair that seems out of place and a woman on his arm. Uh oh, Annie is shooting jealous glances at him. The song starts, and more uh oh, because the first line is "You were the sweetest thing..." and we can now see where this is going. She takes a posture that shows that she's in pain and wants to go over to that guy, but is hesitant. The song title is about how it has felt to her since her ex left her.

The chorus plays and we get various people dancing, fanning, joking, fanning, and more while Annie stands there looking upset. Annie returns to her own guy. He apparently lost her despite the fact she didn't move that far away and was close to making a scene. He tries for some late 18th century necking but she isn't having any of it. Annie starts fanning herself even more aggressively as her ex starts kissing his gal gently. That probably means something. Uh oh, a quick cut shows that the ex used to kiss her like that. Notably when they were alone and she was younger and not dressed the socially acceptable way.

Warning! We have a woman scorned! This is not a drill!

Annie has been singing about how nothing else matters. Also, she has an alcoholic drink to go with her sour expression. Not helping is that her guy is chatting it up with the couple. He's trying to be nice but he knows she's about to explode. She grabs another drink before we see more flashbacks of her younger self. She finally goes up to her ex, pushes the bride away, and takes him outside.



What happens next is probably more realistic than you'd expect. She's halfway hitting him lightly and halfway trying to yell at him without breaking down. I'm sure in her character's mind she was going to read him the riot act and then leave him shamed. The man just finally leaves behind the woman who he wronged (and who has had a little to drink) to think about how bad her confrontation went. Meanwhile in her song she's talking about how much in pain she's in.

She pulls it together in the next scene and tries to walk as cooly down the ballroom as she can. She passes several guests until she gets to the other three and...Hmm. She breaks down and grabs her ex's arm and begs him to take her back. This goes about as well as you'd expect. (In fact, I'm curious to see what would happen if the stalkee did immediately accept the stalker. It would be novel.)

Annie's character finally takes a hint after wrestling around with a few women holding her back. She leaves and goes down a long spiral staircase. The song is already done at this point and just rerunning the chorus until it's over. She finally reaches the bottom and a man is there. She jumps into his arms and...it's not the guy she was with but it's her ex. He swings her around and she looks really happy and... really? You're going with a happy ending here?

The moral is don't let go of old crushes/relationships/flings. Push yourself back into your ex's life until they accept you. Or maybe I shouldn't take this video seriously.



I like this song even though I never had a look at what it's about before. I don't think the song is about stalking but the video seems to say, "Hey, what if we take the song to the wrong conclusion?" Not that I'm saying the video is bad or scary. I don't think anybody is going to get the wrong idea from it.

Annie still looks good.

The awesome part of this video is when Annie hits the two women holding her back with a quick move that almost frees herself. Shows how slapstick can help in non-slapstick moments.