Ransom Riggs
Literal Music Videos
by Ransom Riggs - June 9, 2009 - 10:43 AM

Everyone knows music videos are a little silly: candles, dry ice and miles of white silk in the romantic ones; incomprehensible plotting in the serious ones; dancing girls that appear out of nowhere. They’re usually an afterthought to the song itself, a marketing promotion forced upon reluctant artists. But what if it were the other way around, and instead of the video being made to fit the song, the song were made to fit the video? Welcome to the weird world of “literal music videos,” the latest viral video meme. Unlike most video memes — like the Hitler subtitle videos — literal music videos aren’t easy to make. You have to dig up a kareoke version of the song with no singing on it, then re-write and re-record the vocals yourself (or have a talented, soundalike friend do it). This is where most literal videos hit the wall — they’re trying to ridicule the music video but they sound too ridiculous themselves. But there are a handful of great ones, which I’ll share here today.

An across-the-board favorite seems to have cropped up amongst the bloggerati: this literal video for “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels” is pretty sweet, too.

Here’s a literal reinterpretation of A-Ha’s “Take on Me” –

And the classic-but-ridiculous video for Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” was crying out for parody:

The literal video for Radiohead’s “No Surprises” is fun. Except that lines like “Now I am completely submerged / Why am I singing in a fish tank?” don’t sound all that different from regular Radiohead lyrics.

This one isn’t great, but it was inevitable — the literal Rickroll. (What the hell’s a Rickroll? This.)

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Comments (10)

  1. Just finished watching the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” one and now my face hurts from laughing so hard! That totally made my day, thanks for posting!!

    posted by Kim on 6-9-2009 at 12:37 pm

  2. OMG…I second what Kim said! I need to keep this handy for those REALLY bad days. If only as many people who saw Susan Boyle, would see this! THANK YOU!!

    posted by Marty on 6-9-2009 at 12:44 pm

  3. ‘Total Eclipse’ was brilliant. Love it. The Tears for Fears video was pretty good as well.

    This is just the opposite of the mondegreen yellow ledbetterpost that’s another favorite of mine (Search ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ in the MF search above and it will pull it up. Well worth your time if you’ve ever heard the Pearl Jam tune)

    posted by EV on 6-9-2009 at 1:57 pm

  4. “I’ve joined the Glee Club of the Damned!”

    Awesome!!!!!!!!!!

    posted by frodopal on 6-9-2009 at 6:27 pm

  5. “Move out of my way I gotta pee!”
    Oh my gosh…that Total Eclipse of the Heard video was beyond hilarious. I showed it to all of my family!

    posted by Jumper on 6-9-2009 at 7:08 pm

  6. Radiohead todays are more on electronic. while i listen to their old music its more like alternative and emotional. They transited to trip hop and more on Electronic music. But still they do make good music. Cheers

    posted by rufus on 6-10-2009 at 3:14 am

  7. I wet my pants watching Total Eclipse..hahahahahahhahahahahahaha! fabulously funny!

    posted by Nano on 6-10-2009 at 3:26 pm

  8. The “Take on Me” one was the best – can’t believe you didn’t include that! Everyone go watch that one too!

    posted by AJ on 6-10-2009 at 9:55 pm

  9. Nix that last comment – the article didn’t fully load for me before. Anyway, thanks for drawing everyone’s attention to these vids, they’ve been cracking me up for a while. There’s also a good one for RCHP’s “Under the Bridge” as well as the Beatles’ “Penny Lane”.

    posted by AJ on 6-10-2009 at 9:58 pm

  10. Little girl dancing the future, in the candle in it?

    posted by BUY DVDS on 7-3-2009 at 5:17 am

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