2: Dancing In The Streets - David Bowie and Mick Jagger

Can I just say Medics Without Borders?

Medi-san.

S'in frontier.

Medi-san.

Medi-san.

Can you just use this?

Just edit it instead of me.

Doctors Without Borders.

It means Doctors Without Borders.

Why not just call it Doctors Without Borders?

Because it's, I think, French is supposed to be more international than English.

English is hard.

It's technically all of our second languages.

It is true.

I mean, it's Scottish, me Irish, and Nelly.

They're thinking my third, because my second is German.

Oh, sure.

Hello and welcome to We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far,

a podcast where Scotsman, an Irishman, and a Bulgarian

review the most terrible, silliest, and weirdest-as-fuck music videos.

Hi, I'm Dave.

Hi, I'm Neil.

Hi, I'm Neely. Today we will take a look at the creative endeavor of two giants of rock music, David Bowie and Mick Jagger.

I'm of course talking about their 1985 cover of Dancing in the Street.

This video is nowadays hailed as one of the dumbest music videos to come out of the 80s,

but was it actually that bad or was it just an underwhelming piece of creative energy?

It doesn't matter what you wear

Just as long as you are there

So come on, every guy

Grab a girl

Everywhere

Around the world

Now we're dancing

Dancing in the street

That's it for you

Originally recorded in 1964

by Martha and the Vandelas

Vandelas

Stevenson, Ivy Jo Hunter and The Marvin Gaye. Hailed as a Motown classic. The story goes

that Stevenson first came up with the idea while watching people cooling off using an open

fire hydrant. It later became a civil rights anthem played during demonstrations. It was

later covered by the likes of the Mamas and the Papas, the Kinks, Van Halen and of course

Boy and Jack. The background of the version is probably more interesting than the actual

video. So let's talk briefly about the life aid famine relief. In 2020 we're all aware

Christopher Coffigus surrounding the good intentions of the concerts, from Bob Geldof ignoring warnings from

Doctors Without Borders regarding the political situation in Ethiopia, to the general bitchiness of different performers, and the baffling, did they know it's Christmas?

Originally the pair were planning to contribute to Live Aid by performing a duet live via satellite link from the prospective tours.

However, technological limitations quickly put an end to this plan as they realised that delaying the link would make it impossible unless Boy and Jagger mimed.

Being the committed professional as they were, and are, this opinion was refused.

Thanks to this, we got one of the most brilliant, hilarious and ridiculous rock collaborations in history.

Directed by David Mallet, budget probably consisted of free alcohol and whatever drugs to make you bounce off the walls.

Also, whenever Jagger is taking a sip of halfway through the video.

This is one of the videos you really can't explain.

It just exists in its own continuum where you hear the names David Boyd Mick Jagger

and you expect the most mind-blowing rock experience of your life.

Instead, you get two guys goofing off at the now derelict turn-of-the-century

Flower Mill, Millennium Mills, next to London City Airport.

Compared to our last video that we discussed, November Rain,

this video was not just tame, it's full-out boring.

No diving through cakes, no random guitar souls on top of cliffs,

No Axel Rose taking a dump on graves.

We do, however, have David Boy and Mick Jagger in their most 80s outfits

and their most 80s dad moves,

dancing around the abandoned emergency fire escapes of the millenium mills buildings.

The video opens up with a shot of Jagger's feet running in place,

presumably a warm-up for the relentless dancing to come.

They dance around the flour mill for a bit

in the manner of the last two people still drunk and up for a party,

while everyone else falls asleep and considers kicking them out.

They decided that this post-apocalyptic party is too lame for them,

and they decided to take it to the streets.

Also, suspiciously empty, presumably everyone hiding,

or a dry run for the COVID outbreak.

I think we're going to remove the COVID references.

Yeah, I mean, it kind of works.

We don't want to remember this thing.

People always say dance like no one is watching.

Well, that's pretty much what happens here.

Except they're dancing around each other with the intensity of two people who have had a

bit too much magic powder.

Jagger stops to take a sip of a mysterious beverage to keep himself hydrated, which is

a sensible health and safety move when you're dancing with such intensity.

After trying to outdo each other during the scenery for a bit, they briefly gatecrush some

poor bastards flat to do synchronized doorway dancing like a funky Benny Hill sketch.

Then onward back into the streets, the sun rising from the biblical night of that dancing,

the cameras zooming into their respective rear ends and the song fades.

Just like Bowie and Jagger's memory of shooting this video.

So okay, we are all in a nationwide lockdown, okay?

And we are watching too rich guys not following government guidelines on social distancing and

endangering themselves for shits and giggles.

And, on top of that, they're promoting unsafe practices by rallying people to go out and

dance in the street.

It's amazing what you could get away with in the before time.

Yeah, especially when you're rich and white and popular.

And I guess handsome people find him handsome at some point, somehow?

It looks like they're finding each other handsome the whole way through the video.

Wasn't there?

Wasn't there like this whole story how they were found, uh, Bowie was found naked in Jagger's

bed or something?

Am I making this up?

There was definitely a story about Bowie allegedly shagging some other rock star, but I can't

remember if it was Jagger.

It could have been multiple, to be honest.

80s was a hell of a time. 70s, really.

They've known each other for a while, I think.

Yeah. I mean, you could go outside,

you could go to the shop.

Does anyone remember how this felt?

The sun on your skin,

dancing in the streets?

Dancing in the streets.

If anyone asks who hasn't experienced

dancing apart from the joy of 2020,

tell them that this is exactly

what life used to be like. Have you ever been

at the Glasgow School of Art,

degree show street parties when this still happens.

I don't think so.

Like they were literally that, but it wasn't two people.

It was like 500,000.

On evenings of drunkenness, I have literally danced in the street in a very similar way to

these guys.

Though with the addition of a kebab, surely.

Yeah.

Doing the leg kicks from a kebab shop.

A kebab and whatever tune from wherever I'm fucking falling out of is still going through

man.

Clearly blue the gun.

Oh man,

I haven't had a blue

in ages.

Does that still exist?

It does.

I think,

well,

it did.

Does it?

Until this week,

although the chip shop

next to my house

is still open,

so yeah.

Oh man,

hungry.

Sorry.

Sponsored by

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Q-Share.

Yeah,

I don't think we're

going to get around

the COVID thing.

no matter what we're gonna say we're just gonna go no i think it's kind of bound um okay so jokes

yeah jokes aside let's talk about actual video yeah i but the video personally i think the video

is fucking brilliant it's just they're just kicking around dancing like idiots yeah and it's like and

they and they clearly don't give a fuck it's right like i i i can stand i know that this video has

this horrible reputation.

And I understand

that it's not the best thing ever,

but at the same time,

they're bonding it up together

with stuff like Journey

and Bon Jovi videos.

And it's like,

what are you doing?

It's just two friends

having fun getting drunk

and getting fucking high of coke.

Are they drunk?

I think it's definitely

a powdered substance

because they're jumping

way too much to be drunk.

Well, I mean,

it depends what you drink.

If it's beer, maybe not.

No, I think that there's a telltale sign about one minute, five seconds into the video where Jigerda stares a Bowie in the eyes.

He's going to shank him with a Bowie knife.

And to me, that shows, oh, hold on, if you freeze frame it, that shows clear, clear intent to do damage.

I just want to point out these speculations.

We're not saying that Age of Dames is a cokehead.

Yeah, allegedly.

Allegedly.

This is 1980s coke or early 1990s.

The good shit.

Because there was a period where David Boy was in Berlin, I think.

He went to Berlin so he could try and get off heroin.

So was this before or after this?

Yeah, like five albums that are just based above Berlin.

I think the other aspect of the video is the fact that, once again,

unfortunately, we're going to wind up getting back to fucking COVID here.

But it's just the fact the place is totally empty.

yeah it's almost like everyone's in a quarantine and they're the only ones who are still out

because they're david bowie and mick jerry what i presume happened is they just need to slap something

up in like half an hour for yesterday and they were like okay this is this abandoned place in

central london let's just all go there and shoot it was probably them two like a camera person and

maybe a lighting person and that's it it does kind of feel like that because they were originally

they might have do it live then they realized that wasn't gonna happen so maybe this was just like

it let's just go shoot something and help the children you can well i mean i think it's a real

tell sign that there's what one interior location with two rooms and one external it's basically

following the student film rules of uh of locations yeah yeah but i do quite enjoy the camera work like

it's super clean like they're not trying to go to do anything crazy in artistic or whatever just like

high kicks behind doors and you're suddenly turning around and David Bowie jumping ahead

like on top of you it's kind of it's fun it's easy to watch and it makes me happy that's it

just makes me happy no the the camera works pretty good I mean considering that external shot you

cranes down it I think it feels a lot like first takes because the camera feels a little bit jumpy

and the cameraman who shoots it's like trying to reframe because he forgets it Jagger comes out at

a slightly higher angle than Bowie or whoever

comes out. Yeah, it looks like it's

all one take. Oh fuck, it's not one take.

But the thing is,

it's probably multiple takes, but because it was

Rush Beyond Belief, it just looks a bit janky.

That track shot at

one minute, 20 seconds in, where they're just dancing

around and there's no other crew, really

does, you know, show

that the budget was quite, quite small.

As we said, alcohol and coke.

Actually, yeah, Jagger does take a drink.

Yeah, he does take a drink.

Where did that come from? I wasn't there a second ago.

I had this theory. I never actually paused to see, to look at the can.

I think it might be Coke bottle or can.

Because I think Coke were one of the main sponsors of LifeAid.

If I'm not wrong, I might be wrong.

Because otherwise it's just a very random shot to be left in there.

I mean, the whole video is random as fuck, but it's still a very random shot.

It's entirely possible he just had that little beer or something with him and he just went fuck it.

But I do love the fact that after he takes a drink, he just stares intensely at David Boy for a minute

as he's going for it and he's like oh shit it's my bit

this is why the silent

video to it is just absolutely amazing

yeah because you just have

like noises they make because

like David Bowie 100% chatted

when he jumped off that

staircase

we can't go any further without mentioning

the absolute glory that is the silent

version of the video

where they've added in the sound effects

and a little bit of singing and stuff

but taking out the music

and it is so good

to the point where every time I watch it

I'm going like, I wish I thought of this

I'm dancing in the street

Doesn't matter what you wear

Just as long as you are there

Come on, every guy

Grab a girl

Everywhere

They'll be dancing

If you do, you spin me right around

Like the original video

You just hear like some swooshing noises

I was reading through reviews

And I was trying to find what people thought about it

But all they said was, oh it's dumb

Because to be rock stars

I mean, come on, it's the fucking 80s

Have you seen the videos that they had at the time?

I prefer it to November

Yeah, November was pretentious

This one is just, we have no money

But we have a hell of a lot of coke

some beer let's shoot a video do you think they actually choreographed the dances i think they

must have because there's a little bit of synchronizing going on i don't know i feel like

it's probably like oh mic mic it would be really funny if you do that thing and then just like

rehearse it for like three and a half minutes and then like record it they just done the first thing

that came to their heads there's no thought put into that look at the way they move i don't know i

think it could be a situation where it's like really choreographed it's choreographed in such

a way that it looks like shit.

Probably not. I don't think neither of them were

dancers, so maybe not. Well, at least I don't

think they were dancers. They both had the move.

One had the move like Jagger, literally.

Well, that's true.

No, by the way, speaking of

I completely forgot his movie was tricked.

He's actually done a hell of

a lot of things, both Bowie

and the Rolling Stones. He did Radio

Gaga, which is

pretty decent.

I want to break free is fucking brilliant.

how much of all is good,

like, his videos, ACDC.

So it's like, he clearly knows what he's doing.

So maybe he actually made a point,

had a point of just making it look so junky.

So it doesn't look like they've spent money on it

because it's all supposed to be a, like,

famine relief video, whatever.

It could be the situation where it was a production disaster

and they were just like, fuck it, just do it.

But however, they got three geniuses in a room together

and, oh well, the streets together

and just went fucking have at it.

According to the songfacts.com,

it said that Bowie and Jagger recorded the song

in just four hours.

And in 2017, Jagger was quoted by Rolling Stone

saying, we banged it out in just two takes.

It was an interesting exercise

on how you can do something without worrying too much.

So is that about the video of the song itself?

That is the video.

Oh, well, that makes a lot of sense then, doesn't it?

Two takes looks about right.

Two takes, I mean, that's twice more than I thought they'd done.

it's got that going for it

okay so everyone's favourite

part of the video

if anyone has this

it's between the synchronised door dancing

that's just comedic but I do enjoy the bit where he just

takes a sip of beer at the can because

it looks like that wasn't planned he just thought

I fancy a bit of beer and now I'm going to stare

at David Bowie intently for a few moments

which is a perfectly natural thing

I think the highlight

was probably the slow motion dive

by David, it's totally

unnecessarily. Could have caused

them lots of harm and damage but

it was interesting that he'd done it nonetheless.

It was pointless too. I mean

why jump into the scene like that?

In slow motion? I mean it's like

jumping off the second step of your

staircase. It doesn't really prove any

point. It looks cool. It looks badass.

That's definitely my favourite part

from the no music version

just because of the scream

they put in. It was very good.

Definitely my favourite part

is the synchronised door dancing.

it's just like those those leg kicks are amazing just keep just keep out them i can have like 10

hours of just leg kicks i think that i really get right the whole premise of the song is dancing in

the streets but why are they dancing in what looks like a crackdown and yeah the the bakery yard

you know in the central london why not like just go dancing in the streets because then they have to

actually pay people and like police maybe to call those streets could have just turned up somewhere

and just recorded and it would have been probably a lot more uh a lot more engaging and interesting

but considering what it is i mean it's it's it's not a bad music video but it is pretty shit

it's it's a so bad it's good situation yeah yeah that definitely for me it's really unoffensive

right i mean it doesn't annoy me um kind of the way i'm go west go west kind of confused the shit

out of anyone who watches it and november rain kind of you know you get more confused the longer

you're watching because you just question everything's

going on. But this you kind of

just accept the two as these two

these two middle-aged men

just dad dancing like

a wedding. And you can't really

fault them for it. Did we do bits that

we didn't like last time? I can't remember.

We did, but not sure there's anything that

you can say I really hate about this video because it's all

Yeah, there's nothing I actually

dislike about it. I think the only bit

that's a minor nitpick is the slow

motion where it zooms into their arse at the end is a bit

jumpy but that's just a probably just a technological limitation at the time so i can't really well i

guess you just didn't know how to finish it because like the song itself kind of just fizzes out and

how do you finish this when you have only two takes for the footage i feel sorry for the guys

you had to edit the thing together like what else we got and they're like that's it

the choice is very limited one thing i'd i'd forgotten about is the fact that by the end of

the video it looks like the sun's coming up so it does seem like they were literally filming this

all night oh yeah yeah you're right because it goes from like really dark to kind of blue i mean

there was probably a lot of drinking there so yeah there's some point they're like okay let's just

finish this and go and get some art let's go take some heroin no did you care oh david okay okay just

nice family friendly cooking so what are your final thoughts on this guys uh it's a knife for me

yeah it's a knife for me definitely a knife for me as well it's it's totally unoffensive

still very confusing but nonetheless an entertaining watch we all agree then yay well done

well done one does exist so what are we doing next then oh god uh let me open the

sheets open up the spreadsheet spreadsheet um do you guys want to do 90s now because we were kind of

like stuck in 80s slash period in 90s?

Do you feel like 80s?

I'm up for some 90s.

Something with really ropey CG.

Not go-ass ropey, but you know.

Black Hole Sun.

Black Hole Sun's good, yeah.

Is it Soundgarden or...

Soundgarden.

Yeah, yeah.

I nearly said audio.

I think it's Nirvana or something.

One of those balls.

They're all the same.

Say goodbye, everyone.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Don't forget to wash your hands.

Catch it.

Kill it.

in it.