I Wanna Love You Tender
Thanks, and curses, to my pal Kyla for pointing me at this dog. For future reference, Beloved Readers: It’s perfectly acceptable to recommend a YouTube video that’s actually good for comment!
Posted as “The Worst Music Video EVER,” this footage poses a few problems of provenance which are easily enough solved via some Internet sleuthing. It’s “Tahdon olla sulle hellä,” performed here in English as “I Wanna Love You Tender,” by the Finnish pop duo Armi & Danny (Armi Anja Orvokki Aavikko, Miss Finland 1977 who passed away in 2002, and guitarist/singer Ilkka Lipsanen). Though produced in 1978, it hit the Internet in a big way only in 2006, and quickly became a camp YouTube classic. As I write this, it’s sitting at 1,746,271 views. (I have to admit, though, that probably seven or eight of those are mine.)
In the face of such fabulousness, what can one say? It’s only fair to point out that the video anticipates the debut of MTV by three years; not only was the popular music video not a very sophisticated form at the time, but there were few widely disseminated models for learning the possibilities of the genre.
In the absence of any obvious models, Armi & Danny seem to have made the fateful decision to turn their eyes back to . . . The Lawrence Welk Show (1951–79). The clip stars with some faux-spacey effects that would have sent the King of Champagne Music spinning; but edit out the awful first ten seconds, and the departure of the “space car” in the last fifteen seconds, and what we’ve got is 70′s Europop as interpreted by LW’s Bobby & Cissy.
As is so often the case, even in very interesting music video, the music is the least of the vid’s charms. If it feels on one level like a clip from a terrible 70s musical variety show, from another angle it looks like a Jordache jeans commercial: does anyone remember Jordache jeans? Or a 70s jeans commercial featuring the Mouseketeers; the cheerleader/yell leader vibe is hard to miss, and even harder to understand. “There’s somethin’ happenin’ here,” as Stephen Stills sang; “What it is ain’t exactly clear.” It’s like a Sears catalog come to life.
But it’s the choreography that takes center stage here. I’m no choreographer, so don’t necessarily have the vocabulary to describe what I see; on the other hand, I’m pretty sure a choreographer would be speechless. For those familiar with Monty Python’s “Gumby” routines–”Gumby Theatre,” “Gumby Flower Arranging,” “Gumby Brain Specialist“–well, this is Gumby Pop Dancing. In a mélange as absurd as this, it’s perhaps a bit precious to single out individual moments: that said, the Will Ferrell-like midriff shot at 1:45 is particularly horrible.
In the chorus, Danny’s voice takes on a different timbre; while he and Armi sing the verses together, or in alternation, Danny takes the chorus as a solo. And he really sells it; he sounds like nothing so much as David Bowie in “China Girl”—which is to say, like Anthony Newley:
Oh, you’re absolutely fine,
Your lips are taste of wine [sic],
I’d like to think you’re mine;
And if I could touch your hand,
This rock would turn to sand,
So this is where we stand.
At least—well, at least we know where they stand.
It’s fashionable nowadays—actually, let’s see, MTV debuted on August 1, 1981, so it’s been fashionable for almost thirty years now—to bemoan the unimaginative nature of most music video. There’s no gainsaying that charge; and yet, seeing utterly original, pre-MTV video like this—well, it actually makes a viewer like yours truly quite nostalgic for something really derivative and crappy like, oh, Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me”?
AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAA!
*spitting up non-fat no-whip mocha*
the video just makes my day. seeing it treated seriously: priceless.