THE VIDEO Scorpions, "Rock You Like a Hurricane," Love at First Sting 1984, Mercury
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SAMPLE LYRIC "More days to come / new places to go / I've got to leave / it's time for ah shoooooooow / Here I am / Rock you like a hurricane / amamamamamamammamamamamah!"
EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION Okay, this one starts off by throwing a lot of information our way very rapidly, so bear with me and we'll try to get through it, since it's mostly pretty badass stuff. We've got heavily made-up babes shaking a cage, another one kind of slapping her hand down, drums being struck, more cage rattling, more babes, more cage, more babes, a jaguar or a leopard, one of the babes swiping at her face and creating instant new wave makeup, cage rattling, a jaguar and a panther, the band playing, the jaguar (I think it's a jaguar anyway) walking with its leash visible, drummer Herman Rarebell, a bunch of folks I'd describe as cheesy Hanna Barbera villains (they look like crappy frog people wearing nuns' habits stolen from the one of HB's truly pathetic space cartoons, say Pussycats in Outer Space or Yogi's Space Race) standing over a glowing cauldron then running away from a flash of light, Matthias Jabs rocking out, more cage rattling, more band, more panther, more face scratching, still more cage rattling, Rudolf Schenker makes a scary face, more babes walk toward the camera, cage, babes, panther roars, babe slaps something again, people try to reach their hands through the cage and ...Phew! We've finally made it up to where the song actually starts (about 40 seconds in, but who's counting).
So we know we're in some kind of alien world where big cats and women in kabuki/Adam Ant style makeup and wigs (they're definitely supposed to be hot, but they always make me think of that other Teutonic terror Nina Hagen) run wild and the Scorpions are forced to play in cages. Also, there's that trio of weird baddies, a frequently occurring motif in heavy metal videos (Think the hooded weirdos in "Rock of Ages" or the cat-eyed robed people in "Holy Diver." Is this an allusion to the witches in Shakespeare's Hamlet? Or just something someone did once in the early 80s, and then everyone else decided it was supercool?).
Anyway, we get a better sense of where we are as the song starts. We see a reddish-purple cave dripping with stalactites and lit both from torches and a greenish glowing fog on the floor. There are a bunch of big tubes (I know I describe everything this way, but for real, they do look like a human size Habitrail) splayed out also. Round lights in the middle of the tubes start pulsing, and as Klaus Meine begins singing, his tube raises straight up (did I mention also the tubes have blue neon floors, not unlike that of a tanning bed). We start cutting back and forth between Klaus and performance footage of the Scorps as a bewigged lady who is also wearing a cat mask that appears to be made of foil lets him out of his pod. She puts her hands on his shoulders and he kind of shrugs her off, then we're with the badly costumed nuns/witches/whatevers. They're shaking their fingers over their big cauldron, and we can kind of see that their faces are just like plain black masks but their eyes are like giant bug eyes made of vertical strips of mirrored material.
Klaus walks by them through a forest of spiky "trees" made from wrapping paper tubes spray-painted silver (I'm so certain about this because I could swear that when I was in second grade a teacher tried to buy these for the set of our play "The Jabberwocky" from a PBS auction). He walks by the dudes with the cauldron, which makes the cauldron light up and they run away, as do some more of them who I guess were in the background before but I couldn't see them.
As the first chorus kicks up, we finally really see the Scorpions performing the song in a giant cage. As per all other videos involving giant cages, the cage has no top or bottom and is actually more like a fence of large panels (they look like the doors of jail cells) that are somehow tied together so that the whole thing moves as if jointed. Klaus runs along the front and high-fives a bunch of hands that are sticking through, then runs by what appears to be a person strung up by their feet hanging in the middle of the cage (wha...?).
They all rock out while a first row of oddly made up ladies (they all have giant black wigs on with white faces except for a wide stripe of red that goes through their eyes) rock the cage and a second row, further back, wave their arms around. Okay, now I see how the Scorpions got into the cage -- there is a door at the back behind the drummer, lit in bright blue. So even though these ladies imprisoned the Scorpions in those pods, once they got out of those pods, they appeared to be the entertainment for those ladies in some kind of larger prison (since now the Scorps appear to be in charge -- I mean, these future alien babes or whatever they are can't get at them through the bars).
The whole second verse we're still with the Scorps rocking out in the cage. Matthias makes a weird face, the women stick their hands into the cage, and it's edited together so that someone's always doing something dramatic (like swinging a guitar) on the beat. Same for the second chorus -- it's basically the same stuff, although Klaus is now making a point of like, running up to the cage to taunt the women so they'll all stick their hands through, then running away. And in fact, as Matthias gears up for and goes into the guitar solo, he goes ahead and backs up all the way against the cage so that they are able to grab him (and get him in sort of a headlock) as he imperviously rages on, dishing up a heaping helping of guitar face.
As Klaus reprises the opening, we see a bunch of the women walk through a foggy hall lit by torches (but somehow, the light in there is still very blue). We can now for the first time get a really good look at how long their hair is (butt-length, but impossible thick all the way to the ends) and how scantily they're clad (also very; red tube tops and loin cloths plus some random strips of fabric). We randomly see a very sick or dead looking man's face all tied up with something (possibly the dude we saw hanging upside down in that one shot earlier?). The girls head back into the room with the pods, and as Klaus starts singing, "the night is coming / I have to gooo" for the second time, one of the ladies shaking the cage bars finally (and somewhat explosively) breaking through them as the band rocks out. All she does once in the cage though is kind of wave her arms around, since for some reason it's suddenly pretty windy in there.
Now the band also runs down the foggy hallway (my favorite part of this is when Matthias gently tosses his guitar to someone standing mm, my guess would be like two feet off screen), but yeah, they all do this like slow jog. A pod closes first on Francis Buchholz then on one of the ladies (I've always found this kind of discomforting as it snaps shut on her hair), then on another lady, then on Matthias, then another lady, then on probably Rudolf, then another lady (I could have sworn there were only five pods before, but whatever), then on Herman, then another lady. Last we see Klaus, in his pod (which is still standing up) saying, "Here I am" with other ladies sexily arrayed among the other pods.
THE VERDICT Explicating the many mysteries of this video was one of my inspirations in beginning this site, so I will do my best now that I finally have it. It combines two video genres I love: Trapped in pods (a la Def Leppard's "Foolin'" and of course most infamously, Spinal Tap) and trapped in a cage (see everything from Mötley Crüe's "Looks That Kill" to Nine Inch Nails' "Wish" to most Megadeth videos). Of course in this case, as in many other videos involving cages, the Scorps don't seem to mind being held in said cage, it is, after all, protecting them from the swarms of alien babes (and the panther) outside. It then definitely falls into what I have elsewhere here referred to as the preadolescent stage of heavy metal videos, with women as sexy yet scary captors/captives. You just don't get the feeling anyone's up to anything frisky in those pods, you know?
That said, this is obviously one of my personal faves and a total classic, even if I'm not sure who's imprisoning whom or what it's really about or where the convention of having random robed people who only show up at the beginning of your video and serve no real purpose comes from. It still totally rocks out -- it's the kind of song you like would hear when you'd been driving for hours and then feel totally revived after you heard it. And of course I have to say that it also has for me in recent years the great tie-in with my favorite episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force entitled "The Last One," in which all of the villains from all of the previous episodes get together to try to defeat the Aqua Teens. Ignignokt leads the meeting and when he calls roll he says something like, "If you are present, you shall say 'Here,' and it will stand for, 'Here I am, rock you like a hurricane.'" Then of course all the villains start saying it, which I find hilarious. Someday I will so make a t-shirt that says "Here I Am" on the front and "Rock You Like a Hurricane" on the back. That would be so totally badass.
Okay so I obviously like the song, but what about the video? Well, even though as I've alluded above I find it has enormous similarities to many, many other videos of the era, I still really like this video. What makes it so memorable? I think it has to do with the charisma of the Scorpions themselves. I mean, editing the thing together so that something cool's always happening every time the drums are hit helps, but it's really their enthusiastic showmanship that sells this video. Even when you can't see them that well, the band members are constantly moving around and rocking it out, and no matter who's being shown during the chorus, they're yelling, "Rock You Like a Hurricane." They have an enthusiasm not unlike that of Poison, who we all know I find to be particularly affable gents. And even though my bf always argues that "wanting everyone to be 'nice guys'" isn't a particularly helpful way to create one's taste, I say whatever. I'm a sucker for nice guys (and for Nikki Sixx).