Top Five Elements in Yes’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart” Video
1. The voiceover “Maybe there’s another way to do this,” which prompts the members of Yes to transform into animals, like a prog-rock Justice League of Lycanthropes.
2. The protagonist (of a Kafkaesque tale of abduction and escape) washing his face with maggots.
3. Lead singer Jon Anderson’s ruddy complexion, feathered hair, and elaborately paneled sweater, which cumulatively make him look like a Norwegian ski instructor.
4. The protagonist elaborately writhing and contorting as he has visions of animals crawling on his skin.
5. The protagonist jumping off a roof to escape the members of Yes, and then transforming into a bird (with an intermediate developmental stage as a mannequin).
For more MTVariffic goodness, check out VJ, the book I wrote with Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn, coming out May 7th–you can order it now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s.
posted 15 April 2013 in Buy My Stuff and tagged MTV, top five, VJ, Yes. 2 comments
April 16th, 2013 at 8:55 am
This is the long version of this video. (If there’s one thing Yes became known for in their brief video-superstar phase of 1983–84, it’s constant video edits, cf. “Leave It,” which I believe came out in something like 25 versions.)
Anyway, the version I got to know on Friday Night Videos is the four-minute edit that intersperses the Kafkaesque concept stuff with the straight band footage that’s at the front of this longer edit, before the animal transformations. And in the short version, the music-less animal transformations aren’t included at all.
April 21st, 2013 at 5:27 pm
I vividly remember the long version, particularly watching it with a group of 20 friends or so when we all hung out in somebody’s basement one afternoon–maybe school had a half-day? Anyway, it was an early convivial MTV experience for me.