Biggs wakes up and the fantasy ends, but the world of the song - being a teenager and an outcast, hoping that the person that you love will reveal themselves to be just like you - lingers. “She’s walkin’ over to me, this must be fake / My lip starts to shake,” sings Brown. The plot of the video is a daydream in which a boy discovers his crush is also a teenage dirtbag who loves Iron Maiden. Problematic source material aside, the music video is such an embodiment of the early 2000s that, when watching, it feels as if long-dormant memories are surfacing rather than being created. In the movie, Jason’s character has a crush on a girl who’s having an affair with a terribly pretentious English teacher (played by Greg Kinnear, of course).
#JOHN MELLENCAMP CHERRY BOMB MOVIE#
The music video is a melding together of original footage from the 2000 movie “Loser,” starring none other than Jason Biggs of “American Pie” fame. This is that feeling - a delicate hope, mixed with fear and self-doubt - wrapped up in a gleefully screamy alt-rock package. Do you remember the innocent fantasies of high school infatuation? It was a secret thrill - hoping that special person would sit next to you at lunch, or that they’d come up to you at a party, or that you’d be put in the same homeroom class. “Come again, come again, come again, come again.”īBB wants us to think he’s all about rebellion and angst, but this song is about something far more tender: a crush. “How you gonna win, when you ain’t right within?” she asks. Youth are prone to compromising their values in search of love or a cure for loneliness, and they always have been. The video’s concept drives home the central point of the song: The same struggles will follow men and women through every generation. “Don’t think I haven’t been through the same predicament.”Īnd the music video! It’s something else - a split-screen extravaganza of the late ‘50s, early ‘60s sock hop aesthetic on the left and ‘90s Afropunk on the right. The song could be considered preachy, but instead it’s moving. Can you be cool and true to yourself? Respected and silly? These are the questions Hill addresses. The problem, of course, is that the hot desires of young adulthood often run in opposition to other longings.
#JOHN MELLENCAMP CHERRY BOMB HOW TO#
She’s instructing youth on how to find self-worth within impossibly challenging conditions. I think it’s about the competing interests of youth - dressing right, having fun, falling in love without getting your heart broken. Is this song about being young? I think so. Sometimes, the camera even cuts to Mellencamp doing his best Neil Young impression on a beach, wearing a denim jacket with no shirt.Ģ) Lauryn Hill, “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” (1998)
The music video is a moving collage of absurdity and sincerity: Found footage of teens in the ‘50s and ‘60s, accompanied by shots of a suspender-clad Mellencamp singing next to a jukebox as a teenage couple dances and feels each other up. There’s the requisite melancholy for days gone by, but what’s most palpable is Mellencamp’s joy at remembering the wonder and excitement of his adolescence. “That’s when a sport was a sport, “Mellencamp sings, “And groovin’ was groovin’ / And dancin’ meant everything / We were young and we were improvin’.’” Who doesn’t want to be improvin’? The song is everything you want: sentimental but upbeat, with lyrics begging to be karaoked.
Which songs had videos that seemed to accurately reflect on some aspect of teenagerhood in the era in which they were produced? I narrowed it down to five songs about youth, all of which have music videos that feel especially “of their era,” acting as a visual record of the song’s subject. But, of all the songs surrounding the idea of youth, those with particularly interesting music videos stuck out to me while trying to compile a best-of list. Youth is visual, like all memories are: the fashion, the people and the places. There are so many songs about youth, about both living it and remembering it.
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