Over the years, there have been countless music videos made in which the actions in the video have absolutely nothing to do with the context of the song (which has resulted in numerous “literal versions” of music videos posted on YouTube, in which the song’s real lyrics will be dubbed over by a literal narration of what’s going on in the video. To see an example of this, click here). Then you have videos like 1979’s “Accidents Will Happen” by Elvis Costello, in which the theme of the song is complemented perfectly by the video. The video is made up of numerous cartoons depicting a wide variety of accidents happening, from minor gaffes – like burning toast or sitting on a pair of sunglasses – to catastrophic mistakes – such as Baja California breaking off and sinking into the Pacific Ocean after a mysterious red button is pushed. Meanwhile, colorful animated images of Elvis Costello and his band are frequently glimpsed every now and then between the accidents. Animated music videos are hard to come by, and even less common are ones this entertaining, yet this simplistic. What’s great about this music video is that, since the cartoons are so fast-paced, you can watch it over and over again and still notice new little “accidents” that you never noticed previously. This has to be one of my favorite animated music videos ever. Hope you like it too.
Dig Those Groovy Tunes! 