When Fiona McDonald was announced as one of the judges on NZ Idol and hoardes of teens commented online that they’d never heard of her, this is what I pointed them to. The Headless Chicken’s only number one single, and indeed the first number one for a Flying Nun artist.
It’s a dark song, a reminder of how awful and self-destructive relationships can get. And when compared to the band’s more lively earlier videos, it’s a sign of how far the Fiona-era Chickens came in such a short period, and how the group didn’t have much further to go.
The video is equally dark. Fiona, never afraid to not be pretty in a video, is filmed with harsh uplighting, giving her a similar shawdow moustache to Che Fu in Supergroove’s “Can’t Get Enough” video.
A tattoed man creeps towards the camera, an old man offers a birthday cake iced with “George”, other band members stare at the camera, making it clear that they too know of the terrible thing that has happened.
I love that a song like this can make it to number one in New Zealand. Everything is OK.
Best bit: Old George holding his cake, standing by an open fridge door.
Directors: Marcus Ringrose, Gideon Keith
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Next… the sailor boys return to their old neighbourhood.