Behind the scenes; The "Drop Dead Lizzie" music video
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I got the idea for this song purely by accident: I happened to see one of my MySpace friends with the screen name "Drop Dead Lizzie". I sang it out loud, in a theatrical falsetto, and it sounded exactly the way it would sound on the song. The rest of the lyrics followed from that as Billy and I worked back and forth on it.
I thought the idea of a man hopelessly in love with an incarcerated murderess was a humorous theme, especially as her victims all happened to be men, and the hero is thus so blindly in love he does not realize that he himself may be in danger. And who is he to presume that, upon her release, she will be happy to have an accomplice? Love is blind, and murder is unkind.
The first dance sequence (1:40) was so strenuous that I almost detached a retina by throwing my head around so much. In the days after, I actually started seeing blue flashing lights every time I looked down or to the side, necessitating a trip to the eye doctor. I still feel uncomfortable watching this sequence. Regardless, Billy's solo on the upright bass is so great, I still love *hearing* this section -- just not watching it. Music videos are an occupational hazard. :-)
I'm not going to give a line-by-line reading here, but will note a couple things. The first verse: "Drop Dead Lizzie / Red hair oh so frizzy / Split ends incarnadine / Six feet above the lime". Apart from the obvious, that she has red frizzy hair, the ends are "split" and are, appropriately, incarnadine (blood red) in color. The reference alludes to Shakespeare's "Macbeth", when Lady Macbeth (an earlier version of Lizzie), says: "No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red."
From the above, we also learn that Lizzie is "six feet above the lime". Lime was commonly use to conceal the odor of decomposing flesh in the earth. The fact that she is "six feet above" (rather than "six feet under"), indicates that not only is she alive, but is a towering six feet tall, a formidable presence.
Shakespearean references appear in other places, as well, such as the reference to her being "ditch-delivered by a drunken drab" (2:30), which also comes from Macbeth, where the Third Witch say "Ditch-delivered by a drab" (a drab is a prostitute, who 'ditch-delivered', or in other words 'gave birth', in a ditch). The line "Something wicked this way comes" is also from Macbeth, and was also used as a title for a Ray Bradbury novel.
The reference to Merseyside is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the county in North West England from which the Beatles came. The sound of DDL can be interpreted as a psychedelic successor to Magical Mystery Tour or Sgt Peppers if the Beatles had indulged in darker black humor than "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". It's a Beatles love ballad gone terribly wrong.
The chorus, which first appears at 1:22, arrives with a punk Broadway flourish. I add to this theatricality with abundant hand gestures and pseudo sign language, spelling out words and numbers, such as "with 10 pounds of lead" at 2:19.
The "manslaughter/Womanslaughter" interlude at 3:36 came about because I was fixated on the idea of having a bizarre sheriff character, incongruously from the American South, make an appearance on the English scene. This interlude leads into the second dance sequence, wherein I channel Baryshnikov and Fred Astaire in my punk Broadway way.
After over an hour of takes, I was drenched in sweat and my hair was matting and hanging here and there, which is visible toward the end of the video. At 4:53 when I look tormented and desperate, I was actually feeling faint and exhausted, so it was no act.
Filmed in near darkness, the look I wanted was claustrophobic and without clearly defined borders. The red and blue "shadows" of myself that appear to the left and right are the result of an analog trick I figured out, and aren't a digital effect.
I am fond of the DDL video because it is, to me, what music videos should be: A singer, in character, acting out the song in front of a static camera, with limited effects. There are so many cheats in music videos to give a sense of action or drama, but real action or drama is only visible via the unblinking eye of a static camera.
Let me know if you enjoyed this behind the scenes look, and I'll consider doing it for other videos.
Cheers!
LLL
