Metallica - Turn the Page
analyzed by Kim Anna Bachmann
The song
“Turn the Page” was originally released in 1973 by the singer and songwriter
Bob Seger. Metallica covered the original song in 1998. When listening two both
versions of the song one can clearly hear that they have a lot in common. The
only thing Metallica changed when covering the song was to put the typical
heavy note to the song itself in order to make it sound like their song. The
song was one track of the album “Garage Inc.”. The album is said to be one of
Metallica´s greatest albums, even though it took the band only three weeks to
record it. The album itself mostly contains songs which were covered by
Metallica, which is why the song “Turn the Page” can be found on this
particular album.
As soon as
we get to the analysis of the song it is very important to have some background
knowledge about the lyrics and about what Bob Seger was trying to tell us with
the song. It is not very common that the lyrics of a song are told as a story
of the music video, but in this case a connection between the lyrics and the
told story can be drawn. The lyrics basically deal with the life on the road,
which musicians live when being on tour. Bob Seger tries to portray how hard
and difficult a musician´s life can be and that it is not all about “Sex, Drugs
and Rock´ n Roll” as the majority of society thinks. Therefore Bob Seger tries
to underline the negative sides of a musician´s life when being on tour. A
connection can be drawn between the life of a touring musician and between the
life of a stripper and prostitute. The prostitute as well as the musician sells
himself/herself in order to earn money. After doing so they both have the
feeling of emptiness and loneliness. The musician as well as the stripper and
prostitute is socially isolated, due to the insecurity of society when it comes
to dealing with such professions.[1]
The Director of the Music
Video Jonas Akerlund
Jonas
Akerlund was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1965. After being a member of the
Swedish black metal band Bathory, Akerlund started to work as a director for
music videos. Today he is a well known and internationally awarded director of
music videos and commercials. He also works as a photographer and has come up
with some short films, too. He has directed music videos for Madonna, Lady
Gaga, Rammstein, Robbie Williams and many more.
General Information on the
Music Video
The music
video for the song “Turn the Page” was released in 1999. There are three
existing versions of the music video itself, which is first of all due to the
great amount of nude, sexual and violent scenes, which had to be censored and
secondly to the short cutting of the video in order to make it playable on
music television. Official music television channels are forbidden to show some
of the scenes of the music video because of the violence and sex they contain. Therefore
there are two censored versions of the music video and the original. Some
critics state that the censored versions of the music video are not able to
convey the meaning, which was Akerlund is trying to convey. This is because the
violent and sexual scenes are the ones which shock you.
The story
of the music video has been extended to a fourteen minutes long short film by
Jonas Akerlund, which seems to be a short documentary at first sight. Out of
the fourteen minutes long short film Akerlund made another short film, which is
three minutes long. The three minute version of the film was made for the art
exhibition “3´”, which took place in the Schirn in Frankfurt in the year 2004.
One might think that some meaning must get lost when cutting down a short film
from a fourteen minute long version to a three minute long version, but that is
not the case at all. Akerlund managed to cut the film very short, without it
losing anything. The message comes across either way. It is very interesting to
see how a piece of art, such as the short film, can be turned into a music
video. It is not very common that art and music videos are so closely connected
to one another such as in this case, but Akerlund did a great job in showing
what all a music video can offer. [2]
Carol
Vernallis states that a music video has to fulfill several demands. It must
present the star and reflect on the music by not pushing the central factor,
the song itself, aside. The music video “Turn the Page” is a narrative music
video, because it tells a story. Such as most narrative music videos the
storyline plays in the past and a tragic storyline is presented. In this case a
prostitute´s life with her daughter is introduced and the viewer gets the
chance to see what their daily life looks like. The storyline and the lyrics do
not have to do anything with each other, but the lyrics can serve the
storyline, just as shown in this music video directed by Akerlund. The lyrics
perfectly fit the storyline. Thus the lyrics and the story, shown in the music
video, are closely connected to each other. Most of the narrative music videos
do not give the viewer the chance to put the characters and the events in
relation to one another, but this music video has such a clear and structured
story line the story and the characters are closely connected to each other so
that this is not an issue.[3]
Analysis of the Music
Video
The music
video is a documentary style video, which basically shows the life a mother and
her daughter. In the beginning of the video, the middle and in the end, short
interview sections with the mother are inserted. The video does not exactly
show whose questions the actress Ginger Lynn Allen is answering, but it could
be that she is at an inquiry at court, because someone tries to take away the
custody for her eight year old daughter named Sandra. The rest of the video
shows the life of Sandra, her kitten and her mother. The music video in general
can be structured as the following:
I. Interview 1
II. The morning in the Motel, Sandra gets up and dresses herself with her mother´s clothes
III. Mother and daughter go to a restaurant
IV. Doing the laundry in a coin laundry
V. Mother tries to call someone from a callbox on the street
VI. Mother and daughter drive to the strip club
VII. The mother does her strip show on stage while her daughter plays backstage
VIII. Mother and daughter have dinner in the motel room
IX. Interview 2
X. Mother goes on the street to find a suitor
XI. Mother drives back to the motel with the suitor and prostitutes herself while her daughter sleeps
XII. Interview 3
II. The morning in the Motel, Sandra gets up and dresses herself with her mother´s clothes
III. Mother and daughter go to a restaurant
IV. Doing the laundry in a coin laundry
V. Mother tries to call someone from a callbox on the street
VI. Mother and daughter drive to the strip club
VII. The mother does her strip show on stage while her daughter plays backstage
VIII. Mother and daughter have dinner in the motel room
IX. Interview 2
X. Mother goes on the street to find a suitor
XI. Mother drives back to the motel with the suitor and prostitutes herself while her daughter sleeps
XII. Interview 3
After
giving the short structure as an overview I will now work out two images from
the video. I will first compare the image of the mother to the image of the
daughter and then a comparison between the daytime and the nighttime will be
worked out.
Mother versus Daughter
The mother
seems to be unhappy throughout the whole music video. There are very little
moments in which one could think that she is doing fine but most of the time
one can see that she always has got something on her mind. In the first part of
the interview the mother states that she has always wanted to be an entertainer
and that she is one now. This first interview gives me the impression that she
is happy with what she does. The viewer is not aware of her profession as a
stripper and prostitute and probably expects her to be a musician or an
actress. But throughout the video one realizes in which kind of entertainment
business she works.[4] In the second interview she shows
that she does not do her job because she wants to entertain people, but because
she needs the money in order to raise her daughter. In this part of the video
one can see how desperate she is about her situation. The façade she kept up
during the first interview seems to fall apart. In the last interview section
she tries to build up the façade again by saying that she is proud of who she
is and that she does not regret anything she has done up till now, because all
the choices she has made have made her become the woman she is today. It is up
to everyone to decide if he or she wants to believe her or not. In my point of
view she is just saying that she is proud of the choices she has made in order
to not fall apart in an emotional way. It is quite common that people who have
a lot of problems are afraid of admitting the problems they have to themselves.
I think that this is exactly what Ginger Lynn Allen, who is playing the mother
in the video, does. In the back of her mind she realizes how bad the situation
is in which she is in, but she also knows that she would burst into tears if
she would admit it to herself. The short film supports my way of thinking
because it shows how unhappy she is. In one interview, which is shown within
the short film she even says that she wants her daughter to live a better life
than she does. By saying this she admits that the life she and her daughter are
living is not a good one. When watching the video as well as the short film
carefully one can notice that she always tries to underline what is positive
about their life, but in the end she always comes back to the point where she
has to admit to herself that she is unhappy, due to the life she and her daughter
live on the road.
The eight
year old daughter Sandra is not as unhappy as her mother is. Her mother is her
role model, which can be seen in several scenes in which she tries to dress up
like her mom. But not like her mother, Sandra is dreaming of becoming a
hairdresser in the future. That shows that she does not want to work in the
same business as her mother does. She loves spending as much time with her
mother as she can and she is not sad about the fact that she does not go to
school anymore. In the short film Sandra mentions that she got the kitten from
her mother because she is not able to make any friends. They travel from one
city to another and stay at different motels. That makes it impossible for an
eight year old girl to find friends. Sandra is a very naïve girl, which is not
negative because she is only eight years old. She does not seem to realize how
difficult the situation, in which her mother and she are in, is. She admires
her mother and loves her with all of her heart, which shows that her mother is
doing the best she can for her child.
Sandra is
very naive and free. Her mother on the other hand is not only mentally
unstable, but also unhappy with their situation. When comparing the image of
the mother and of the daughter to one another, one can see that they are the
total opposite of each other.[5]
Daytime versus Nighttime
After the
first interview we get to see what a regular morning for Sandra and her mother
looks like. In the short film we get to know that Sandra likes the mornings
best not only because she can cuddle up on the mother, but also because the
mornings are so quiet. Watching the daytime scenes one gets the impression that
Sandra and her mother are living a regular life. One could think that they are
on vacation when they are in the motel or that they have a regular day off when
they are in the restaurant and the coin laundry. The day seems to be a regular
day, which mother and daughter spend together. But even during the daytime the
mother seems to have something in her mind, which makes her unhappy. She does
not seem to be relaxed and always has some kind of worry speaking in her facial
expressions. It might be that she is thinking about the happenings of the
upcoming night and the things she will have to do again.
In the
evening Sandra and her mother drive to a strip club in which her mother has to
do a show. As soon as they enter the club the images of the music video get
darker, which underlines the feelings I had when watching the video. Sandra has
to wait backstage, while her mother is doing her dirty and naughty show in
front of total strangers. After the show the two of them head back to the motel
where they have something for dinner. As soon as Sandra sleeps her mother gets
ready for the next job. She dresses up in very tight and saucy clothing in
order to go onto the street and find a suitor for the night. As soon as she has
found a suitor she drives back to the motel with him where they have sex while
Sandra sleeps in a little bed next door. The suitor abuses her and does not
show any respect to her. After the suitor has left the mother seems to be in
some kind of coma and her daughter comes in order to comfort her.
The daytime
is portrayed as very nice and harmonious. The mother and the daughter spend
some time together and seem to have a good time. The nighttime is the complete
opposite. In the early night they drive to the strip club where the mother has
to do her show. This happens in the evening and not in the night because that
is not bad at all compared to what is going to happen later that night. What is
happening later in the night when the mother prostitutes herself is as
disturbing as a nightmare can be.
Conclusion
The music
video for the song “Turn the Page” by Metallica, directed by Jonas Akerlund is
a great video, which carries a lot of meaning. He does not show how hard a
musician´s life on the road is, but displays how hard a mother´s and a
daughter´s life on the road can be. The video makes clear that anyone who does
not have a constant place to live has to face problems that others don´t. The
life on the road is not easy for anyone, no matter who it is. But for a mother
who has to take care of her child by herself and has to make enough money in
order to raise her daughter the life on the road can be the worst thing that
breaks not only her heart, but also her soul.
Link for
the uncensored version of the music video:
References
Keazor
Henry/ Wübbena, Thorsten, Video Thrills the Radio Star: Musikvideos,
Geschichte, Themen, Analyse, Bielefeld 2005.
Vernallis,
Carol, Experiencing Music Videos: Aesthetics and Cultural Context, New York
2004.
[1] Comp. Keazor, Henry/Wübbena
Thorsten, Video Thrills the Radio Star, 2005, p. 325.
[2] Comp. Keazor, Henry/Wübbena
Thorsten, Video Thrills the Radio Star, 2005, p. 323.
[3] Vernallis, Carol, Experiencing Music
Videos, 2004, p. 4-12.
[4] Comp. Keazor, Henry/Wübbena
Thorsten, Video Thrills the Radio Star, 2005, p. 324.
[5] Comp. Keazor, Henry/Wübbena
Thorsten, Video Thrills the Radio Star, 2005, p. 324.