“I Could Not Love You More”…
…is the title of a Bee Gees song that’s not one of my favorites. So, why am I talking about it? It’s because the official video for the song both amuses me and fascinates me.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not a bad song. It’s a pretty good song. It’s one of their later efforts, created in 1997. “I Could Not Love You More” is a type of song I’ve never been all that keen on: the power ballad. This one’s about love – surprise, surprise – but about happy, fulfilled, reciprocated love. It’s probably the sort of thing people like to play at weddings.
The video’s a mixture of three themes. One is the ocean, with shots of turquoise blue water, children jumping into the water and swimming, and sea mammals cavorting, all very hypnotic and relaxing and emphasizing the hypnotic relaxing power of the Bee Gees’ music and voices.
Theme number two is a staple of music videos from that era – what I call the perfume-ad couple. A man and a women, both beautiful but obviously models, mime being in love. I don’t believe them for a minute. Are we supposed to envy them or identify with them, or both? Are they the prospective parents of the ocean-swimming children who will come along in a few years?
And then there are the Bee Gees themselves, doing what they seem to like to do in several videos I’ve seen: walk down a street. Slowly. Here, though, they’re not young any more – Barry is 50 and the twins are in their late forties. They’re dressed all in black, and the street looks like something out of an old Western. Is this the Frank Miller gang coming into town at High Noon to shoot Will Kane?
No, they’ve come to sing a love song instead. Their first entrance interrupts the perfume-ad couple, who are standing in the street of that old Western town for some odd reason.
But it’s the ocean scenes I especially like, with their mesmerizing effect that enhances the music and is enhanced by it as well. Even then, I wouldn’t be writing about this video if it weren’t for one particular moment that gets me every time. It occurs at around minute 2:44. Barry has just finished singing the phrase – while standing in that Western street – “I could not love you….more.” His voice has gotten softer and slower, and you might even think the song had reached its end although it’s a little early for that. Barry sings what seems like it might be the final word (“more”) – when suddenly kaboom! There’s a loud drum roll and simultaneously the scene changes to the ocean as a large sea creature (dolphin?) leaps out of the water.
It sounds corny, and it is. But I love it. No matter how many times I see it, it always surprises and delights me.
You may not experience anything at all like that. You may even think it odd (or worse) that I do. But here it is:
I think the two children are the lovers when they were children.
That video is very 90s that is for sure.
Videos of that era seemed to be either live where the band is playing the song or it has actors playing some story out interspersed with the band singing/playing in some random setting. In this case with an act that was older it would have been odd to have one of the brothers in the love story so they hire a couple of young models/actors and there you go.
The range of videos in the heyday of MTV (approx. 1981-2005) is as wide as can be and it often is totally unrelated to the quality of the artist or the song.
One of the most widely mocked videos of all time is for a great song with a great vocal performance by Steve Perry.
Journey ‘Separate Ways’
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LatorN4P9aA
Here’s an obscure Bee Gees song from 1967, “Please Read Me”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzwP3tqHnMU You may like it.
So here are three guys walking down the middle of an empty street. I know it’s just me, but my first thought is, what am I going to be obligated to do about this. Something’s wrong and I need to be paying attention.
And they’re in black….like Richard Greene in “Paladin”. Means they think…?
The male model needs a few meat loaf sandwiches and some push ups.
Back in the day when we got country music television, I used to like watching a number of their videos. There were shots from concerts, from fake concerts in which it appeared the entire Vanderbilt sorority row got front row tickets. There were studio shots. What I liked most was the stories they told, with or without the performer being in the shot. I liked looking at the presumed audience-friendly buttons they pushed. The music…..meh. So I was habituated to looking at the BG video that way. Not. Impressed.
Sorry to be such a downer.
I never get tired of the mermen in Madonna’s “Cherish” video.
Wonderful song, like all their works. Nice to read how you describe the details of the clip with love and so beautifully, dear Neo.
I found this funny (?) song today. From the TV-movie “Cucumber Castle”. It’s a pity that they sing without Robin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gznBHlroM0I
Scenery reminds me of Cozumel, Mx. Our fav vacation spot.
Griffin,
I love Separate Ways. The kids and I just watched a surprisingly enjoyable Jim Carrey movie on a rainy day called YES MAN. I didn’t expect to like it at all. And yet I did, especially an unexpectedly heartwarming scene with a man on a ledge.
Separate Ways has a part to play in that movie, in that it’s the main character’s ring tone on his phone and then the song itself comes into play again in the climax of the movie.
Lately, music wise, the kids and I have been getting a lot of enjoyment out of orchestral or “epic” arrangements and remakes of pop songs.
I think so far my favorite is this version of Toto’s Africa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n955D4rfDc&list=PLkmghnJPShXTzoTb1-yPRpKQ97rZKtyvu&index=2
Fractal Rabbit,
Yes, that era of Journey was really good. ‘Stone In Love’, and ‘Still They Ride’ are awesome songs. Great guitars from Neil Schon and incredible vocals from Steve Perry. Perry is one of the greatest vocalists of the rock era.
There have been a ton of covers put out in the last year by people in their houses. Some are really good some not so much but it further proves that there are very few new original songs that can crossover demographically.
Title of this song sounds like something Elon Musk would call one of his rockets, capsules, or drone ships.
Similar song title, but one I prefer to this Bee Gees tune, John Martyn’s studio version of “I Couldn’t Love You More”. There are even better live versions on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyV–s65vGU
Neo, I just found another “analysis guru” I really like the way he breaks things down. A bit more technical than Fil. Here he is doing a breakdown of one of my favorite songs by Boston:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynFNt4tgBJ0
My lovelife has not turned out so well. Here’s a song that expresses some of what I feel, or have felt (at least in the refrain of the chorus):
https://youtu.be/Fq5JIEq-XPY
Kate Tempest