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Never Mind The Muppets, Here's Starship!

Seriously, fellas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4YhbpuGdwQ

Is this to be my generation's fate? To have the really crappy songs of its youth stuffed back down its throat without the merest dollop of irony to ease the passage?

I mean, "We Built This City" - a chunkmonkey piece of soulless popcraft from a spinoff of a spinoff of Jefferson Airplane that eventually became the "We Built This Business" ad for ITT? (6:32)

Happily, once again, the video for this is just amazing, and begging for a movie of its own. Nothing as narratively straightforward as the Scorpions of course; rather, something more allusive and symbolic with which to feed our heads. A plea against the Triumph of the Urban, a plea for a return to the land.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsdj9NRzqC4

Open on a bucolic, even pastoral scene of unspoiled countryside:

Ah, farm living out on the prairie - the way it oughtta be:

But as night descends, we see that these wide open spaces may harbor the unsettled spirits...

...of star-crossed lovers!

"Once," moans the boy ghost, "we were concrete denizens, living it up in Sin City...

Our only law was desire...

Our only god, money...

Our only governor, Chance.

But Chance is inconstant - what was once raised on high...

...may come crashing down...

...sending those who sought to live it up under her fickle favor fleeing in fear.

Once, we stood like mighty towers...

...like the moon, we looked down over all...

...while all gazed up to behold our glory.

But Fate is a dark and constant watchman, and our shadows are ever reflected in his eye.

And eventually, Fate brought us to a reckoning with the forces of order and righteousness - the very source of the blessings we had so long enjoyed.

We pleaded for mercy...

...but our pleas fell on ears of stone.

Instead, only a thirst for justice roused the ancient Power, and it stood to speak our doom:

'You will not be permitted to haunt the foul and glowing cities you held so dear in life...

...but will instead be cast back into the primitive darkness that once covered this land!'"

Now the lady ghost speaks. "Our horror was complete.

We were to be cast into a land as foreign as any Far East empire...

...with only the birds for company."

Whew. Awfully heavy stuff from the video for the worst single ever.

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Woodpeckers are stocking away acorns, Amorous tarantulas

Stunning sycamores, Mars rising

Seriously, fellas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4YhbpuGdwQ

Is this to be my generation's fate? To have the really crappy songs of its youth stuffed back down its throat without the merest dollop of irony to ease the passage?

I mean, "We Built This City" - a chunkmonkey piece of soulless popcraft from a spinoff of a spinoff of Jefferson Airplane that eventually became the "We Built This Business" ad for ITT? (6:32)

Happily, once again, the video for this is just amazing, and begging for a movie of its own. Nothing as narratively straightforward as the Scorpions of course; rather, something more allusive and symbolic with which to feed our heads. A plea against the Triumph of the Urban, a plea for a return to the land.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsdj9NRzqC4

Open on a bucolic, even pastoral scene of unspoiled countryside:

Ah, farm living out on the prairie - the way it oughtta be:

But as night descends, we see that these wide open spaces may harbor the unsettled spirits...

...of star-crossed lovers!

"Once," moans the boy ghost, "we were concrete denizens, living it up in Sin City...

Our only law was desire...

Our only god, money...

Our only governor, Chance.

But Chance is inconstant - what was once raised on high...

...may come crashing down...

...sending those who sought to live it up under her fickle favor fleeing in fear.

Once, we stood like mighty towers...

...like the moon, we looked down over all...

...while all gazed up to behold our glory.

But Fate is a dark and constant watchman, and our shadows are ever reflected in his eye.

And eventually, Fate brought us to a reckoning with the forces of order and righteousness - the very source of the blessings we had so long enjoyed.

We pleaded for mercy...

...but our pleas fell on ears of stone.

Instead, only a thirst for justice roused the ancient Power, and it stood to speak our doom:

'You will not be permitted to haunt the foul and glowing cities you held so dear in life...

...but will instead be cast back into the primitive darkness that once covered this land!'"

Now the lady ghost speaks. "Our horror was complete.

We were to be cast into a land as foreign as any Far East empire...

...with only the birds for company."

Whew. Awfully heavy stuff from the video for the worst single ever.

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KPBS Film Critic Beth Accomando's Alexander "Labor" Payne Retrospective Continues Tonight!

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A Closer Look at the Trailer for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

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