YouTube's Sparkling Moments

by Ruben D. López

With time to piddle about on the Internet, I searched YouTube for more classic and rare videos. Here is my new favorite five:

Yoko Ono "Walking on Thin Ice"

Just imagine, this song was in John Lennon's hand when he was shot and it's a pretty damn good song. The video is different than what I had imagined. It is basically old clips of Yoko Ono and Lennon and recent clips of Ono out and about New York City. It is an endearing tribute to the late Lennon.

Ciccone Youth "Addicted to Love"

This is one of my favorite cover songs. I remember watching it on 120 Minutes and Kim Gordon explained that they made the video at Sears with a karaoke machine. I haven't seen this in years and forgot that they had used random combat footage. Kim Gordon, you're my hero.

Tori Amos "Brain Fart Improvisation" (3/07/07)

Tori Amos is one of my favorite artists and I like watching live clips because she sometimes changes lyrics to her songs. I found this clip of her beginning to sing "Black Dove." She immediately messes up, curses, and improvises a song called "I Just Had a Brain Fart," in which she says she has written over 500 songs and it is difficult to keep them straight. This is up there with her version of "Whoomp! There It Is," which she performed on Kevin & Bean years ago.

Talking Heads "(Nothing But) Flowers"

Back in the early 1990s, Request Video, the video program that aired on KDOC, had an Earth Day special and showed various videos about the environment or from socially conscious bands. This was one of them. Not only was the video entertaining, with various statistics about the environment, but the lyrics were animated as band members played the song. In the video, you can see Johnny Marr and the late Kirsty MacColl, who provided backing vocals.

Tracey Ullman "They Don't Know"

Speaking of MacColl, Ullman's cover of her song gained more popularity when she used it on her HBO comedy show. Complete with a '60s theme and a cameo by Paul McCartney, we are shown how much Ullman loves her man and some clips of her as a child being spanked. The doozy is the ending, when we are brought back into reality as she is in the supermarket with a kid, looking disheveled and wearing house slippers.