arguchik | music video post

here's the first U2 video i ever saw, which is also the first video they ever made. i remember watching the video on MTV when it first came to my hometown in 1981. there are three things in the video that make it, for me: the girl blowing a bubble with her bubble gum, the two guys dancing on the sailboat mast, and the candid-looking shot of the guy with brown curly hair. this song was their worst-selling single, according to the wiki entry about it. nevertheless, it was the song that turned me into a U2 fan in high school...which is interesting, because it's a religious song and i was already an atheist by the time i heard it. i was probably responding unconsciously to the latin.... actually, the reason the song (and the band, at least initially) appealed to me was because their music sounded so spare and unproduced to my midwestern butt rock-educated ear, and because the video gave me a first hint about how huge the world beyond michigan actually is.

i still don't understand why this song and this album weren't/aren't more popular. is it just because they're about god? really? i never had a problem with that, and i'm one of those crazy atheists whose head spins around and who projectile vomits green soup if i even think about going into a church....yet i could listen to this song 17 times in a row and not get sick of it. i guess because the song, despite its explicit debt to catholicism, seems more about spirituality than religion. there's a huge difference between the two.

anyway, enjoy:

now it's back to work for me.