Because we love ‘em all. Here’s your 90’s Video of the Day
Primitive Radio Gods - Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand
This was Primitive Radio Gods’ debut single from Rocket, but you might have remembered it was part of the Cable Guy soundtrack. Singer Chris O’Conner made the song in a friend’s garage on a 16-track recorder and went full-on DIY and shopped it around until a major label bit. This track took a sample that went all the way back to B.B. King’s “How Blue Can You Get,” which was written in 1954, though the sample is from the 70’s.
The words for this song got written off as non-sensical at the time, but it’s about a relationship in which two people are no longer communicating though they keep fighting for the relationship to survive. Personally, I’ve always felt like the eeriness of the entire track somehow communicated that without the lyrics needing to be so on the nose and direct. There’s a loneliness in the whole song that’s so palpable, making it an unlikely “hit” song that’s more about what it represents than it possessing a singular tangible hook.
The visuals of the airplanes in the sky is a nice touch for this video. Chris O’Conner had worked as an air traffic controller and said he took off several days of work to try and get the video done without getting fired.
So what’s with the long title? It comes from another sampled work, Bruce Cockburn’s album Further Adventures Of in which there’s a song, “Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand.” How’d he get legally away with that? To this day, I still have no idea.
Hit me up with 90’s Video’s you wanna see featured at abby@wxdx.com