"The Boys of Summer" By Don Henley

I don't like the Eagles and never thought I'd give much time to Donny, but I don't think this song can be ignored. As a sound and video piece, it's as good as any film. There's so much going on here that I have to stop and think, "He came up with this???" No matter the source, it's an undeniably brilliant piece of work regarding the frailty and ineptness of the male sex. This is a character we've probably all met in real life, but here he appears artful, interesting, and of infinite complexity despite his limitations. He is the Modern Prometheus.

Using black and white to evoke the past, the video doesn't let up on exploiting cliche for its own subversive purposes as it turns male-bashing into a poetic form of archeology. We get the couple running down the beach in the first shot, straight out of a personal ad. This was probably shot in Malibu. I would know because I've been there one entire time.

Cut to Henley in the city to contrast his present situation--bleak, loneliness, impotence--against his exploratory and eucalyptus-enhanced past, a total tropical dreamtime. Obviously, we're being given the time theme in a big way, which neither Lennon/McCartney nor Holland-Dozier-Holland could address for us yet. This doesn't even take into consideration the kid playing the drums (Henley was, obviously, the drummer in the Eagles) and the videos projected on the surfaces of the penthouse, which is an amazingly deft touch. David Lynch would envy that. Few filmmakers could even get those shots right, let alone introduce the idea of video on video. Though Henley's character feels primitive in his approach to women--and placed here accordingly--this video is on an Einstein level when it comes to its handling of the chronological theme. We see layers of memory in the cross-cutting and also in a super-imposing which takes place in-frame, within the reality of the video, so that all times and all locations of memory are colliding together. Time is a cycle which has turned and meshed in on itself, creating a destruction of all identity and character: consciousness without form, which is at once the baby and the unified adult. As a side note, you also have to give credit to a Boomer tearing apart his generation with that "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac," line. Especially this guy. John Lydon he's not. Even the "Empty lake, empty streets/The sun goes down alone," evokes Shakespeare's opening speech in Richard III. I could expect more and get less from Van Dyke Parks.

Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air
The summer's out of reach
Empty lake
Empty streets
The sun goes down alone
I'm driving by your house
Though I know you're not home

But I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
You've got your hair combed back
And your sunglasses on baby
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone

I never will forget those nights
I wonder if it was a dream
Remember how you made me crazy
Remember how I made you scream
I don't understand what happened to our love
But babe I'm gonna get you back
I'm gonna show you what I'm made of

I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
I see you walking real slow
And smiling at everyone
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone

Out on the road today
I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said don't look back
You can never look back
I thought I knew what love was
What did I know
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go but...

I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
You got the top pulled down
And the radio on baby
And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone

I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
You got your hair slicked back
And those Wayfarers on baby
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone

I love these lyrics as much as Rimbaud, Ted Hughes, Walt Whitman, Shakespeare, anyone. The male in this song is so simple, like a non-human animal, in the way he says, "I don't understand what happened to our love." It's not necessarily his fault, though. Obviously they didn't communicate. All relationships, in the end, break down due to communication. The other problems are simply a distraction. I'm interested in this guy because he's not really mature, but he's aware of mature things. He understands this long gone relationship more than you'd think. He also embodies a certain stereotype handed down to men, that of a guy who wants his woman to fulfill his dreams so he can do whatever he wants with the rest of his life. He believes in love without knowing quite how to express himself, which leads women to think he doesn't know what love is at all. But even he can say, "I thought I knew what love was/What did I know?" The woman's not very defined in this song, which is the point, but that doesn't diminish the strength of his emotions. Perhaps that's how too many relationships turn out: each party can't really define the other, but the feelings run strong. Where do fantasy and reality cleave?

They call man visual, which I think is a bit ridiculous (more visual than women who like clothing and makeup?), but he's fixated on this vision which Henley turned into the chorus. What people don't realize is, while it may be a vision, to men there's a whole lot more. The vision is the signifier of a universe of possibilities and attributes. Jung warned of projecting fantasies onto women due to their physical appearance, that we can think we found love because we see someone who implies that anima-level power. This guy is probably doing that to an extent when he remembers the girl and her brown skin, but it's not like he's picturing a total fantasy. He's remembering a moment when he actually saw her. He's also cataloging her behaviors: her playing the radio, what she wore, how her hair was, the way she socialized. He's not jealous. He worships her behavior in all its forms, which is something mature lovers can do (not that you should accept any behavior). Worship in love and sex is the religious factor I spoke of earlier. This guy gets it, even in his own primitive way. He sees a depth in her he can't quite express, which probably means she passed up the wrong guy. Unfortunately for him, he's not just obsessed with time, he's trapped in time. He drives by her house and she's not there. You have to wonder, is it her present house or the house she lived in when they were seeing each other? When is he living? It would be sick and sad if he didn't have such an understanding of what made her valuable. All he needs to learn is that she doesn't feel the same way. But he really wants to love. He doesn't just appreciate what he had like the guy in "Bernadette." He truly wants to love, to the point where he questions himself instead of tearing her apart, like Lennon would. This song is a diagram of masculinity in stereotype and reality, which should be pored over like Chaucer. Too bad some people see this as an innocuous summer song. It may actually be the saddest song I've ever heard in my life. If you've felt yourself falling into deep love only to see that relationship splinter as if the good times never happened, you know exactly what the fuck he's singing about. It's not fun and it's not innocuous, even if this guy should move on with his life. Henley deserves some real praise and recognition for the song. This is top quality. I would love to know what women think of it.

Some notes on the video:

- the way the adult turns his pencil around shows us the circularity and eventual formlessness of time.

- the kid at the drums is so programmed and mechanical, while trying to wield this huge set, just as the main character couldn't quite keep the relationship in his grasp, no matter how well it worked at the time.

- the guy's chasing the girl in the video, but he does catch up. It's only in the "present" footage that the men and women are alone. So is all love a fantasy?

- Henley's stubble evokes that elusive characteristic I'm describing in the chronology. He's aged, but how much? Can you measure anything or is it all a perception you can barely perceive?

- the bodybuilders jumping at angles definitely imply the elusiveness of time and memory. We know what's going on, but it's not seen naturally.

- the "Deadhead" line comes when Henley's shot at night. His life's over. Everything else happens during the day until that point. Then they cut to a flashback at sunset, with the characters in silhouette. They're dying, like nuclear shadows.

- the focus on the buildings in the present, especially at night when they appear very angular and broken, is a great contrast to the humans in the past. In the present, all the bodies have been broken up and decayed. They have no life at all.

This is my favorite music video of all time, along with Afghan Whigs' version of "Come See About Me."