I'd never seen the video before—despite owning the album back in the day, as most faithful R.E.M. fans seemed to—and was immediately struck by Natalie Merchant's dancing.
I remember the first time I encountered 10,000 Maniacs. My pal Dave and I saw them open for R.E.M. in Charlottesville on the Work tour (and that show, as well as a later one in New Haven, still count as two of the best concerts I've ever seen). Despite eagerly anticipating the headliners, we were fascinated by the openers.
The band played catchy, accessible folk-rock type songs and were fronted by a singer who spun and whirled and twirled, the centrifugal force causing her long skirt to create utterly fetching patterns. The main thing, though, was that Dave and I spent their entire set—except, perhaps, when Michael Stipe came out to duet with her on one song—debating whether or not she was speaking English. There were times we were sure she wasn't, times we thought she maybe was, as a clearly English word would suddenly emerge, and most of the time we just couldn't tell.
Those are my main memories of my initial exposure to 10,000 Maniacs: the Stipe duet, the language debate, and the image of her whirling, twirling skirt. So when I saw this video for the first time, I saw surprised by her dancing. Not that it wasn't of the übër-polished, complex, technically impressive style pioneered in videos by the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Janet Jackson, and later made an imperative by stars such as Britney Spears and Beyonce. It's that it was...well, so utterly graceless. Given that I have two left feet, I don't look down upon anyone for not being able to dance well. In fact, I've sometimes wondered if we've missed out on some fine pop stars over the past 10 or 15 years because, despite their other talents, they weren't able to dance. (Adele is an argument that there's nothing to worry about, but I'm not sure one possible exception, no matter how popular, can count for too much. Then again, I'm just talking out of my ass and, anyway, none of this is something which causes me to lose a lot of sleep.)
No, it's more that her dancing reminded me of something, but I just couldn't quite figure out what, until my good lady wife made the connection.
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