Erasure • Features • Private Ear
Video Background - Fingers And Thumbs / Rock Me Gently
Fingers And Thumbs
Directed by Max Abbiss-Biro, the action is set within a night-time 1950's fairground in a dockside area. Biker boys drive into the fair with an urn attached to the main bike. They have come to dispose of a departed friend's ashes in the place which he loved most.
Echoing the lyrics of the song, 'you don't know what you have got until it is gone', they move through the fair throughout the video to the water to ceremoniously dispose of his ashes as the dawn rises.
Meanwhile, Andy Bell is seen as the narrator of the tale. Whenever we see him, the entire fairground's customers are frozen to the spot as if time has stopped. He flies through the air and moves on the ground through tableaux of frozen people, with spookily empty rides whizzing around in the background.
Whenever he is not in shot, the fair action continues; people laugh, play on the rides and watch the bikers. Lots of different camera techniques show either real-time, slowed down or speeded up versions of this action. The whole video is toned blue and white to give it a 1950's film feel.
The video was intended to be shot from 6pm-6am one night. However, a crane became jinxed and broke down three times in all, halting the shoot repeatedly. Thus an entire re-shoot happened again the next night.
The majority of the extras were Erasure fan-club members, who very kindly travelled from far and wide in period costume to appear in the video. Additional extras answered announcements on the radio in London to come to appear in the video.
The biker boys were all either actors or real members of bike clubs - sadly one of them could not appear the second night as he had just been sent to prison for a short spell for contempt of court! All cast and crew deserve a round of applause as the temperature outside was mind-numbingly freezing - they all stoically froze for two nights and shivered away patiently, waiting for cranes to be mended.
Rock Me Gently
Also directed by Max Abbiss-Biro, this video is based around Andy Bell's own ideas for a video treatment.
The action is set in a 1950's Gas Station, where Andy Bell is a lone traveller waiting for his bus. The station is in a lonely, deserted place at the foot of a mountain range. A newspaper blows across the floor and Andy picks it up to read that Marilyn Monroe has been found dead. No-one else is around except for a small, angel like child.
Whenever he throws his magic dust, events happen:
The angel throws some dust and suddenly a large old white Cadillac pulls up, and Marilyn Monroe pops out. She is left at the station by the car. Andy cannot believe what he is seeing! Marilyn picks up the newspaper, reads her own obituary and tears fill her eyes. She seems to be trapped in some sort of purgatory, between life and death.
Menacing, shadowy figures start to move towards Marilyn, and Andy acts as her protector. Local people come and join Andy and Marilyn. The menacing figures move closer and closer to the gas station, whipping up a dust storm as they approach. Everyone is terrified as they seem like icons of death and destruction who have come to collect Marilyn.
The angel throws his magic dust again and the menacing figures are expelled from the scene. Marilyn's car draws up again and she gets in, Andy and the locals wave her off as she travels onwards to 'Hollywood Heaven'.
The video was shot at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Spain over two days.
The USA impersonator Jimmy James features as Marilyn Monroe, and the extras were all locals from surrounding villages. Jimmy James was so convincing as Marilyn that the locals could not believe he is really a man, even when he was out of costume.
