mmdcccxlix

J.A. Young

The fingers made the strings
of the beautiful guitar emit
sounds that were ethereal.
The world was rapt. Our
world. We imagine worlds
when we’d watch television
sets just to discover new
music, new artists, new
songs and their often just-
as-inspiring videos, these
short films being seen as
extremely important—to us—
in that Post Big Brother Era.
What a new and inviting,
malleable world was wel-
coming us to it, at least
the three of us, our eyes
glimmering with the
magic of mirrored tele-
vision screens. We lived
inside most every video.
And nowadays, after what
seems to me like an inter-
minable glut (but I think it
was just the 90’s, which is
almost the same thing), the 

age of the music video has 

resurged. And revamped.
Perhaps the rapture of it 

all has gone, but as I catch 

up from years, having been
abducted and having the
opportunity of learning
an amazing never-before-
imagined-by-me rut of
horror and madness, I
find this to be true.
With every pop song
comes a music video.
And there is a prolifer-
ation of each. I first got
my taste of MTV while in
a hotel room on some else-
wise unremembered high
school excursion. The rest
is history. Music and its
performative interpreta-
tions were pretty much
inseparable. In France,
it seems that they call
music videos ‘clips’ —
at least my favorite
crooner of the French
lyric calls them such.
He’s not French, in
actuality. He's Belgian.
His father was Rwandan
but he grew up in Eur-
ope with his Belgian
mother (apparently
seeing his father but
rarely). He has a
wonderful song
called Tous Les
Même. A gorgeous
song, really. He
has two clips
for it. One that
starts out with
him in bed with
a woman and a
man, between
them with his
face done up
very feminine
on one side, the
side of his face
when he sings to
the man, and when
he rolls over to face
the woman, it’s a

masculine face. The

other video for the
same song is my
personal favorite
version, and it
is set in a Ven-
etian gondola.
Venice is my
favorite city in
the world. He
does the same
fem/masc two

halves of one
face thing in
this clip, but it 

is much more
tongue-in-
cheek; light-
er in tone.
The song is
about a rel-
ationship in
which a couple
are pretty much
arguing about her
menstrual cycles.
It sounds an odd
subject for such
a beautiful song,
but it is very typ-
ical for Stromae. 

I so wish that I
were in Venice
at this very
moment. Per-
haps listening
to some new
music at a
night-club a
bit too whip-
persnapper for
a man with half
a century under
his belt (and,

less fortunate,

over it).  How-
ever, if I were
to run into
Stromae,
in some ran-
dom fashion,
of course (rath-
er than a stalky
one), I’d get down
on one knee and
give him some-
thing completely
makeshift for a
ring, ask him to
marry me, and
we’d live much
more happily
ever after.