Daft Punk - "Around the World"
Or just up and down the basement stairs
As this post goes live I am 40 years old plus one day and I am celebrating in Berlin. Hopefully I’m not (too) hungover, hopefully my 100+ days of Duolingo German lessons have felt useful, and hopefully I’ve already cried outside David Bowie’s former apartment building.
It feels fitting on this grand occasion to talk about one of my most favorite music videos, which is also the video that got me hooked on searching for more dance videos:
Is “Around the World” actually a “dance video?” I think so. The moves might not be revolutionary, but they are so well-executed as to be hypnotizing.
I got into the Daft Punk album Homework at some early point in my college years, and probably saw this legendary Michel Gondry video soon after. I know that I was into it enough that by senior year I would make friends stage it with me at parties—particularly the part of the glittery swimmer dancers who run up and down the stairs. Enough of my friends had basements to throw parties in, so I loved to queue up the song, run up the stairs with a couple accomplices, then make a cute shoulder-shimmying re-entrance down the steps. (Should I mention we were all Theatre majors?).
With a couple vodka crans in me, I might also go for the mummy move, whooshing my arms over my head and trying to jump and move my hips at the same time. Like any well-executed dance move, it looks simple, but is hard to do. Especially when you are drunk and there is limited space between the stairs and the beer pong table.
It wasn’t until I got the Michel Gondry DVD video collection and listened to him talk about it that I learned—DUH—each group of dancers represents a different instrument. As the dancers come together, we are seeing and hearing the song come together. It’s basically Sesame Street for adults!
He breaks it down like this:
Disco swimmers = Keyboards
Weird extra-tall athletes = Bass guitar
Mummies = Drum machine1
Robots = Vocals
Skeletons = Guitar2
It’s so hard to pick favorite moments in this video, or even my favorite group of dancers. In my youth I was always partial to the swimmer ladies and the mummies, because they seemed to be having the most fun:
But now I’m really feeling the skeletons more. They’re having fun, too! Look at them wiggling their little bone butts!
Also, I love this moment at the beginning of the video where they are dead and the mummies are behind them doing Pilates:
Good thing the skellies got revived by the powers of electric guitar!
I have a better appreciation for the robots now, too. They have the simplest moves, dance-wise, but they are essential to this song. If only I had recruited some people at theatre parties to walk around me like a robot while I did my mummy moves, it might have been more convincing. We could have eventually had the whole basement on board. Maybe these robots were tipsy too, seeing how they keep bumping into each other:
The extra-tall athlete people are my least favorite because of their costumes. Why make them extra tall? Why give them a little baby head?3 It freaks me out. But fine, yes, I do respect this smooth move:
The final group image is so good and I all can think is: what a kick-ass group Halloween costume this would be!
I just need 19 friends and a bunch of crafting nights and dance rehearsals. Who’s with me?? I call dibs on a skeleton because the costume looks like the best blend of warm and comfortable and I want to wiggle my little bone butt.
Bonus note: it is hilarious to me that the Google Lyrics robots are stubbornly consistent, and insist on providing the lyrics for this song, even though we all catch on pretty quickly:
Did the AI robots count how many around-the-worlds there are,4 or did someone have to count them out by hand? How did they decide to group them like this? Does this song even follow a traditional verse-chorus-verse song structure? Anyway, congrats, Google!
As it is (one day after) my birthday, it is my greatest birthday wish that you please subscribe to this newsletter. It’s free! You’ve got nothing to lose!
If you are already a subscriber, it is my second greatest birthday wish that you share this newsletter with a friend and peer pressure them into subscribing. Tell them how I’m 40 and my knees hurt and will only stop hurting when I feel the warmth of new readers.
Thanks for being here. You are the best gift.
Love and jazz hands,
Molly
In the DVD he says he chose mummies because the drum machine reminded him of Michael Jackson’s music, which then made him think of plastic surgery. OK!
There’s also a video of him breaking this all down here (which is inexplicably made to look old-timey).
Oh I see, according that classroom video he thinks of athletes as being all brawn and no brain. You’re starting to lose me, Michel!
OR maybe the robots from this video??