Song Of The Day 9/17/2015: Kate Bush – “There Goes a Tenner”

Let's Go Do Some Crimes – I had some grave reservations about posting this music video centered around a heist, orchestrated by British songstress and dreamy substitute teacher Kate Bush. Not because the sound's a little thin (a better version's down there at the bottom), or because I don't like Kate Bush (I encourage you to have a go at her very underrated 2005 album Aerial), or because I recall my just-about-to-blossom 16-year-old self retiring to my bedroom with certain pictures of her onstage, a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew and a quickening pulse. None of that.

It's mainly that I have no idea how the gang in this video got the idea to pull off a burglary. I sense some constitutional issues. A bad group dynamic serving a hesitant ringleader. People who'd done some minor jobs -- car stereos, office supplies, tins of stewing steak -- who'd sketched out a few "what-if" scenarios on a napkin at a diner and let their eagerness get in the way of groundwork. Right off the bat Kate says "the sense of adventure is changing to danger," which a professional thief is never going to admit. Also: I don't know from first-hand experience what banks are like in England, but the bank in this video kinda looks like somebody's already taken everything they could get from this bank, except for that big and pretty inconvenient pendulum. It's half-destroyed. It looks like a Detroit art gallery. Finally, there's really no room in any half-adept thieving plot that allows much time for synchronized dance. Even if it's just a fantasy sequence. Especially if it's just a fantasy sequence, really. These affairs are very tightly timed, as Kate alludes to in the beginning. There's no buffer zone in which would-be criminals can get the Twyla Tharp on. You have to execute.

So if you're looking for some visual clues on how to pull off a robbery or a con job, skip this video. Watch Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's "Say Say Say" video instead.