Adam Ant - “Stand And Deliver”

  Side Note: One thing about the 80’s, there were definitely some unique characters out there in the music business. Not so much now, where most everything is manufactured and manipulated. Not whining, just sayin…

  We start out with a horse-drawn carriage racing across the salt flats of Really Orange Sky World. Cut to Adam in a candle-lit dressing room, applying the trademark white line across his face. Back to the carriage, where some foo-foo-dressed people are rocking about inside the carriage, then zip to a tree where Adam is perched on a very large branch, all dolled up in some Drag of Zorro outfit. He whips out two pistols and starts hollering.

  Adam jumps out of the tree as the carriage rolls to a stop. The foo-foo people get out to see what all the fuss is about, with the foo-foo woman lugging what appears to be some anachronistic record albums. Adam flits about, waving his pistol and proving that butch-ness was not necessarily required when robbing stagecoaches. He then rudely smashes the woman’s record collection and then proceeds right into the chorus, where he doesn’t appear to know all the lyrics. So he makes up for this by looking constipated while his hoop earring dangles.

  Meanwhile, we’re getting jump cuts of some homely people banging on drums in what might be a pub. No idea.

  Back to Adam, who really loves an ornate hand mirror that he pulled out of somewhere. He’s either mystified by his own beauty or isn’t entirely sure what a mirror might be. Quick shot of the foo-foo woman looking into the mirror and causing it to crack. Subtly establishing sexual orientations, are we? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  Cut to… I don’t know where we are. Possibly a stable somewhere, or maybe a Viking locker room. The foo-foo people are there, with Adam trouncing around in his little cape, but the Foo Fighters refuse to even look at him. (The disruption of travel and the breakage of vinyl are mighty affronts indeed.) Adam tries to make them look in his beloved mirror, but haughty indifference remains steady. Adam decides getting their attention is not really worth his time, so he goes into the chorus again, performing dance moves that were probably intended for another song. (Oh, and there’s more ugly people drumming.)

  Then we have an extended close-up on Adam, where he’s clearly a bit unfocused and again having some issues with the lyrics, but his makeup is flawless. Then we cut to some place where there’s a really long table with lots of happy people dining. The camera pans along the table as an assortment of interesting characters zip by. Suddenly, Adam jumps through a pretty glass window, sending shards flying, because he can’t just walk in the door like everybody else.

  He lands on the end of the long table, and whips out that damn mirror which he proceeds to shove at the faces of various guests. They aren’t very impressed with this actions, so Adam starts strutting down the table and presumably making a mess of somebody’s fine efforts at food presentation. As he prances, we get jump shots of various attendees, none of whom seem to be all that interested in the song, especially a woman with really big orange hair that wants nothing more than to have sex with a man playing a mandolin or some such.

  Another close-up of Adam so we can see that his white face stripe is still intact. Well, thank God, because I don’t know if I could go on if the stripe went missing. (More people banging on drums.) Then the camera zooms in on the original foo-foo couple, who have apparently made friends with a woman sporting the ugliest hairstyle the world has ever known.

  Next thing we know, we’re in a field somewhere with most of the dinner guests and a couple of bitter monks. Adam is on a scaffolding thing, about to be hanged, probably because of the record-busting thing, or maybe that stupid mirror that he can’t seem to put down. And some drummers, because drumming is a crucial part of the song.

  The hooded executioner guy seems to be having an issue with adjusting Adam’s noose, so while we wait for that mess to be resolved we are treated to some artsy shots of the gathered dinner guests looking confused and forlorn while the weird, unreal sky billows behind them. (These things can happen when you don’t plan your dinner menu correctly. Presentation and sequence is key. Don’t let unknown, war-painted, effeminate guys jump through unguarded windows or it won’t matter how much time you spent on the cherries jubilee.)

  Suddenly, some old man appears on the scaffolding and cuts Adam loose. Adam and some of his friends (we don’t really know who they are but he seems to have some supporters) jump off the platform and run a little ways off, then turn and make defiant gestures at the mean people who wanted to hang him. The mean people don’t really care, not even bothering to chase after Adam and the Ants, and apparently wander back inside the castle to play Spades.

  We end with a superimposed image of Adam wailing the chorus, and then another close-up of Adam studying his war paint to make sure it looks crisp and all. Because apparently he still has some more intrusive record-breaking to do. There’s a lot of offensive vinyl out there in the world…

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