Night Music: Dead Man’s Bones, “Pa Pa Power”

This doesn’t seem to be a version of Pa Pa Power that Sweet Little Demons’ guitarist Lydia Night played on. There is no guitar here. Instead it is an epic music video, longer I think than Scorsese’s Thriller for Michael Jackson, featuring the band of actor Ryan Gosling performing at a nursing home or extended care facility, with a choir of children singing. And everybody eventually dances, too.

There is even a segment with puppets in a field in the middle, kind of like Children of the Corn, but only one child and not all that scary.

The comments on Youtube are full of people raving about the genius of Gosling, asking how could any one person be so talented. That wasn’t my reaction, but at the same time I kind of admire him for embracing (in the other Dead Man’s Bones songs and videos, too) an aesthetic of messy edges and crepuscular whimsey. He could have done many things better that would have been far worse.

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