Narrative Theory
Visual Essay
I’ve chosen to analyse the music video for ‘Waiting on a Friend’ by The Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones are a British rock band that formed in 1962 and are still together today, despite their many changing line-ups. The Rolling Stones currently consist of original members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and newest member Ronnie Wood, who has been working with the band since 1976. ‘Waiting on a Friend’ was originally recorded in the later years of 1972/early 1973, when Mick Taylor was still a member of the band. The single was re-worked in 1981, with additional lyrics that were considered for the possibility of a future music video, which made the video for ‘waiting on a friend’ the first promotional video by the Rolling Stones to appear on the emerging MTV channel, which was established in 1981. Michael Lindsay-Hogg - who directed a number of videos for The Beatles and Wings - directed the video. He had worked with the Stones on previous projects and succeeded in creating a popular video for the MTV channel as ‘waiting on a friend’ was well received by the public.
The story starts with Mick Jagger waiting for a friend (as the lyrics suggest) in front of an apartment block in New York. We can tell he’s waiting as Jagger is tapping his foot and looking left to right, which connotes typical impatient behavior. After we see him waiting the camera cuts to a close up hand held shot of Keith Richards walking in what appears to be the same street that Mick is on, as the mise-en-scene is the same, and the following shot is of Mick, which creates a shot-reverse-shot element , thus reinforcing the verisimilitude within the text. This puts the audience in a situation where they can infer that Mick is in fact waiting for Keith. The next few shots cut between Jagger lip-syncing and Keith walking in the direction of Jagger. They are both positioned centre frame throughout this section of the video, which highlights their importance above the other people in the mise-en-scene.
The song structure is conventional as it contains an instrumental introduction, verses and a chorus, however, the song is much shorter in length that most songs you would see being released today – as ‘waiting on a friend’ contains very short verses and only two of them.
The lyrics are conventional of the rock genre as there is mention of ‘booze’ and ‘women’. People would expect to see women and alcohol mentioned in rock music as rock music was primarily alive in the late 60s/1970s, and that was very much a part of the culture surrounding the rock music scene then and also reinforces the ideology of the band. This supports Tim O’sullivan’s theory that media texts represent the ideology behind the institution and cultural beliefs at the time the text was created. The song was released in 1981, which is when rock was coming to an end – which means the culture if rock and roll was also dying. In this song, Mick is singing about how he doesn’t need booze and he doesn’t need women, all he needs is a friend. This symbolizes rock and roll coming to an end, as he doesn’t see much importance in any of his vices anymore.
Up to this point we can see that the video contains both narrative and performance elements. We’ve seen Mick waiting on a doorstep for Keith Richards – which was established in the shot-reverse shot edit. This creates the first level of narrative as what we are shown through the use of the macro-elements matches the lyrics, thus creating a story narrative. Mick is also lip synching and doing a little dance in the video which creates the performance element. There is no abstract part to this video as there isn’t anything that doesn’t make sense.
Like all videos with a story element to the narrative, this video follows Bordwell and Thomspon’s (1997) theory that each narrative is presented in three ways; inferred events, explicitly shown events and non-diegetic material. First of all, we see Mick outside a building. We are not shown how he gets to that building, but as an audience we infer that he didn’t just appear there and that he had things to do before he was arrived there. It’s easier to read this in the present day as we are more media literate as a generation. Next comes the explicitly shown events, which would be the shot of Mick waiting outside the building. Lastly would be the non-diegetic material, which includes elements such as the background music.
The music video for the song contains both performance and narrative. The structure follows N/P/N/P/N/P/N/P/N/N/N/P/P/P/P+N. The shots also last for a considerable amount of time which matches the tone of the song. The video is also self-reflexive as the location was chosen carefully as to appeal to its target audience. The first location we see in the video is Saint Marks Place in New York. St Marks Place is in the East Village area of Manhattan, which became a thriving and popular area in the 60s – which is when the Rolling Stones formed as a band. This further enforces the assumption that this location was chosen to appeal to its target audience. The locations used in the mise-en-scene are of the dirty streets of New York and later on in the video, a bar. The reason I recognize this as New York is because the architecture, culture and props. The props are iconographic of a lower-class New York area. In the 60s-70s this area of New York contained a lot of working class families but was also booming with different cultures. This supports the ideology behind the band as they want to come across as rebellious, bold and popular, and by hanging around in a working class area with different cultures they show that they are not afraid. The media created a fake rivalry between the Stones and The Beatles in the 1960s. People would refer to the Beatles as wearing the white hat and the Stones wearing the black hat. The audience at the time would not expect to see the Stones in a clean, upper class location, as it wouldn’t suit their media persona. Because of this, we can say they are commercial exhibitionists as in real life outside of the diegesis of this media text, they are in fact living in upper-class areas.
The building we see Mick Jagger standing in front of in the opening shot is the building used for the cover of Led Zeppelin’s album ‘Physical Graffiti’ which reached number one on Billboard’s chart when it was released in in 1975. This supports Michael Shore’s theory that media products contain recycled styles, which causes immediate gratification and matches the Stones’ desired aesthetic. The Rolling Stones have a similar target audience to that of Led Zeppelin, which makes the video have the potential to attract to more Led Zeppelin fans as well as Rolling Stones fans.
The video also follows Todorov’s theory that each story narrative must contain a protagonist and an antagonist coming together (in this case it would be Mick and Keith), which is then followed by a disruption (they don’t have any of their other friends in their company), followed by a quest (Mick and Keith going to the pub to find their friends), and finally ends with a resolution (which would be Mick and Keith meeting up with the rest of the band members at the pub). Pam Cook would also argue that the linearity of cause and effect works within the trajectory of enigma resolution. She is also correct in saying this, as it all happens in order to reach a re-equilibrium.
Overall, to support Tim O’Sullivan’s theory I would say that this video has a message that is put together by the ideology of the band and the culture at the time. The message of this video is to value friendship over your vices, which is a mature and wise thing to say and is relevant of the time as rock ’n’ roll was coming to an end – and the band are saying that with rock ‘n’ roll coming to an end, their lifestyle has too.
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