“Pictures of Matchstick Men”
by Camper Van Beethoven (originally by Status Quo)
from the album Key Lime Pie
1989
Buy the album on Amazon

I was totally scratching my bean this week trying to think of a cover song I wanted to blather about for a couple of graphs.  I keep a little notepad of cover songs going so I can write down ideas as they pop into my head or come up on shuffle, but nothing on there was really speaking to me.  So I started looking through recent posts to see if anything would spark a thought.  I saw the post about Cracker’s “Teen Angst” and started wondering if they had done some cover songs as B-Sides or something and then I suddenly remembered this CVB song.  I had always known it was a cover, but I thought it was by Strawberry Alarm Clock, however  I was nowhere near being correct.  But before we get to the original, let’s take a few minutes to watch the amazing, obviously late-80s music video for CVB’s version.  It’s about 120 Minutes-worthy as you can get.

So, for a late-80s, early-90s alternative video, how did “Pictures of Matchstick Men” do?

• Weird stock animal footage: check
• Weird black and white footage: check
• Weird footage of images from the current music video shot off of a TV screen: check
• Weird slow motion: check
• Creepy dolls: check
• Creepy footage of eyes: check
• Extreme close-up of a mouth: check
• Weird negative footage (bonus if shot on a stairway): check/bonus check
• Slinky: check
• Band dressed nicer than they normally are: check

We have a winner!  Plus it’s a great song, and IMHO a helluva lot more enjoyable than the original version by Status Quo.  By the way, great name fellas.

And dear reader, here’s a bonus cover I discovered while searching for the original version.  Here’s Type O-Negative featuring Ozzy Osbourne.  It’s… something.