It has been brought to my attention that my blog has only featured white people. This is certainly not on purpose! It is because my favorite genre of music is music played for white people by white people (FWPBWP). I think it is important to have diversity, though (affirmative action in action ), so I did a quick search for black musicians with light skin.

I found Lionel Richie:

Prince:

Barack Obama:

and Eagle-Eye Cherry:

Eagle-Eye Cherry seemed the least threatening (Richie is too perm-y, Prince is too sexy, and Obama is too president-y) so I’ll be talking about him and his only song of note: “Save Tonight”. You can expect this kind of fake diversity to continue in the future.

Have you ever encountered another human being? Aren’t they just intolerable?!? I met someone once and he was a real jerk. What if you were the only person in the world?

Paradise. “Save Tonight” by Eagle-Eye Cherry:

The premise of this video is that a man buys a bottle of wine. This triggers a series of events that are not particularly notable.

A man walks down the street, singing.

He enters a grocery store and brazenly steals a grape.

He grabs the aforementioned bottle of wine while singing the line, “a bottle of wine.”

Very evocative.

He then pays the cashier for the wine (and presumably not the grape) without waiting for the cashier to ring him up or make change.

Is this how things are done in Sweden? Did you know that Eagle-Eye Cherry is from Sweden? Did you know that his real name is Eagle-Eye Cherry? All of his countrymen have ridiculous names like Yngwie Malmsteen and his name is super cool. Legend has it his father gave him that name after a baby Eagle-Eye shot a hawk at 300 meters with a crossbow.

Now we see that the cashier is also Eagle-Eye Cherry!

He proceeds to do some of the worst pantomiming possible as he pretends to chop something.

It’s hard to convey in pictures just how poorly he is pretending here. He has no force behind his swings and would thus be unable to cut through anything.

Suddenly, a robber arrives with a gun to [break the law](/posts/my-daddy-was- bankrobber-breaking-law-by/)!

Eagle-Eye Cherry quickly puts his hands up. He still is holding a cleaver in his right hand, though, and is holding it at perfect striking height. He should be showing the robber why you shouldn’t bring a gun to a cleaver fight, but he just stands there. The robber also accepts that this cleaver poses no threat. Is this something Swedish shopkeepers do? Pretend to chop things with a fake cleaver?

The robber promptly turns his back to Eagle-Eye while he ransacks the cash register while Eagle-Eye continues to not kill him with a cleaver.

The robber runs out and we hear a crash.

What kind of car crash would result in this scene? The truck hit the robber hard enough to knock him down and at least partially senseless, yet did not knock him forward at all. Also, he is lying neatly exactly in front of the truck. I don’t think the robber was injured at all, but just got tired and decided to laid down in the street after the accident.

Now we see that the robber is also Eagle-Eye Cherry!

He is simultaneously helped to his feet and detained by some randos on the street. Note that the tag is still on the pantyhose on his head. Did he just steal those pantyhose before robbing the grocery store? What did he wear over his face while stealing the pantyhose? I feel like I need to learn more about robbers’ lives and how they get through the day.

The truck driver is also Eagle-Eye Cherry! Each time someone is also Eagle-Eye Cherry I get even more surprised!

He has a dog in his truck. His hat has a fake dog on it that looks just like his real dog.

That’s pretty cool. The dog is inexplicably not Eagle-Eye Cherry.

He drives off in the truck without speaking to the police, making it a hit- and-run. Another Eagle-Eye Cherry plays the guitar solo to not-particularly- enthusiastic onlookers.

Yet another Eagle-Eye Cherry is sleeping on the street. Upon waking he immediately reaches for a bottle of wine.

Finding it empty he smiles and sings.

He’s wearing the traditional bum-fire maximizing finger-less gloves. Is that why he’s smiling?

The original (and possibly real?) Eagle-Eye Cherry walks by with his bottle of wine. Why did it take him so long to arrive here when the action has not moved at all? What did he do between buying the bottle of wine and now? My theory? He was the dog after all! What a twist!

He gives a single coin to the wino with a flourish. He doesn’t actually hand the money to him, but flicks it down at him so the poor man has to scrabble for it.

Having made himself feel better without actually helping another person (because he’s just helping himself) he walks up the street.

What does any of this have to do with the lyrics? The song is not called “Wine Time.” The tone of the video is a bit jokey but the song is very earnest. It doesn’t match up. In addition, this seems like a love song but there no love interest portrayed in the video. Clearly the song is about Eagle-Eye Cherry being in love with himself. But what does he mean by, “Tomorrow I’ll be gone.” Is he planning on ending his own life? Will the dog kill him? Will he separate his multiple personalities into multiple bodies by removing his arms and legs?

The answer to these questions and more: yes.

-PTD