I Miss Story Driven Music Videos Like “All I Need Is A Miracle”

Friends, when the music video for Mike + The Mechanics‘ “All I Need Is a Miracle” debuted back in May of ’86 – I was finally getting some much needed exposure to the popular music of the time. This was thanks to blocks of music videos courtesy of Nick Rocks or especially the WTBS show Night Tracks which aired late nights on the weekends. Not that I was always watching the music videos themselves, quite often I was playing Zork or another Infocom title with my back to the TV – however I was always recording hours of music videos thanks to our VCR. When I was done playing some interactive fiction for the night I would rewind the tape and check out the videos for the particular songs that caught my interest – in addition to commercials that I might have missed.

The music videos that I enjoyed the most and that I do very much miss these days were the story driven ones – off the top of my head I can point to a-ha with “Take On Me“, Cyndi Lauper’s “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough“, “You’re Only Human” by Billy Joel, or “Land of Confusion” from Genesis. I was equally impressed with “All I Need Is a Miracle” – although what first caught my attention was it featured Roy Kinnear (Help!, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) as well as Victor Spinetti (The Little Prince, The Krays).

The synopsis for this particular music video is that Kinnear is the manager for Mike + The Mechanics – as the band (Paul Carrack, Mike Rutherford, Paul Young, Adrian Lee, Peter Van Hooke) are wrapping up, he attempts to collect their pay for the gig. Turns out they are a last minute booking and due to the low numbers, the club’s owner (Spinetti) demands he be paid 500 pounds for the lost revenue – if Kinnear fails to find the funds the band will lose their equipment… or maybe something even worse.

Granted there is much to love about the music video for “All I Need Is a Miracle” due to the most obvious element – the wonderful song co-written by Mike Rutherford and producer Christopher Neil. But Director James Yukich deserves plenty of praise for the way the video is shot too – although considering by this time he had already helmed music videos and TV specials for the likes of Iron Maiden, Genesis, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar and David Bowie it should go without saying he knew what he was doing, right?