1985 Music Video By ZZ Top Features A Nightmare On Elm Street’s Heather Langenkamp!

Friends, as I have talked about on the site many times now – while music wasn’t something we listened to in my household – I did get to hear popular songs while riding in the car. So by the time this music video for “Sleeping Bag” was being aired on the likes of MTV – I was familiar with ZZ Top thanks to hearing their hit songs like “Legs” and “Sharp Dressed Man” while driving around with my Father. At the point I finally started collecting music – spending late evenings trying to catch up with everything I had missed – a couple of ZZ Top albums made their way into my collection. For what it might possibly be worth, two of my favorite ZZ Top songs and music videos happen to be their cover of Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” as well as “Doubleback“, which was from their 1990 album Recycler and featured in Back to the Future Part III. In addition to the fact that the third picture in the Back to the Future series allowed Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill to appear in the film itself!

Speaking of films – when ZZ Top released the music video for “Sleeping Bag” in 1985, it just so happened to feature a few recognizable faces. As I’ve already revealed from the title of this article, none other than Heather Langenkamp of A Nightmare on Elm Street is the main character. Considering that just a few months before the video for “Sleeping Bag” debuted – Heather’s character of Nancy Thompson was going toe to toe with Freddy Krueger – it is no wonder that she is quick to stop the thief that enters her bedroom to retrieve some stashed money. Speaking of said thief, it turns out to be the iconic character actor Tracey Walter (Repo Man, Batman). However the young man who comes to Heather’s aid is John Dye of Touched by an Angel and Tour of Duty fame!

The fun facts keep coming though – as the Director for “Sleeping Bag” is Steve Barron – who has a pretty amazing list of credits for directing music videos. He has worked with ZZ Top a number of times but also shot videos for the likes of Thomas Dolby, Michael Jackson, Kenny Loggins, Bryan Adams, Toto, Dire Straits, and Natalie Cole to name a few. Barron though has also directed for film and television including Electric Dreams, Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, Merlin, and a little known film from 1990 called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.