Credit: Rankin
Rod Stewart is out with the video for his new hit, “Didn’t I,” written from the perspective of a father whose daughter has gotten mixed up with a bad crowd. The video tells the story in metaphor, but they’re both pretty dark. However, Stewart says he didn’t actually plan to write a cautionary tale.
“I didn’t know I was gonna write this song, ‘Didn’t I.’ This is a question I always have trouble answering, because they say, ‘Well, why did you write that?’ and ‘How did you write it?'” he tells ABC Radio. “I didn’t set out to write a song about parents’ distress over their teenage kids who may be getting into drugs…it just turned out that way.”
The video follows a female ballet dancer. She starts out wearing all white, but then switches to black and white as she meets a tattooed male dancer, also wearing black and white. As they dance together, suddenly, they’re both wearing all black: Things are getting dangerous.
We then see her waking up in bed: He’s gone and she has numerous tattoos, including knuckle tattoos that say “Pure Pain.” She dances alone on a rooftop, wearing a white top, black skirt and black shoes, as if her innocence is trying to reassert itself, but it’s losing.
As the clip ends, she walks down the street barefoot, her ballet shoes in her hand, and drops a hand-lettered sign that says “Homeless and hungry.”
“Once I’d thought of the title, ‘Didn’t I,’ then the rest just fell into place,” Rod says of the song. “But I think it seems to be — as far as I can know — it seems to be registering with parents quite a bit.”
“Didn’t I” is from Stewart’s upcoming album, Blood Red Roses, due out September 28.
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