Notes on a Lost Art: Melissa Etheridge- “Come to My Window”

1. I think this is Juliette Lewis’ best work. She’s an Oscar-nominated actress, but she never improved upon this untethered but focused performance in a video. She appeared in “Come to My Window” just before becoming legitimately famous for Natural Born Killers, and people unfamiliar with her thought she was actually a mental patient who had been exploited by director Samuel Bayer and Melissa Etheridge. I guess there were a lot of people attacking Melissa Etheridge for spurious reasons in 1994.

I met Lewis once at a promotional event for her band, and, when I told her that I loved her in this, she looked at me as if I had just farted in her face. Such is still the low-culture reputation of videos—you can’t even be complimented for a great one. 

2. If this video cost Island Records any more than $20, I would ask to see some receipts.

3. I like the video, but I’m not sure it fits the song thematically. That chorus is supposed to mean something. It’s unapologetic. It’s cathartic. It’s decisive. And Bayer is implying that it might as well be the words of a lunatic? What do I know though? I certainly didn’t direct “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “No Rain”. (But I do think I could have directed the Nightmare on Elm Street remake*.)

4. Fun ’90s fact: After professional wrestler Owen Hart died during a match, the WWF played “Come to My Window” as part of the memorial special commemorating his career. Uh…don’t ask, don’t tell, professional wrestling. 

5. Bayer, who started his career as a painter, has more technical acumen than a lot of other video directors, especially at the time. In addition to directing, he is the cinematographer and camera operator on all of his shoots, and that level of control is what gives most of his videos their unique look. Here the black-and-white is unbelievably stark and over-saturated, and the focus is narrow so that Etheridge and Lewis can dodge in and out of it. (Even his color videos are pretty monochromatic.) That sort of exaggeration of the image is only possible (for him) with film, which he still shoots music videos on, putting him in an undeniable minority. 

*- Don’t remake a movie that’s already perfect, especially if your only contribution is adding a backstory. We don’t need to know why Freddy Krueger is the way he is; the entire point is that he’s constructed from rumors and ghost stories and every kid’s deepest fears. He’s the boogeyman: Don’t make him realistic. This goes for Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory too. Go away.