Lionel Richie – Hello Video Breakdown.

An obvious choice for me this, I don’t know why I didn’t put pen to paper sooner on this, so to speak. Possibly one of my fave ever music videos. Let’s take a look first this time and then I’ll break it down.

Wooo the song is starting! Oh, no, wait. Lionel wants to do some teaching! Billy Boy, who has the worst character name ever, has been in prison and got released three days ago. The last time he was a free man, the Brooklyn Dodgers were still the Brooklyn Dodgers, whatever the fuck that means, and Eisenhower was the president. Right, I don’t know about you but I don’t think my behaviour has ever been affected, especially when it comes to asking someone out, by whomever the President is. For starters, I’m not American, but still, my point stands. If he’s supposed to the director or something in this instance, what sort of advice for how to play a scene is “Eisenhower isn’t president anymore!”. “I was gonna go out today and have a nice walk and take some pictures, but I just remembered Trump is President so maybe I’ll stab some fucker and commit a hate crime!”. Apparently Amanda is intrigued by Billy Boy. Maybe she’s just wondering why the fuck a grown man has the name Billy Boy.

The pair of them get up and start to act out the badly directed scene. He offers up some suggestions of places that don’t exist to show that he’s been in prison for a while. The rest of the class watch. I assume their watching, although their gaze is probably drawn by the fact that Lionel The Director has started stroking the piano and singing! He wanders about then sits down. YOU’RE A REGULAR RIP VAN WINKLE! What the fuck does that even mean!

We cut to her finishing a different class, that Lionel just wanders into, showing a complete disregard for boundaries. It’s at the point we get to see the fact that she’s blind. SEE what I did there. She didn’t. I happen to know that the girl that plays her isn’t actually blind, but did attend special classes to learn how to play a blind girl. Because hiring an actually blind girl was out of the question! They could have just hired a fully sighted girl and blinded her! DEDICATION TO THE CAUSE IS WHAT WE’RE AFTER!

She walks off smiling like some sort of lunatic. She gets some stuff from her locker, then smiles at a guy who smiles at her, despite being blind. Lionel stalks her down the hallway. He is in full of weirdo mode. Apparently nobody thinks to say to her “Are you aware Lionel Richie is following you everywhere”. She arrives in art class and gets seated in front of her sculpture she’s working on. It looks like part of a hedge.

Outside Laura is having lunch. Lionel Richie walks up like he’s about to stroke her hair or something, only to get disturbed by her friends. He runs away. Now we’re in dance class. Again, Lionel is just wandering around. DOES HE ONLY TEACH ONE FUCKING CLASS?! Speaking of which, we’re back in that class. It seems like we’ve been seeing his memories or thoughts as the scene is exactly where we left off. Amanda and Billy Boy are now arguing, which is odd because 2 seconds ago he was trying to ask her out.

We now cut to the part that’s possibly one of the greatest in music video history. Laura has just had a wash or something and wanders to bed with a towel wrapped around her head. All the lights are on, with a lamp on next to the bed so she can read. SHE’S BLIND! WHY DOES SHE HAVE ANY LIGHTS ON! Maybe she doesn’t know they’re on. “Hmm, I spent $4000 on electricity this week…. that’s odd”. Her phone rings. She answers, it’s Lionel. He sings “Hello! Is it me you’re looking for!” and then HANGS UP ON HER! Lionel Richie likes to crank call disabled women. She smiles and puts the phone down. “Classic Lionel.”

He’s then at his piano, belting the song out. Mr Reynolds! Quick! Get to sculpture class! He arrives and she starts talking despite not knowing that it’s him that’s entered. She shows him the sculpture that looks like of like what Lionel would look like if his face had been stung by a thousand bees. As an aside, there were about 5 sculptors made for this video and he hated all of them. He grabs her hands and sings into her face.

The end.

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