UPDATE, Tuesday, Dec. 19: Apparently Money's minions didn't like their master's past being splashed all over the Internet - the file for "I Wanna Go Back" has since been removed. But if you'd still like to read my commentary and picture Eddie in your head, doing his thing, please do.-Johnny Loftus
Let's start your weekend off not with cash, but Money.
The song begins with the blare of a saxophone, which means it rules already, at least in a 1980s pop context. But then you watch the video, and beyond the opening snare dude shot, there’s the sax guy, silhouetted in orange light and wailing away on his brass snake. And we haven’t even seen the Money Man yet! (Snare guy reappears though, and he’s doing a modified Ringwald while he bangs the drum. Awesome.) Cue it, your Friday Money moment, as shot by the A/V club from Eddie’s high school.
Eddie appears in montage, the tattered ends of his moplike mullet lost in a soft dissolve. He’s riding a cab, heading back to his old neighborhood, which apparently is in the same economically-depressed burg that The Boss eulogized in “My Hometown.” Money heads back to his alma mater, Wilson’s Leather drapery coat in full effect with a “Damn I’m good” scarf added. He shakes a few hands, wears sunglasses, and a few more cuts lead us on that the Money Man’s gonna be rocking his old gym in a few hours. And suddenly there he is in all of his hulk-shouldered glory and ruddy East Coast Irish mug, accompanied on stage by a guy in a bandana (!). Eddie wants to go back, you see, but he can’t go back, he knows. Saxophone break.
Eddie wanders into what looks like a shower facility in East Germany before heading outside to greet the neighborhood with a bittersweet shrug. There are a few more flashback-style shots — Eddie’s prom, I guess — but then he’s on stage there, too, and badly mimicking the playing of a saxophone. This is the only part of the clip I hate, because suddenly Money isn’t the everyman anymore. Maybe it’s not supposed to be him, because those shots are intercut with Wilson’s Leather Money walking through the crowd, imagining he’s being beckoned by a frosted blonde lovely who looks like Christina Applegate circa Married with Children. I’m not sure. But you have to watch it until the end, because there’s Ringwalding solo flight snare man again, only this time he's behind his whole kit and absolutely nailing that drum fill. He’s right on cue, and the Money Man knows it, because he snaps his fingers and gives a wry smile over one husky shoulder. Even though he can’t go back, and even though he’s feeling so much older, Eddie knows this track is the jam, and the revenues will at least buy him another cool scarf.
In the 1980s, Eddie was the only Cash Money Millionaire that mattered.
JTL
