Roads In Pop Videos

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SteveA30
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Roads In Pop Videos

Post by SteveA30 »

How many roads are glimpsed in videos?

One from the days when they were called Promo Clips, is Beatles Ballad Of John and Yoko, filmed along the A30.
13 seconds in has a green sign for the A30/A330 junction at Sunningdale westbound. Presumably because that was the road to his nice new house near Ascot.

2.00 has a cafe I eventually identified as the Pied Piper restaurant at Basingstoke, near the Winchester Rd junction, with a Shell garage in the background.

3.00 in the fadeout, has the sign for Hatch, west of Basingstoke, eastbound. There must be a lot more unused footage of those two journeys, somewhere.

Search reveals that the outward journey was on March 14 1969, going to his Aunt Mimi's house in Sandbanks, then Southampton Docks, as described in the song.

What other music video roads are there?
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IAN
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by IAN »

A couple more examples but I'm not sure about the roads:

Specials - Ghost Town (1981) - The group was from Coventry but the roads are in London, does anyone know which tunnels are featured?

'Trucking' - From 'Not the Not O'clock News' (1980) (Featuring the Hedgehog sandwich!) - A road with a suicide lane, I think it could be the A4 and the cafe is on the Colnbrook by-pass.

If we widen it to films 'The Man Who Haunted Himself' (1970) has an extended sequence of the M4 Westbound starting on the elevated section.

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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by Halmyre »

Doves 'Kingdom of Rust' features a road trip from the east to west across the Pennines. The M62 is definitely in it, not sure about anywhere else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS9KDL4hy34
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by M5Lenzar »

Does the song about the A470 count?
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by M19 »

Judas Preist - Dead or Alive - filmed on the A40(M), as was a video by the Clash "Rock the Casbah". Not suprisingly this must be one of the most used motorways for pop videos because its probably one of the very few true urban motorways in London.


Ok these are films rather than pop videos but:

The 51st State: filmed on an unopened stretch of the M60 around 2000.

Withnail & I: a piece filmed on the M25 in the 80's I think around Surrey.

Superman 3: Filmed on an unopened, I'm guessing M25, with traffic driving the wrong way to make it look American. However, lack of yellow markings adjacent to the median makes it obvious it wasn't and the road just looks too much like a British motorway! This was the same film where a scene near the end was filmed at Central Milton Keynes.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by dragonv480 »

Ultravox's "Lament" was filmed in and around Elgol on the Island of Skye which was mainly unclassified roads, but I'm sure parts of it were on the B8083, whilst their video for "One Small Day" was filmed on unclassified roads on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by Mattemotorway »

I was told on Friday that the video for N-Trance's 'Set You Free' was filmed around Clifford's Tower in York, and on the A64!
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by a1adam »

M19 wrote:Withnail & I: a piece filmed on the M25 in the 80's I think around Surrey.
This puzzled me, such a blatant anachronism in what is otherwise an exceptionally evocative portrayal of the late 60s. The M25 signs stick out like a sore thumb. Would have been better to have filmed it on the M45!

There's a scene towards the end of the movie where they are pulled by the police on their return to London. I think this was filmed at Gunnersbury (the A4/A205/A406 roundabout).
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by nowster »

Here's where I mention the A627(M) used in the chase scene in Channel 4's GBH.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by A303Paul »

Anyone know which motorway the KLF's Its Grim Up North was filmed on?
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by timbucks »

M19 wrote:This was the same film where a scene near the end was filmed at Central Milton Keynes.
Nope, Wired for Sound by Cliff Richard has several shots of Central Milton Keynes...

Superman III uses Milton Keynes Railway Station as a substitute for the United Nations Plaza when it became too expensive to use UN Plaza as a filming location.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by Chris Bertram »

IAN wrote:Specials - Ghost Town (1981) - The group was from Coventry but the roads are in London, does anyone know which tunnels are featured?
IIRC, the Rotherhithe tunnel was used.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by SteveA30 »

Madness were filmed in their Morris Minor in Driving In My Car but, where?
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by Paninaro »

Macc Lads - No Sheep Til Buxton http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuRfGAlVul4

Video was filmed on the Cat and Fiddle road with the scenes on Macclesfield side of the pub.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by Peter_B5470 »

Any offers for the flyover in "See Emily Play" by Pink Floyd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F94vHO7okZQ
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by Trebeck »

Halmyre wrote:Doves 'Kingdom of Rust' features a road trip from the east to west across the Pennines. The M62 is definitely in it, not sure about anywhere else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS9KDL4hy34
They had a song on the Last Broadcast album which they recorded underneath the M62, called imaginatively enough, the M62 song. It is a little moonshine ditty from which you can hear traffic noises towards the end. Strangely soothing.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by timbucks »

Of course the Westway appears in Road to Hell by Chris Rea, along with some other road that I can't place - there's an iron girder railway bridge crossing this road.

And then there's a drive round what looks like Heathrow in the second half of the video.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by SteveA30 »

See Emily Play seems to be in Europe somewhere, as all the vehicles are foreign. DAF, Citreon, Merc, Renault and possibly Taunus.
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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by Sabrista »

Underpass by John Foxx features the Westway.



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Re: Roads In Pop Videos

Post by Sabrista »

IAN wrote:Specials - Ghost Town (1981) - The group was from Coventry but the roads are in London, does anyone know which tunnels are featured?
I don't know the tunnel (could be Blackwall or Rotherhithe) but London Wall features heavily on that video as well.

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