Lonely People

Come Back, Revolution

Revolution didn't make many promotional videos during our career. Most of what we considered promo videos was concert footage. The few promotional videos we did do were scarce and not very well planned.

Ellen got a new director for each promotional video. In mid-January 1966, we filmed our first promotional video for our new album. It was for a new single we released, a song Molly had originally written about her Dad but it shifted to mean all of her family. In a way, it wasn't much different than Hold Me Again. It was a love ballad to a lost love where the singer was begging them to come back, or, in our case, to lost parents. 

The director Ellen had gotten was ill prepared and had no idea how to handle three musicians. Originally, he had wanted us to do an outside shoot, but that was cancelled when it began to snow furiously. All three of us refused to go out in that flurry.

"It's bloody freezing in here," I complained.

Molly sighed deeply, "Is the furnace broke or somethin'?"

"I can hear it rattling," Linda replied, "It must not be strong enough to heat the whole building."

I groaned. All three of us were already in sour moods due to the unpreparedness surrounding this video. I enjoyed filming promotional videos. We could do anything we wanted without having to pretend to be someone we weren't. The stars were Molly Mackenzie, Linda Eastman, and Amelia McCartney, not the characters they portrayed. It was purely Revolution and our imaginations. That set, however, was like a school room just before the teacher walks in. Nobody was where they were supposed to be, all of the supplies were missing, and the leader was nowhere to be seen. 

The three of us were on set. Our instruments had been set up, though we weren't supposed to actually play them. Miming was not my favorite thing in the world, but it was easy to do. All I had to do was tap the drums without making any real noise. It sounded easy, in theory. Mimicking was simple until you felt the itch to play. By really playing, we would mess up the audio and have to re-shoot the whole video. 

The set itself made no sense to me. It seemed as if we were in a library. Walls of books surrounded us. Molly sat on an armchair while I was set up on the fireplace. Linda sat cross-legged on the desk with her keyboard in her lap. The fire was fake, of course, or else it may have been somewhat warm in there.

"Alright, we're ready," the director, Jefferson, announced as he walked in.

Following him was a male and female. They looked to be a couple, as they were holding hands and standing a little bit too close to each other. Jefferson gestured to the middle of the library where a pile of books waited. The two sat around the books and prepared to pretend to read.

"It's about bloody time," I sighed, "We haven't got all day, you know."

"Amelia, please, be respectful," Ellen chided.

She stood just behind the camera. Jefferson shook his head, "No, it's my fault. I should have made sure the actors were here before you arrived."

"Gotta learn somehow, yeah?" Molly asked sympathetically.

"I suppose. Let's carry on then, shall we?"

When the camera began rolling, Molly began singing. She was the only one not miming, except when it came to her guitar. Her singing was the only sound filling the building.

I could listen to her sing all day. She had a voice the sounded like hot chocolate feels. It was kind, filling me with a warmth that would never fade away, even when she was gone. She made me feel at home in the strangest of places and safe in the most dangerous situations. Her voice had a magic to it like none I had ever seen.