February is the worst month of the year by far. Winter has dragged on, and refuses to leave. The only holidays are either lame (President's Day) exploitative (Valentine's Day) or just plain awful (Super Bowl.) It means worrying about doing taxes and whether the furnace boiler will hold out.
In this most awful of months I retreat to my comforts. This means eating meatloaf and rice and beans, drinking bourbon (as I am doing as I write), and listening to 80s pop music. I especially like looking at old music videos, which conjure up my youth like little else.
Joe Jackson's vid for "Steppin' Out" certainly does the trick. The bouncy, fruity Casio synth line anchoring the song tells us that we have landed in unmistakably in 1982. In the video we see the strange 1980s obsession with the 1940s, as Jackson's wardrobe consists of a vintage tie and suspenders, only to change to a tux with a white tie. He plays a kind of narrator, playing the piano as a maid imagines the night she could have on the town with her boss's dress.
The setting is New York City, about to emerge from its 70s malaise to becoming the capital of World Money in the new neoliberal dawn. In that way the video is a very subtle kind of social critique, showing the intensification of class disparities as the Reagan-Thatcher revolution sets its teeth in. Jackson himself would soon announce that he was done making music videos, which was a real statement of rebellion at the time when they were becoming the preeminent art form.
"Steppin' Out" is a pretty little song, encapsulating that feeling of what it's like to move to the big city and going out on the town, feeling both quietly hopeful yet out of place. It certainly fits February, a month of quiet hope if there ever was one.
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