Listening Post

Talk about method acting, Baxter Dury got his head punched in for his new video

A painful dream sequence

If you’ve heard Baxter Dury‘s recently released album ‘Prince of Tears’ you’ll have clocked that over the past 18 months he’s taken a good kicking when it comes to the matters of the heart. The new video for the album’s title track could be a metaphor for Baxter picking himself up off the canvas and winning the day. Except, it isn’t. It’s basically three minutes of him getting his ears boxed in – all bleeding eyes, puffy lips and fuzzy concussion – until the point that he’s just laughing, presumably before he passes out…

“‘Prince Of Tears’ is a dream sequence about fighting something that you love that will destroy you,” says Baxter.

To which director, Roger Sargent, adds: “Baxter trained for two weeks to prepare for the ‘Prince Of Tears’ video. Though some trickery is involved, 80% of the punches are real – and hurt! We wanted that realism to be the spine of the shoot, so that Baxter’s acting would be all the more real. It still gets me emotionally every time I watch.”