What do you guys think about movies or music videos that have songs playing over images depicted in the song? Let me explain better in the Johnny Cash video for Hurt during the line "Everyone I know goes away" there's a picture of his wife (presumably). I was listening to the Smashing Pumpkins who said they never like videos that are literal to the song. What do you think of that? I hear different songs and think of scenes that they could fit in but do you think the lyrics shouldn't be meant so literally?

The picture in the 'Hurt' video is of Johnny Cash's mother, and the use of it is more of a tribute to her than a literal visualization of the lyric. His wife is in the video, on the stairs behind him when he plays guitar.

I think a fairly direct visualization of a song can be just as effective as an abstract take on it. The Smashing Pumpkins made some great videos, but when I hear a song like 'Hot for Teacher' I want to see a video with, you know, hot teachers.

For me, it depends on the song and what it is trying to convey. I have to make choices like that all the time in my line of work. Sometimes things will just line up in a really magical way without really trying, and other times it will take forever to get the timing right.

That Johnny Cash example was a good one, because he was singing about loss and death, so by using images that convey that, it made the words more powerful through the images that accompanied them. But with something like a love song or a song with very vague or abstract messages, for me, it is best to choose something that isn't literal to the words being sung. I think most music videos tend to take this route, sometimes just to be different and sometimes to experiement with different styles.