Exhibit A, the 1980 video for Dire Straits’ “Romeo and Juliet” — a great song, to be sure:

Too bad about that video, because HOLY CRAP it’s kind of amazing this effort didn’t kill the whole notion of music videos in its crib. After about the 5th or 6th time I realized the shot was directly and literally mirroring the lyrics, I started making notes. Follow along if you dare.

0:20 “laying everybody low”

As the Romeo actor saunters down a stylized hallway, actors he passes collapse to the floor.

0:47 “He’s underneath the window”

He is underneath a stylized featureless wall with a high window, in which our Juliet lounges.

1:03 “…the dice was loaded from the start”

A disembodied hand shakes and releases dice. The dice have Romeo and Juliet’s faces on them!

1:09 “…and you exploded in my heart”

The Romeo die explodes.

1:18 “…the movie song…”

New set, invoking a movie theater MST3K-style with patron silhouettes in front below a screen. Juliet is on the screen.

1:38 “..come up on different streets”

Romeo and Juliet sashay towards the camera down two parallel, stylized hallways — separated by a wall, natch. Is nothing is too on the nose for this director?

1:57 “…fall for chains of silver”

I think we have our answer.

1:59 “…chains of gold…”

We absolutely have our answer.

2:05 “…pretty strangers…”

A smiling, handsome man in a cheesy fedora rolls by in a T-top Camaro.

2:22 “…when we make love, you used to cry”

This guy makes Brian De Palma look subtle. It’s a tight shot of Juliet’s eye and a single, absurdly large tear. Obviously.

2:28 “…there’s a place for us”

Two folks enter the movie theater set, and take the only two seats left. At least the two people aren’t together, and aren’t Romeo and Juliet, so progress, maybe?

2:38 “…just that the time was wrong”

We’re still in the theater, but the film stops on a shot of Romeo trying to speak to Juliet — but the film stops, and the celluloid burns away! Tragic! Edgy! (And, I assume, completely baffling to millennials.)

2:52 “I can’t do the talk like the talk on the TV”

JESUS CHRIST JUST SHOOT ME. It’s a shot of woman’s disembodied legs wrapped around a small television, on which we see a nose-down shot of a male actor rapidly moving his mouth around as if he’s talking.

3:14 “All I do is miss you”

Our Romeo has fallen from a height and is splayed out, miserably, against a wall. This may seem like progress, but you will be disappointed, because it’s just a setup for what comes next.

3:17 “…and the way we used to be”

Juliet magically fades in, lounging beside him, and then fades away again.

3:23 “and keep bad company”

Romeo is still splayed out as before, but is now surrounded by a several sets of standing legs.

3:27 “kiss you”

Kisses mean lips! The shot cuts briefly from Romeo’s splayed form to a tight shot of Juliet’s lips, then back to Romeo, over and over.

3:39 “…used to cry…”

Improbably enormous tear shot repeats from 2:22.

3:46 “there’s a place for us”

We’re in the theater set again, but now it’s just R&J seated front and center watching a film of themselves lying on a rug together all cozy.

3:56 “it’s just that the time was wrong”

The movie versions of our heroes vanish, leaving the poignantly empty rug.

4:50

INTERPRETIVE DANCE; fadeout as Knopfler plays.