Richard marx- HAzard

Analysis - Richard Marx. “Hazard” (1991).

The video is similar to David Lynch’s film and TV series Twin Peaks and follows the investigation of a young woman’s strangulation by a white scarf. Richard Marx is the owner of the scarf, and the song is his story and protestations of innocence. Though the visuals could work independently of the soundtrack, the song in this case is hardly a “backcloth’ to the visuals, and serves to enhance the visual imagery.

Hazard is a small city in Nebraska, America, and the video clip fades up with the Hazard City Limits sign, and close-ups of some of the city’s scenery - trees, plants, and a river (which is to become important later in the clip). Just before the keyboard chords play the second half of the introduction, a stone is dropped into the river, upsetting the calm equilibrium of what we have just seen, and is the first sign of any human presence. As the keyboard chords begin, we see some plants underwater, swaying to the rhythm of the song.

A sense of tension is built up in the first verse, firstly by the words and the visual imagery. Marx sings -

My mother came to Hazard when I was just seven,
Even then the folks in town said with prejudiced eyes
“That boy’s not right”

while we see a young boy crying and hiding his eyes from a group of local men who are taunting him, before we see him running away through a field of tall grass. The reasons behind his treatment are not made clear at this point, and the lyrics continue -

Three years ago, then came along Mary,
First time someone looked beyond the rumours and lies
And saw the man inside.

An affair is established between Richard Marx’s character and the young woman (who we later learn is called Mary Murphy), and we see a lot of close contact and laughing as she jokingly tightens the scarf around his neck. It becomes evident in the chorus that the verbal narrative occurs after Marx has been arrested for the murder of Mary Murphy -

We used to walk along the river,
She loved to watch the sun go down.
We used to walk down by the river
And dream our way out of this town.

The melody that accompanies the lyrics above acts as a chorus section, and the instrumental texture changes (but only slightly) with the addition of an arpeggiated figure on acoustic guitar. It could be argued that while the verses act as a narrative background to Marx’s situation, the choruses seem to be more heartfelt, either as a confirmation of his love for Mary Murphy (as with the first chorus, above) or as a protestation of his innocence, as in the second and third choruses, which are lyrically different to the first -

I swear I left her by the river,
I swear I left her safe and sound.

The visuals for this second verse feature the police investigation and are mostly shot around the river, which is being dragged in order to recover her body.

The climax of the song comes during its middle section (in the bridge section). This is the first time we hear a full drum kit, and we learn more about Marx’s past as we learn that he set fire to his house as a child. This middle section may therefore be connected with fire, while the other sections may be connected with water.

The main filmic aspects of this promo video are the use of spoken dialogue during the instrumental break, which is a solo for acoustic guitar. It takes place during Marx’s interrogation, and is exclusive to the video version of the song. The music in this section is obviously secondary to the combination of dialogue and visuals, but this is mainly due to the absence of lyrics, which are the main narrative aspect of the song that help advance the visual narrative. The visual narrative closely follows the textual narrative rather than the musical syntax, though this is not always the case with promo videos that combine narrative visuals with epic musical construction. “Hazard” is little short of startling in its reliance on film techniques.