Retro Video of the Week: "Caught Up In You" by .38 Special

An Austin-based confidante of mine named Dan texted me earlier today with a link to the video below:  "Caught Up In You" by .38 Special.  I haven't seen the video in a while, and I was reminded how fantastic both the song and the video are.

.38 Special was (and still is) a Southern rock band, formed in Jacksonville by Donnie Van Zant, younger brother of late Lynyrd Skynyrd lead singer Ronnie Van Zant (and the older brother of Ronnie's replacement when Lynyrd Skynyrd re-formed in the mid '80s, Johnny Van Zant).  Between 1980 and 1991, the band had 15 songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100, including 9 Top 40 songs and two that cracked the Top 10 ("Caught Up In You" and 1989's "Second Chance").

Released in 1982, "Caught Up In You" is probably the second-most recognizable .38 Special song after "Hold On Loosely," even if the latter wasn't as successful on the charts.  It's a catchy hard rock song, written by two of the band's guitarists, Don Barnes and Jeff Carlisi, as well as Survivor's Jim Peterik.  As I mentioned above, it hit #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

The video is a wonderful slice of the early '80s, and presumably what every small live music venue back then was like.  There's almost too much good shit going on in this video:
-The two greased-up meatheads arm wrestling
-The creep in the brown leather jacket making phone calls from a pay phone in a bar.  That's never a sign that you're up to anything good.
-The dude in the trucker hat, sleeveless brown shirt, and red suspenders, with tatted sleeves 25 years before it was cool, fed up with his can of Bud Heavy
-The hot blonde wearing a man's button-down shirt and high-waisted jeans, who narrowly avoids being roofied by the dude in the brown leather jacket, as she gets whisked away to the dance floor by a man who could very well be Chris Collinsworth, wearing a tight red t-shirt tucked into jeans with a white belt.
-I especially like the one guitarist's getup, clearly inspired by a combination of Gallagher and Mork.
-There's the other hot blonde, dancing alone in a blue swimsuit.
-And what '80s club would be complete without a mechanical bull?
-But of course, this is a club that plays all types of music, as evidenced by the fact that there are punks, jocks, new wavers, preppies, extras from Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" video, rockers, and rednecks.
-Is that Sam Kinison playing an arcade version of Gorf?
-All's well that ends well, though, as the guy in the brown leather jacket turns out not to be a creep, but actually some sort of juke joint Lothario, who ends up bagging the blonde after all, or maybe she just stole someone else's hotel key and flashed it to the guy, and that was the plan all along: to rob Chris Collinsworth.

I hope this video provides you with as much joy as it provided me on this first day of Lent.  Clearly, I gave up not watching awesome videos for the next 40 days.