Video hit Duran Duran

Duran Duran - The Chauffeur

The Chauffeur is a Duran Duran song from their second album Rio in 1982. The song was written by Simon Le Bon as poetry, several years before Rio was even begun. Two different versions of the song were originally recorded by Duran Duran, and the song has been covered by three mainstream artists. Two music videos of the song have been made at different times, by different directors. Unusually for the band, the song's title does not appear anywhere in the song's lyrics, but the refrain from the song has been used by Duran Duran as the title of both a tour video and a book.

The origins of the lyrics for "The Chauffeur" have become part of the Duran Duran legend. In May 1980, while the band were working for Paul and Michael Berrow, who at the time ran the Rum Runner night club in Birmingham, one of the Rum Runner bar maids recommended her ex-boyfriend to be their new lead singer. Simon Le Bon auditioned in May 1980, bringing with him a book of poetry and lyrics, including the lyrics to the song which would eventually become The Chauffeur.

The word chauffeur does not appear in the lyric at any point, however the song is written from the point of view of someone who is driving another person, a woman, on a hot day.

Some versions of the song feature words at the end of the track, spoken sotto voce by a man. This monologue is taken from a natural history recording - the man is speaking about insects in the grass.

The song refrain "sing blue silver" was used as the title of the band's video covering its 1983-84 tour. A book of the same name was also produced to support the tour, showcasing still photography by official tour photographer Denis O'Regan.

The flute-like instrument heard toward the end of the song is an ocarina played by Simon Le Bon.

The Chauffeur is one of two non-single tracks on Rio to have its own music video. None of the band appear in the video. It is a moody black-and-white piece inspired in part by Liliana Cavani's 1974 film, The Night Porter, and the photography of Helmut Newton.

A woman in an erotic costume is driven in a Vanden Plas Princess limousine by a uniformed chauffeur. Elsewhere, another woman dresses herself carefully in lingerie and walks through the streets of London towards a rendezvous in an abandoned multi-storey car park. The chauffeur watches while a third woman (Perri Lister), a topless blonde in an open-bust corset, performs a sensuous dance to the accompaniment of the instrumental coda of the song — clearly an homage to Charlotte Rampling's topless "Dance of the Seven Veils" in The Night Porter.

The video featured on the 1983 video album entitled Duran Duran. It has also been included on the 1999 "Greatest VHS compilation and 2003 "Duran Duran: Greatest — The DVD" compilation.

Sleepthief created a video to accompany the release of The Chauffeur as a single,[8] featuring project member Kirsty Hawkshaw. In this video, which seems at first to have a lighter, dreamier tone than the original, a uniformed chauffeur at separate times drives two different women in evening clothes to an assignation with a man. The women encounter each other twice at the man's house, the first time to observe the assignation, the second time to encounter a murder. The chauffeur then drives the two women away.

The lyrics:

Out on the tar plains, the glides are moving

All looking for a new place to drive

You sit beside me, so newly charming

Sweating dew drops glisten, freshing your side

And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind the front of your dress all shadowy lined

And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart

Way down the lane away, living for another day

The aphids swarm up in the drifting haze

Swim seagull in the sky towards that hollow western isle

My envied lady holds you fast in her gaze

And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind the front of your dress all shadowy lined

And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart

And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind the front of your dress all shadowy lined

And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart

Sing blue silver

And watching lovers part, I feel you smiling

What glass splinters lie so deep in your mind

To tear out from your eyes with a board to stiffen brooding lies

But I'll only watch you leave me further behind

And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind the front of your dress all shadowy lined

And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart

And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind the front of your dress all shadowy lined

And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart

Sing blue silver

Sing, sing blue silver

There's more to this kind of camouflage

More than just colour and shape

Who's going now, in to a classiomatic?