History Main / TalkyBookends

* "[[Music/WeCantDance I Can't Dance]]" by Music/{{Genesis|Band}} ends with one of these. It's an homage/parody of the segment that originally closed Michael Jackson's "Black and White" from ''Music/{{Dangerous}}''.

* Music/LMFAO's "Sorry For Party Rocking" begins with a married couple bickering while LMFAO host a loud party next door. Eventually the husband storms over and demands that they turn their music down; LMFAO respond with a TitleDrop and slam the door in his face as the song starts up. The video ends with them collapsing from having partied too hard, followed by a scene where one of the departing partygoers finds an MP3 player with "Party Rock Anthem" on it and begins mindlessly dancing to it, revealing it to be a [[StealthSequel Stealth Prequel]] for that song's video.

* Music/HueyLewisAndTheNews' video for "The Power of Love" (featured on the ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' soundtrack) begins with a 2-minute long sequence of the group getting onstage and talking about how they've "sold out" to the movie business, while Doc Brown arrives at the venue and tells someone to watch the Delorean. The final half-minute of the video has the Delorean (stolen by a clubgoer and his date) arrive back in the present while they comment on their experience. All in all, it takes up nearly half of the video's running time.

* Music/MichaelJackson's ''Music/{{Thriller}}'', which is about fourteen minutes long, was the TropeCodifier; it's about five minutes before we get to the song. From that point onward, many of his bigger videos had these, to the point that they could run upwards of ten minutes (he preferred they be called short films). After their initial airings they were usually trimmed to just the song portion.
** ''Music/{{Bad}}'': The setup establishes that Michael's character is an inner-city youth who was able to attend a private school, and when he returns to his old neighborhood, his former gangmates want him to prove he's still tough. When he cannot bring himself to rob an old man in the subway, the resultant challenge from the leader leads into the song; the full-length version ends with the leader accepting that he's still tough, but in a way that does not require violence to prove it. Keep in mind that this video is ''18 minutes long'' and the song takes up a good five on its own.

** ''Film/{{Moonwalker}}'''s segments for "Speed Demon" and "Smooth Criminal" from ''Music/{{Bad}}'' -- Michael is pursued on a movie set in the former, and the latter sandwiches the song in an elaborate fantasy story about him, his child friends, and Joe Pesci's character Frankie Lideo, who wants to profit from selling drugs to children. Michael saves the day by turning into a sportscar, mecha and spaceship. The middle ten minutes is the music video proper; set in an old dance hall, it has [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment nothing to do with the plot whatsoever.]]

** Other '80s hair metal bands had the same general idea: Music/{{Cinderella}}, Music/MotleyCrue, Killer Dwarfs, etc. A standout was Music/TwistedSister, with videos where the introduction led into rebellious slapstick against [[TheNeidermayer an abusive authority figure]].

* "I Can't Dance" by Music/{{Genesis|Band}} ends with one of these. It's an homage/parody of the segment that originally closed Michael Jackson's "Black and White" from ''Music/{{Dangerous}}''.

* "I Can't Dance" by Music/{{Genesis}} ends with one of these. It's an homage/parody of the segment that originally closed Michael Jackson's "Black and White" from ''Music/{{Dangerous}}''.

* Cold's "Stupid Girl" is primarily a PerformanceVideo where the band performs in front of a small audience of fans. However, in keeping with the song's lyrical theme, some of said fans were also interviewed about frustrating romantic breakups, and asked to rip up signs with their ex's first name on them; the interviews were used as montages at the beginning and end of the video, while the sign-ripping scenes were cut to throughout the performance footage.

* The video for "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)". [[MyChemicalRomance "You like D&D, Audrey Hepburn, Fangoria, Harry Houdini, and croquet. You can't swim, you can't dance, and you don't know karate. Face it, you're never gonna make it."]]

** "I Wish It Would Rain Down" starts off at a rehearsal for a show, with a complaining director. The singer for "Rain" is missing, so 'Bill Collins' (who "used to be the drummer for a really good band, and when the singer left, he took over") gets elected to sing it. Throughout the song, he performs in the show, tours, gets a part in a movie, becomes rich and famous, wins awards... and then it turns out it was all an ImagineSpot, and the ending bookend is the director deciding to cut the number. "This was not good."

* An odd PerformanceVideo example: The sequence of the Eagles warming up before "Hotel California".

* All of Poison's early videos featured a brief introduction which not only hinted at the theme of the featured song, but also [[ContinuityNod included a snippet from a previous video or song]].
** Other '80s hair metal bands had the same general idea: Twisted Sister, Cinderella, Motley Crue, Killer Dwarfs, etc.

* "Hello", by Lionel Richie. Seemingly a sappy romance, unless you consider you consider that the video tells the story of a teacher [[StalkingIsLove stalking]] a blind girl from his class, calling her in the middle of the night to ask if "it's me you're ''looking'' for".

* Of course, Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends".

* Blind Melon's "No Rain" beings with a short tap routine, followed by hysterical audience laughter. It sets up the story for the rest of the video.
* Music/WeirdAlYankovic took the (now outdated) ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' intro for "I Lost on Jeopardy" to help establish the location. He also does this with "Like a Surgeon", showing the intern walking through the corridors (and naturally using giving Film/TheThreeStooges a ShoutOut).

* This trope (along with [[MidVidSkit Mid Vid Skits]], fandom specific [[EasterEgg easter eggs]], and the occasional credits sequence) is the reason why most [[Music/ThirtySecondsToMars 30 Seconds to Mars]] videos are longer than the songs themselves. The worst offender is "Hurricane"; the song is 6 minutes long, the full video is 13 minutes long. The video was originally intended to be ''20 minutes long''. [[SerialEscalation And who knows how long the tie-in videos they intended to release afterwords were going to be.]]

* The video for Music/{{Aerosmith}}'s "Love In An Elevator" opens with scene of the band walking through a department store and running into a hot employee coming out of the elevator: "[[ElevatorFloorAnnouncement Second floor, hardware, children's wear, lady's lingerie.]] Oh, good morning Mr. Tyler... [[ElevatorGoingDown going down?]]"

* Music/TwistedSister started "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock" with teens getting scolded by authority figures, a father and a teacher respectively. "We're Not Gonna Take It" plays a snippet of "I Wanna Rock" in the opening.

* TwistedSister started "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock" with teens getting scolded by authority figures, a father and a teacher respectively. "We're Not Gonna Take It" plays a snippet of "I Wanna Rock" in the opening.

* The video for "Fight For Your Right to Party" by the BeastieBoys starts with two rather nerdy looking teens suggesting they have a party with soda and pie. One expresses a hope that "no one bad shows up". Cue the Beastie Boys....

* HueyLewisAndTheNews' video for "The Power of Love" (featured on the ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' soundtrack) begins with a 2-minute long sequence of the group getting onstage and talking about how they've "sold out" to the movie business, while Doc Brown arrives at the venue and tells someone to watch the Delorean. The final half-minute of the video has the Delorean (stolen by a clubgoer and his date) arrive back in the present while they comment on their experience. All in all, it takes up nearly half of the video's running time.

* The beginning of the video for "Everybody's Fool" by {{Evanescence}} is a fake commercial.

* Music/MichaelJackson's "Thriller", which is about fourteen minutes long, was the TropeCodifier; it's about five minutes before we get to the song. From that point onward, many of his bigger videos had these, to the point that they could run upwards of ten minutes (he preferred they be called short films). After their initial airings they were usually trimmed to just the song portion.
** "Bad": The setup establishes that Michael's character is an inner-city youth who was able to attend a private school, and when he returns to his old neighborhood, his former gangmates want him to prove he's still tough. When he cannot bring himself to rob an old man in the subway, the resultant challenge from the leader leads into the song; the full-length version ends with the leader accepting that he's still tough, but in a way that does not require violence to prove it. Keep in mind that this video is ''18 minutes long'' and the song takes up a good five on its own.

** ''Film/{{Moonwalker}}'''s segments for "Speed Demon" and "Smooth Criminal" -- Michael is pursued on a movie set in the former, and the latter sandwiches the song in an elaborate fantasy story about him, his child friends, and Joe Pesci's character Frankie Lideo, who wants to profit from selling drugs to children. Michael saves the day by turning into a sportscar, mecha and spaceship. The middle ten minutes is the music video proper; set in an old dance hall, it has [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment nothing to do with the plot whatsoever.]]

** "You Rock My World": Circa the 1930s, Michael and his buddy Chris Tucker pursue a pretty woman into a mob-run club whose leader is played by MarlonBrando.

* BillyJoel's "Uptown Girl" has an opening which was only shown when it premiered on NBC's old ''Friday Night Videos'' show: it started off with Joel watching a fragment of his "Tell Her About It" video on a TV in the gas station that is the set for the whole video, which then briefly cuts to the bumper for ''Friday Night Videos'' before he shuts off the TV and launches into the song.

* The video for TomWaits' song "Downtown Train" starts with two old people discussing how "Everytime there's a full moon he comes out and sings. It drives me crazy!"

* "I Can't Dance" by Music/{{Genesis}} ends with one of these. It's an homage/parody of the segment that originally closed Michael Jackson's "Black and White".
** Also "Jesus He Knows Me," which opens with PhilCollins as an unscrupulous televangelist asking viewers to contribute eighteen million dollars to the Lord.
** And Phil Collins' song "Don't Lose My Number" has a very surreal meta video that involves him talking to directors about their ideas for the song's music video (each of which parodies another music video or movie). The video doesn't just have an opening and closing, it continually cuts away to the dialogue throughout the song. If you've ever wanted to see Phil Collins fending off the post-apocalyptic goons from ''MadMax'' or battling a samurai warrior in ancient Japan, this is the video for you.

* BruceSpringsteen as a pump jockey at a gas station asking the woman if she wants her car brought back to her house, and she says that she'll come get it later. Then the song "I'm On Fire" where he tells of his burning love for her (in his head) and it ends up with him driving the car to her place anyway, him seeing her husband, leaving the car keys in the mailbox, then walking away, smiling anyway.

* FallOutBoy's video for "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me" has this and some MidVidSkit-ness.

** Their video for "I Don't Care" features bookends including [[Music/GunsNRoses Gilby Clarke]] revealed as SarahPalin [[MindScrew in disguise]].

* The video for LadyGaga's "Paparazzi" starts with a three-minute long sequence where her boyfriend throws her off a balcony while photographers watch, and has a brief intermission where she gets back by poisoning him (and [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity telephoning a confession to the police]]).

* DavidBowie's Jazzin' for Blue Jean, a 20 minute short film that wraps around Blue Jean, extra points for Bowie playing two characters, one being a parody of his 'glam rock' image, the other poking fun at it.

* "Windowlicker" by AphexTwin opens with a four minute segment examining the lives of two broke wannabes. Several seconds of [[ClusterFBomb NSFW bickering]] ensures that the opening segment will never be seen on the airwaves. Of note is a unidentified but appealing song playing on a car stereo; new fans frequently ask for that song's title.

** ''Ghosts'' '''is''' actually a short film at 38 minutes, with three songs -- but there's lots of talking; Michael is a spirit of some sort who faces a TorchesAndPitchforks mob of angry parents [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything who disapprove of his secretly meeting with their children for ghost stories.]]

* TheDecemberists' "Oh Valencia!" does this to start and end the video's tragic plot.

* Brad Paisley has done this a number of times over the years. His videos for "I'm Gonna Miss Her," "Celebrity," "Online," and "Waitin' on a Woman" each hold bookends, including appearances by WilliamShatner, Jason Alexander, and Andy Griffith.

* Music/WeirdAlYankovic took the (now outdated) ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' intro for "I Lost on Jeopardy" to help establish the location. He also does this with "Like a Surgeon", showing the intern walking through the corridors (and naturally using giving TheThreeStooges a ShoutOut).