Today we’re looking at See You, which is one of my favourite Depeche Mode songs. Yes, there’s a classic red phone box in the video, along with a lot of other gloriously 20th century tech. I promise I loved the song before I knew that!
The video opens in a dark and deserted Hounslow train station, which is a good start. ‘London by night’ is one of my favourite settings. ‘London by night in the ’80s’ is even better.
In a world before phone cameras, people actually used photo booths for purposes other than getting a terrible mugshot that will be immortalised on one’s passport/driving licence for ten years! The vague sort-of-plot of this video begins here, with these photos of a girl whom Dave Gahan is seeking, or something.
I don’t remember ever seeing a photo booth on a train station platform! At first I assumed that the ‘Isle of Wight’ poster was for the music festival, but the festival wasn’t running in the ’80s, so it must just be a pretty tourism poster.
The red phone box, which is the centre of a slightly odd scene where Dave stares at Martin Gore while he’s making a phone call, is obviously the very best bit of the video. Obviously.
We suddenly cut to a Homebase-type store, which is full of the kind of chintzy-looking pink/peach lampshades that were absolutely everywhere when I was little.
Conveniently, the store also has a photo booth in it, with more photos of the mysterious girl lying around. It’s interesting that photos from booths already had to be ‘passport approved’ in the early ’80s, as I thought that HM Passport Office only started to get really pernickety about rules for photos in the ’00s. It’d be nice if you still only had to pay 40p!
It wouldn’t be a home improvement store without a TV department, and those are some super ’80s TVs.
The music section actually looks very similar to a 2019 music section, as physical media has come full circle! I went into HMV the other day and popped up to the music floor out of sheer interest. It was all classic albums on vinyl as far as the eye could see, with the CDs relegated to a couple of racks at the back – because who buys CDs anymore? I didn’t spot any singles though.
The girl in the photos turns out to be the cashier at the store, which (finally) explains why the setting randomly switched about two minutes previously. Dave buys a copy of the See You single, which is like an extra-specially dorky version of the dorky thing where bands wear their own band merch in public.
The video ends with a slightly sinister CCTV monitoring scene, though I do like all the pretty computer keyboards. I remember when keyboard buttons were all orange and grey like that!
Watch the full video:
I think the store is Woolworths. Back in the early 80s many Woolworth stores had excellent record departments.
Good suggestion! I still miss Woolworths.
Yep it was definitely the record dept I’m woollies I , worked there too at that time and recognise the uniform and the old fashioned tills 😀
Brilliant! Gone but not forgotten 🙂
But is it the Hounslow one?
What is the girl’s name in the video?
I don’t know what her name is – there’s nothing about her online as far as I can see. Sorry!
The girl is julia gale,she was in hot gossip the dance group who appeared on the kenny everett video show, her brother is peter duncan who used to be on blue peter in the 70s and 80s.
Im her cousin so thats how i know her.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the info!
The man at the end is Julian Temple the director
Thanks for the info!
Did she appear in music videos for groups also? I remember her in one for Depeche Mode (“See You”) and also I think she did others (Cool for Cats by Squeeze?)
Did she play tucker’s sister in ‘ Tucker’s luck’?
Love this tune…The store is Woolworths in Hounslow, West London, it closed down about 10 years ago, and the rest of Houslow High street has sadly gone to the dogs
Woolies is much missed – I think it was the late ’00s they all shut down.
So it is the one in Hounslow and this was posted in 2021. I used use the café in the late 2000’s. Woolies went bust in the great crash of 2008
It was a British Home Store shop!!!! 2:38 secs in you can see Dave walk across the cafe that was present in all their stores.
Is it Woolies or BHS? There seems to be a little debate emerging. The consensus appears to be in favour of Woolies but it doesn’t mean that you are wrong
Yeah it’s interesting, I’ve no idea myself as I don’t know Hounslow well but it’s good to hear from people who knew it back then!
On the Depeche Mode youtube channel, in the comments for the ‘See You’ video, someone claims to have walked into the store when this was being filmed. They said it was Woolworths in Hounslow. Of course, they could have misremembered, it was a long time ago.
Seriously that is amazing. Peter Duncan was a legend and so were Hot Gossip.
It’s great that we are collaboratively sharing key information to get to where we want to