Here’s a pop-culture stray thought to start off your week. Look at this snippet from a recent Tampabay.com article:

All hail Mick’s hips. At 68, Michael Philip Jagger is the hottest — or at least the oldest — sex symbol of the summer.

Not one, but two current radio hits celebrate the wiry, wiggly, prominently lipped Rolling Stones front man…

Well, since Mick Jagger’s back in vogue perhaps we can get an explanation for the music video to “Let’s Work,” a hit song from Jagger’s 1987 solo album, Primitive Cool.

The video is supposed to be a joyous celebration of work, but I recently noticed that it contains bizarre imagery. It begins with Mick running through New York City streets along with a bunch of other people in various work clothes. There are firefighters, construction workers, and office professionals. There’s even a butcher carrying a dead pig in one hand and a cleaver in the other, running like a maniac. Presumably, Jagger’s little throng is distracting the commuters going into the city, but that seems allowable.

So, the initial scenes seem to fit the basic message of the song, which is: don’t be lazy; go out there and work and be proud. Jagger sings: “Let’s work… be free!” (which is the basic sentiment inscribed on the gates of Dachau, but let’s assume that reference escaped Jagger).

Then the video gets weirder. For no apparent reason a phalanx of guys in underwear appear, running behind Jagger. Exactly what workplace did they come from? Then later, two guys carrying a little person on a table join the crowd. They’re hustling along, trying to keep pace, but one of the table carriers is also blind. He’s carrying a white cane and then he trips over it, dropping the table and dumping the little person on the asphalt.

Despite this horrible fall, Jagger keeps running, unfazed! Prancing, clapping, singing “Let’s Work, stand tall, be proud,” Jagger leaves the fallen little person and caneless blind man behind.

Instead of the video ending appropriately – perhaps showing the satisfied faces of the employed after a hard day’s work – we suddenly see fruit rolling down the street, presumably from an overturned cart. Jagger promptly grabs an apple and takes a bite. What’s that supposed to mean? Is he stealing the fruit of another’s labor?

Anyway, elements of the video baffled me. See for yourself here.