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Watch The Dandy Warhols' Take On 'Catcher In The Rye'

Love is elusive and innocence lost in a new video from The Dandy Warhols, for the band's idiosyncratic pop song "Catcher In The Rye." Like the song's namesake novel, the video opens on a sullen Holden Caulfield character, complete with a red hunting cap and a suitcase in hand, smoking and strolling aimlessly down the sidewalk. A young woman on the other side of the street catches his eye and, after they exchange a few glances, he takes off running with the young woman in pursuit.

Near the end of J.D. Salinger's novel, Caulfield takes his younger sister, Phoebe, to a zoo, where she rides a carousel. And that's where the two characters in The Dandy Warhols' video end up — the man reclining on a bench as he watches the young woman ride a carousel. It's a rare moment of joy for both of them. But the moment is abruptly spoiled with an unexpected and open-ended question.

"I simply told [director] Mike [Bruce] that the song is about love that doesn't need anything in return," Dandy Warhols frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor tells NPR Music in an email. "I'm not even sure that exists, but I didn't tell him that. He did an astounding job. I still get a little choked up by the end."

"Catcher In The Rye" is from The Dandy Warhols' latest full-length, Distortland, released earlier this year on Dine Alone Records. The video features Duke Nicholson (Jack Nicholson's grandson) as Holden Caulfield and Caitlin Carmichael as the young woman.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.