cavo's corner

4. “Mama”

Released as a double A-side with “Who Do You Think You Are,” “Mama” was the Spice Girls’ fourth number one single in their native UK. The video was shot by Big TV! in February of 1997. It features the Girls performing for an audience in an un-plugged sort of fashion. All of the Girls’ mothers are present in the audience.

Victoria Beckham reflects about the day of the shoot: “It took such a long time to film the ‘Mama’ video, but it was nice that our mums were there and could see what we’re doing. It’s good, because they were actually knackered at the end of the day and I said to my mum: ‘Ha! Now you know how I feel every day!” Additionally, Geri Halliwell had this to say:  “I found it a bit bizarre bringing my mum to work with me on the ‘Mama’ video. You know: ‘This is what I do—come and do it, too.’ If you worked in Sainsbury’s, you wouldn’t get your mum to sit with you on the till.” …whatever Sainsbury is.

Sadly, although there is “home footage” of the Girls presumably playing together as young children, five young actresses resembling the Girls were shot specifically for the video. They would revisit this idea for the opening montage of the Return of the Spice Girls tour of 2007-08.

Sugar and Spice and everything nice… Round 10:

Since EMI/Virgin Records/19 Management have decided (stupidly) not to release an official DVD of The Return of the Spice Girls tour, most, if not all video that can be found from the tour is amateur. I choose to post this video of Mama for two reasons. First, the sound quality is actually pretty good. You can hear that the girls are not lip-synching, because if they were, let’s face it, we wouldn’t hear nearly as many flat notes. The second reason is that this is a performance on ether 15 or 16 December 2007 at London’s O₂ Arena where the Manchester Children’s Choir  added their beautiful vocals to the mix. Truly a very fun performance.