Synopsis

Berlin perform "The Metro" in a stark, dreamlike setting that shifts between painted cityscapes, colored lights, club imagery, and an imagined subway journey. Terri Nunn appears as the song's emotionally stranded narrator, while a soldier figure represents the absent lover remembered in the lyrics. The video favors theatrical tableaux and quick visual changes over a conventional storyline, creating a cool, artificial atmosphere that matches the song's synth-driven new wave sound and its themes of heartbreak, distance, and unresolved memory.

Factoids & Trivia

• "The Metro" was first issued as a non-album single in 1981 before appearing in a slightly remixed form on Berlin's 1982 album "Pleasure Victim."

• The promotional video was filmed in 1983 at GMT Studios in West Los Angeles rather than on location in London or Paris, the cities associated with the song's lyrics.

• The production uses painted backdrops, stylized lighting, and constructed environments to suggest streets, transportation, and nightlife without attempting to present a realistic journey.

• Terri Nunn does not visibly perform every sung line. Her on-camera lip-syncing is notably limited to two brief moments, including the song's emotional recollection and its closing apology.

• The clip became Berlin's first major MTV success and received heavy rotation during the channel's early years.

• "The Metro" reached No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 after its 1983 Geffen reissue, surpassing the chart performance of the band's earlier single "Sex (I'm A...)."

• The video was included on "Berlin Video 45," a Geffen home-video release issued on VHS in 1984.