Synopsis

Shot in grainy black and white, the video places Chan Marshall in a stark, shadowy performance setting rather than building a conventional narrative. She sings with tense, direct intensity as the camera moves through close views, shifting light, and rough, time-bending fragments. The stripped-down imagery leaves the song's unsettling words in the foreground, turning an intimate confession into something exposed and public. Its raw texture matches the abrasive momentum of the track and Cat Power's early aesthetic.

Factoids & Trivia

• "Nude as the News" was Cat Power's first official music video. The song appeared on the 1996 album *What Would the Community Think*, while the video is generally dated to 1997.

• The video was made during a summer program at Bard College, overlooking the Hudson River in upstate New York. Its grainy monochrome style plays with time, light, and deliberately rough image quality.

• Chan Marshall later explained that the song was autobiographical, dealing with an abortion she had at age 20.

• The names "Jackson" and "Jesse" in the chorus refer to Patti Smith's children, rather than to the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.

• The single's B-side, "Schizophrenia's Weighted Me Down," combines elements of Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia" and Skip Spence's "Weighted Down (The Prison Song)."

• The video was later included on *Everything Is Nice: The Matador Records 10th Anniversary Anthology*, released in 1999.