Synopsis

Crowded House perform in a moody, impressionistic video built around shifting images rather than a straightforward narrative. The band appears amid fragmentary scenes of nightlife, urban spaces, and private moments, with black-and-white footage blending into color and occasionally sharing the same frame. The visual contrasts mirror the song's tension between desire and remorse, creating an atmosphere that feels dreamlike, intimate, and slightly disorienting. As the performance unfolds, the video leaves the story deliberately ambiguous, allowing the music's themes of secrecy and temptation to dominate.

Factoids & Trivia

• "Into Temptation" was released as the third single from Crowded House's second album, *Temple of Low Men*, in December 1988.

• The video's most distinctive technique is its combination of monochrome and color footage. The two treatments are sometimes blended within a single shot, giving the clip an unsettled, almost psychological quality.

• Neil Finn has described the song as being inspired by events involving hotel rooms next to his own, after he noticed people from the hotel bar meeting up late at night. The encounter became the starting point for a song about attraction, guilt, and the consequences of giving in.

• The song's confessional tone was convincing enough to cause personal confusion: contemporary coverage noted that Finn's wife, Sharon, briefly wondered whether the lyrics reflected real infidelity.

• The single reached No. 20 in the Netherlands and No. 59 in Australia. It later appeared on Crowded House's 2002 video compilation *Dreaming: The Videos*.

• The clip belongs to the more atmospheric side of Crowded House's 1988 visual identity, favoring mood and visual suggestion over the playful, pop-art presentation associated with some of the band's earlier videos.