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The VHS single cover

Jazzin' for Blue Jean was a 21-minute short film featuring David Bowie and directed by Julien Temple.^[1] It was created to promote Bowie's single "Blue Jean" in 1984^[2] and released as a video single.

The film depicts the adventures of the socially incompetent Vic (played by Bowie) as he tries to win the affections of a beautiful girl by claiming to personally know her favorite rock star, Screaming Lord Byron (also played by Bowie). Rightfully disbelieving him, she challenges Vic to introduce her to him. They make a date for a Screaming Lord Byron show, where Vic attempts to sneak backstage to convince Mr. Screaming to come say hello to him and the girl after the show.

Screaming does come to Vic's table after the show and says hello to him and the girl, but the girl and Screaming Lord Byron have already met (in Peru), and she leaves with the rock star instead of Vic. As they drive off, Bowie breaks the fourth wall and asks the director why the story changed from his concept.

Bowie takes the opportunity at several points in this film to poke fun at himself and his career — particularly his history of drug abuse, his relationships with groupies, and the commercialization of his music ("You conniving, randy, bogus-Oriental old queen! Your record sleeves are better than your songs!"). Kinder self-references are also present, such as the song "Warszawa" from his album Low being played backstage to soothe Mr. Screaming while he's applying his makeup.

The video later appears as an easter egg hidden on the Best of Bowie DVDs. It is slightly modified: in the club where the girl is watching a Screaming Lord Byron video, the screen originally showed footage of the very same concert she and Vic would later attend. On the DVD version, a different promotional video for the song is overlayed on the screen — this is also the trigger for another easter egg, which is itself that alternate video.

The portion of the movie where Screaming Lord Byron performs the song "Blue Jean" in front of the crowd was used as the standard-length music video and clocks in at just over 3 minutes. This short music video is a straight edit out of "Jazzin' For Blue Jean" and later appeared on 1993's David Bowie - The Video Collection.

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