I Am a Camera (song)

Infobox Single
Name = I Am A Camera
Type = Single
Artist = Buggles
from Album = Adventures in Modern Recording


Released = 1981
Genre = New Wave
Length = 4:32
Label = Carrere
Producer = Trevor Horn
Last single = "Adventures In Modern Recording" (1981)
This single = "I Am a Camera" (1981)
Next single = ""On TV" (1981)

"For the play and film of this name, see Goodbye to Berlin, the novel on which they are based."

"I Am A Camera" is a New Wave song by The Buggles from 1981 of "Video Killed the Radio Star" fame, from their second album, "Adventures in Modern Recording". Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes started writing the song before joining up with Yes. A version of the song was released as "Into the Lens" on the Yes album, "Drama". When Horn and Downes continued with the new Buggles album, the song was completed as 'I Am A Camera.' The two versions feature slightly different lyrics, notably "I will never let you go, and you always let the feelings show" (Yes version) compared to "I will never let you go, if you only let the feelings show" (Buggles version).

In the music video made for the song, during the beginning, there are a pair of Horn's trademark glasses. On one of the lenses is a video and the other is glass. Horn comes out of the video side of the glasses (as illustrated). There are scenes involving Horn singing, broken glasses and opticians' tools. The video is seemingly set in a dollhouse. Towards the end, Horn is seen lying on the floor passed out.

The title is a quote from Christopher Isherwood's "Goodbye to Berlin" (1939). The full sentence reads, "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking." There was a play (1951) and subsequent film (1955) based on the novel under the name "I Am a Camera".