Eddie Money — Take A Little Bit

JUL 01 1982 · 12:00

Eddie Money — Take A Little Bit (1982) Director: Mark Robinson Era: MTV Launch Era / Early Arena Rock Video (1982–1983) - The nascent period of music video as promotional medium, concurrent with MTV's first full year of operation and the mainstreaming of the rock video format. High curatorial value as a confirmed, director-attributed early-MTV performance video from a commercially significant rock act, produced during the format's formative window. The combination of verified directorial credit (Mark Robinson, confirmed via IMDb and IMVDb), album-cycle context (No Control, Columbia 1982), and quantifiable production metrics makes this a strong primary source for both MTV-era programming research and early music video production studies. The video's aesthetic conservatism — warm saturation, controlled pacing, theatrical lighting — is itself historically instructive as a baseline against which more experimental mid-decade productions can be measured. Context: Released in 1982 as a single from the album 'No Control' (Columbia, FC 37960), 'Take a Little Bit' arrived during the critical first years of MTV's existence, when the network was actively shaping which rock acts achieved mainstream visibility. Eddie Money occupied a commercially successful middle ground between arena rock spectacle and radio-friendly pop-rock accessibility. The song was co-written by Spencer Proffer and Dave Lambert alongside Money, and produced by Tom Dowd, a legendary figure in American rock and soul production. The video's warm, stage-bound aesthetic aligns with the period's dominant promotional video grammar — performance-centric, artist-foregrounding, and technically modest relative to the high-concept narrative videos that would emerge by 1984–1985. Director notes: Confirmed as director by both IMDb (title ID tt10535746) and IMVDb. The video is listed with a 1982 release date on IMVDb and a January 1983 date on IMDb, consistent with a late-1982 shoot and early-1983 MTV rotation premiere. Robinson directed at least two other Eddie Money videos from the same 'No Control' album cycle ('Shakin'' and 'Think I'm In Love'), suggesting an ongoing working relationship with the artist and/or Columbia Records during this period. No additional production-specific documentation (crew lists, shooting location, budget) is publicly available in indexed sources.