{"id":39,"date":"2022-04-18T13:27:57","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T17:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/?page_id=39"},"modified":"2022-04-25T23:29:25","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T03:29:25","slug":"song-analysis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/song-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I Want to Hold Your Hand&#8221; &#8211; Song Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand - Performed Live On The Ed Sullivan Show 2\/9\/64\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jenWdylTtzs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h6>The Beatles&#8217; performance of &#8220;I Want to Hold Your Hand&#8221; on the Ed Sullivan Show. 1964.<\/h6>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Beatles\u2019 performance of \u201cI Want to Hold Your Hand\u201d featured the entire group\u2014John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The performance features three guitars, two of which are electric, a drum set, and the vocals of Lennon and McCartney. Seemingly basic on the exterior, the song is fraught with musical sophistication and surprise (MacDonald, 2013). The song does not sustain a constant melody throughout, and thus can be classified as surprising.\u00a0To further suggest the unpredictability of the song, the &#8220;&#8230;colloquial opening, to blues turnaround, through a meditative interim that explodes in an outrageous, soaring exclamation &#8211; &#8220;I can&#8217;t hide! I can&#8217;t hide!&#8221; expresses The Beatles&#8217; unique style, and their style&#8217;s unpredictability is perhaps an explanation for the song&#8217;s popularity (Gillmore 2000, 101).\u00a0\u00a0More specifically, Lennon and McCartney\u2019s use of falsetto at the end of each verse is likely both for the notion of surprise and emphasis (MacDonald, 2013). Classically, when vocalists implement falsetto, which is characterized by singing higher notes than one\u2019s normal range, they are attempting to place emphasis on a specific phrase, which, in this case would be \u2018I want to hold your hand.\u2019<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_104\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-104\" style=\"width: 274px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-104\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/files\/2022\/04\/mw286593.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"274\" height=\"358\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-104\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kirchherr, Astrid. Sheet Music Cover for &#8216;I Want to Hold Your Hand&#8217; by The Beatles (Paul McCartney; John Lennon; Ringo Starr; George Harrison). Photograph. London, 1963. National Portrait Gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Furthermore, the song displays the band\u2019s implementation of \u201c\u2026melodic sophistication of the best Brill Building compositions, a rhythm perfectly suited to the new dances, and the loose energy of the surf bands\u2014one reviewer tagged it \u2018Surf on the Thames,\u2019\u201d explaining the popularity of the song, as it effectively built off of previous and current \u2018surf bands\u2019 that specialized in rock n\u2019 roll, like The Beach Boys and The Trashmen (Wald 2009, 231). The Beatles\u2019 performance of \u201cI Want to Hold Your Hand\u201d was \u201c\u2026a summation of all the trends of the previous few years wrapped in a particularly attractive package,\u201d meaning that \u201c\u2026readers didn\u2019t have to choose between buying records by Elvis, Ricky, Frankie, or one of the various Bobbys, because all tastes could be accommodated in one group\u201d (Wald 2009, 231). The Beatles heard the rock n&#8217; roll sounds that took America by storm in the previous decades, and were able to effectively mesh these sounds into a unique style (Ward 1979, E7). In fact, The Beatles &#8220;&#8230;<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">did not invent a style but simply drew attention to sounds and styles that were current in the United States&#8221; (Gillett 321).\u00a0<\/span>The band\u2019s ability to combine previous interpretations of rock n\u2019 roll enabled them to present a unique musical style, effectively changing the course of rock n\u2019 roll by introducing a new genre: rock.<\/p>\n<p>While the television was instrumental in delivering The Beatles\u2019 genre-altering performance to millions of individuals through the screen, the enthusiastic shouts and screams from the audience audibly expressed the popularity of the band. Despite the shouts and cheers of the audience not being part of the actual song, listeners and viewers were bombarded with the sounds of screaming girls in the background of the performance (Hess 1992, 87). Individuals viewing The Beatles\u2019 performance at home were also viewing the camera shots of the crowd and could hear the screams of the audience\u2014only creating a sense of obsession and awe for more viewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Beatles&#8217; performance of &#8220;I Want to Hold Your Hand&#8221; on the Ed Sullivan Show. 1964. &nbsp; The Beatles\u2019 performance of \u201cI Want to Hold Your Hand\u201d featured the entire group\u2014John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The performance features three guitars, two of which are electric, a drum set, and the vocals of Lennon and McCartney. Seemingly basic on the exterior, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/song-analysis\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;I Want to Hold Your Hand&#8221; &#8211; Song Analysis<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5589,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"coauthors":[216730],"class_list":["post-39","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus122-sp22-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}