James Bay Hold Back The River – music video analysis

James Bay – Hold Back The River

• James Bay is a British singer songwriter and guitarist. His first EP was released during of the summer of 2013. He is a indie pop, soul and alternative rock artist.

• The title is a metaphor for holding back tears during a break up or an emotional time in a relationship. Throughout the song, the lyrics frequently imply that a break up is happening unwillingly; For example "lonely water won't you let us wander, let us hold each other‘’ connoting that the tears are because she feels lonely but the tears are also the symbol of them parting from one another. James also sings about how the tears are stopping him from seeing how she really feels almost as if to say that she is hiding something from him such as cheating on him.

Mise-en-scene…• In terms of mise-en-scence, more specifically the layout of the scene, the video is

set in a circular empty space with James in causal wear; jeans and a denim shirt with a hat and a guitar on his back. The circular, empty space creates connotations that correspond to the implied meaning behind the lyrics of the song; An infinite circle of emptiness is a typical feeling when experiencing a breakup or emotional affair. The first minute of the video is in complete darkness with just a small spotlight on James , arguably emphasizing that this is a realistic issue that he has experienced. This relates to the indie-rock genre, of which tends to focus on the purity and realism of the artist, rather than creating them to be a product to entice the audience. Instead, the audience are attracted to James Bay as an artist through the ability to relate to him due to the realist nature he portrays thorough himself, his lyrics and his music video. Both the song and the setting then begins to get more upbeat with yellow panels around the circle and the tone lifts with heavier drum beat. It becomes more upbeat as the verse he is singing is about when him and his lover first met and fell in love, clearly a happy memory. The mise-en-scene of the set correlates with the crescendo of the song.

Narrative and Theory…• There is a lack of narrative in the video making it difficult to fit

it into one of Simon Firth's broad typologies. Despite this it is possible to classify Hold Back The River as a performance video as James Bay is performing like he would do at a gig just without the audience. Andrew Godwin's theory of "particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography" fits perfectly to Hold back the river. The song is clearly an indie song and those of that genres tend to stick to two things in their videos; either having a strong narrative which matches the lyrics without the artist in the video or having simply the artist in the video performing. In this case its the latter for James Bay. Choosing to do this in a video allows the audience to identify with the song a lot more because they can focus on the lyrics and the meaning behind them rather than watching some kind of fiction story.

Camera angles…• In terms of camera angles, indie rock music videos

conventionally include close up shots of the artist playing instruments (often any lead singer of a band also plays guitar) and always have shots of the band playing live in the video. Although James is a solo artist, he still had a band in the video backing up his guitar and his voice. The main shots are always medium shots of James in main; he is the voice and without him there is no band.

Editing…• In terms of editing, throughout the video the editing correlates with the

lyrics of action in the video. When it comes to the bridge of the song the setting cuts to being a blacked out space with a spotlight on James for the first two lines."Lonely water, lonely water won't you let us wanderLet us hold each otherLonely water, lonely water won't you let us wanderlet us hold each other"On the second two lines, it cuts back to the yellow panels with the band because it intensifies. For the rest of the song it switches between two shots from the yellow panels in the circle to a blacked out circle with the tempo of the song staying up beat. His voice also intensifies towards the ending of the song which links to the pace of editing between the shots. The last 30 seconds of the song goes cuts back to James in the blacked out room with spotlights shining on him and his guitar, like he was shown at the beginning.