Hold back the river - James Bay video analysis

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. There a number of lyrics in the video that imply that a break up is happening but neither of them want it to happen. For example "lonely water won't you let us wander let us hold each other' this line implies 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 stoping him from seeing how she really feels almost as if to say that she is hiding something from him such as cheating on him.

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 first minute of the video is in blackness with just a small spotlight on James to emphasize the effect of whats happening. 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 because the verse he is singing is about when they first met and fell in love which for him is obviously a happy memory. After this verse, a band comes in to the circle with James in the centre to help lift the feeling of the video. The members of the band all are dressed similar to James in casual smart wear. The camera focuses a lot on the instruments as that is a convention of indie music videos.

There is a lack of narrative in the video so its difficult to fit it into one of Simon Firth's broad typologies. But its possible for it to be a performance video as he 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 t 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 story.

Indie songs have similar conventions as rock songs in terms of their videos. They both 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 of James as he is the focus but even in bands its mostly the lead singer who gets the most camera time because its him that leads the band; he is the voice and without him there is no band.

When it comes to the bridge of the song the setting goes back 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 wander
Let us hold each other
Lonely water, lonely water won't you let us wander
let us hold each other"
On the second two lines, it goes back to the yellow panels with the band because it intensifies. For the rest of the song it switches 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 as he gets more and more into the ending of the song. The last 30 seconds of the song goes back to James in the blacked out room with spotlights shining on him and his guiar.