James Bay is a British singer-songwriter known for indie pop, soul, and alternative rock music. His music video for "Hold Back the River" depicts him performing the song alone in a circular empty space, representing the emptiness of a breakup. The video begins in complete darkness for added realism, then uses changes in lighting and camera shots that correspond to the lyrics and tone of the song. Throughout, the video focuses on close-ups of Bay singing and playing guitar to match the typical style of indie rock music videos.

1. James Bay
Hold Back The River – music video analysis

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 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 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.