Textual Analysis of The Same Genre: Heart of The Country - Paul and Linda McCartney

The video I am analyzing is ‘Heart of The Country’ by Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney. The song is from their 1971 album Ram. The song was written after Paul left the Beatles and is about when Linda and he were looking to escape their busy lifestyles to the countryside. Unfortunately, it is unknown who directed the video. 

The genre of the video is folk rock. The video, like other videos of the same genre contains natural locations, such as long grassy meadows and beaches. It also contains a soft blur edit at the beginning and is very soft focus throughout, which is especially noticeable when the sun appears brighter in the video. The softness on what would usually be a harsh sunbeam makes the video appear more relaxing and soothing.  The lengths of the shots are also longer than most modern day music videos. This gives the audience the opportunity to really take in the location and surroundings and embrace the feel of the song and setting, which works together perfectly.  There are also a lot of low angles, which not only make Paul and Linda look more dominant as the stars of the music videos, it also makes the audience feel as though they are there watching them; due to some of the shots being filmed through long strands of grass.

The relationship between lyrics and visuals is quite an obvious one. In the lyrics we hear ‘Looking for a home in the heart of the country’, while we see Paul and Linda enjoying themselves in the countryside. The word ‘heart’ also has a lot of loving and comforting connotations, which makes sense as Paul and Linda clearly love each other and feel comfortable and happy in this location. We also hear ‘I look high, I look low’ and see many high angles and low angles. This gives the audience a feel of the location and helps them take it in as Paul would.

The relationship between the music and visuals are also fairly obvious. The song is very mellow and relaxing. In the visuals, the colours are very warm and Linda is wearing a yellow jumper, which is often referred to as a relaxing colour.  The browns and yellows of the location also give this warm feel to the video. The tranquility of the locations also supports the relaxing and comfortable feel to the song, as do Paul and Linda themselves as we can see how much they enjoy each other’s company and feel comfortable together.

We see close-ups of Paul and Linda, which is usually conventional of all music videos. This is so the audience can identify with the characters in the video and create a connection with them using the expressions on their face. It also makes them appear more realistic when we get to see them up close.

There are no intertextual references in the video as it wouldn’t fit given the genre. The genre and conventions of the genre are very natural and comforting and it would be quite difficult to reference another product intertextually, especially given the time of the release of this video, when music videos were relatively new.

The video, like other videos of the same genre is narrative and concept based. The narrative is clear as the video relates to the lyrics very well, however there is no particular story in the video which makes the video slightly conceptual as different members of the audience can infer different meanings behind the video.

Analysing this video has been incredibly helpful as I have discovered the similarities in music videos of the same genre as my song. The conventions are very obvious and it has helped me understand what to include in my video and what not to include.