Textual Analysis of The Same Genre: The Beatles - Something

Textual Analysis

Something - The Beatles

I am going to analyse the music video for ‘Something’ by The Beatles, directed by Neil Aspinall. The music belongs to the rock genre, which is the same as my chosen song.  Something was released in 1969 on the Abbey Road album – a year after my chosen song was released. The Beatles consist of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon.

The genre has a few obvious characteristics; the main ones being a dissolve edit. The dissolve edit is used to compliment the dreamy tone and organic mise-en-scene. It makes things appear softer, dreamy and gentle. It also creates the feel of a slow passing of time. The look of the video is also very soft, which could be created because of the quality of the camera at the time or it could be a lens.  There are also a lot of close ups and side shots of the characters in the video. This is to familiarize them with the audience and emphasise their features. The song is written about them as so the cinematography is essentially used to romanticize them in a way by showing them as slightly ethereal, with the dreamy soft focus effect and long close ups.  The genre always uses a natural outdoor mise-en-scene, too. In this video they seem to be in a large garden. It brings a really natural, organic and relaxing feel to the video.

The lyrics have a clear relationship with the visuals. The first lyrics are ‘Something in the way she moves’ and we see a shot of Pattie Boyd (George Harrison’s wife) walking to the left of the shot, which is then followed by a shot of George walking to the right of the shot. There is an eye-line match which connotes that George is singing about Pattie, as he wrote the song and it is his voice singing. If the audience didn’t know that it would be pretty easy to infer as the media language is easy to read due to the use of eye-line matches and the lyric/visual match. George also sings ‘attracts me like no other lover’. At this point the camera is on a close up of George, who turns his head to the left a the camera changes to a pull focus on Pattie. This shows that she is attracting him as he looks at her and then the focus turns onto her.  After this the lyrics are ‘something in the way she woos me’; which is sung over a clip of John looking at his wife, Yoko. This is a match as it connotes that the lyrics are about John’s relationship with his wife, although it was written by Harrison they still have the same feelings. When the lyrics say ‘somewhere in her smile she knows’ we see a clip of Linda McCartney (Paul’s Wife) smiling. Overall, the lyrics match the visuals perfectly which creates a strong and understandable narrative in a way that is easy for the audience to interpret.

The music and the visuals also have a complimentary relationship. The tone of the song is very soft, relaxing and calm. The video uses a lot of dissolve edits and the colours used are very warm and organic. The colours and light are also very soft rather than harsh. All of this works well with the tone of the song. About half way through the song, the pace starts to get faster; as does the editing. It also shows Ringo riding a bike fastly, which supports the tone of the song and the editing. The location of the music video is also outside and the characters are surrounded by nature. This is conventional of the genre as it exists in many music videos of this kind. The nature aspect of the mise-en-scene really suits the organic, dreamy feel and tone of the song.

There are also many close ups of the artist which is conventional of a music video as the record label needs this in order for the audience to consume the product and make a connection with the musicians. It also promotes the artist as a product by showing them in this way. It also shows the emotion in their face, thus making the narrative more believable and helping the audience to relate to those emotions and further consume the product.

There are no intertexual references in this video due to the organic nature of it and the culture in the time it was released. There weren’t many other media products to reference so early on in the development of media texts. The only accessible things to reference would’ve been products such as old Hollywood movies, which wouldn’t have fit with the narrative and tone of the song.

The video is equally narrative and concept based.  There is an obvious narrative as the video matches the lyrics throughout, however I also think there is a concept behind the video as there is not a stereotypical conventional linear narrative and it can be interpreted in different ways by different members of the audience due to the looseness of the narrative.

Overall I think the use of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound ties together perfectly. All macro-elements fit the tone of the song and the scenes are relevant to the song and the time/culture in the late 60s. It very much shows the band as individuals with their own lives whereas up until this point people had only seen The Beatles together.