Meanspeed® Music Review

Song title=”Hey There Delilah”

composer=Tom Higgenson

Performer=Pain White T’s

Mean time per trial=221.52 seconds

Mean beat count per trial=384

Beats calibrated, total=3,456

Time elapsed, nine trials=1,993.68 seconds

average beat=0.577 seconds

standard tempo/”mean speed”/average velocity=104.0 beats per minute

mean emotion according to meanspeed music Theory=natural

genre according to iTunes=alternative

Recording Source=iTunes by Apple®

File Type=m4p

Size=3.8 MB

Bite Rate=128 kbps

Sample Rate=44.100 kHz

Profile=Low Complexity

Channels=Stereo

FairPlay Version=2

Intellectual Property=© 2005 FEARLESS RECORDS

File Kind=Protected AAC file

Volume=(-1.6 dB)

The first time I heard this song I thought it was a Budweiser commercial. It is a Pete Rose song, in my opinion – love it or hate it.

Tom Higgenson and his band base the video and the original “heartfelt” story on what they called a true case: a man (singer and composer Higgenson) who is involved with a beautiful woman in a far away city from his new New York City home. However, the songwriter-bandleader-composer-performer, the lead singer of the Plain White T’s “He’ll be making history” and “[paying his bills with his guitar]” wrote a song is in fact about a man who lived in New York City who followed a woman around in a case of pathetic unrequited infatuation. Himself. There is no relationship. There is just a dream. Oh well. At least The Plain White T’s had a Number One song, made the TODAY show and if they win the Grammy, Higgenson’s object of lust, an American candidate for the Olympic 2008 Beijing Cross-country running team who “wants to put a face on track and field” – well, the dude is a prophet. He already has made history. Not sure about those bills, though.

If you listed to the lyrics and the delivery of same, you can hear how desperate a loser the singer is at least doing a great job of pretending to be. What is the speed trick – he wrote the song when he was in a deluded good mood. He plays in the relaxed, natural, comfortable space with an acoustic guitar – completely stripped down as the metronome with which he is recording (yet removed on the final track) is something upon which the guitar “This Bud’s For You” vamp plays its ultra-stripped down “harmonies”. This is this year Grammy entry that reminds one of last year’s song also sung as a male unrequited plaintive whine by James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful”. The speed and the music are reversed! last year’s song by Blunt was at the speed of loneliness – 82 beats per minute – and the harmony and melody had enough energy to make a song. A lonely song. This piece by the unrequited “stalker” Higgenson (his own story) gets over at the speed of orgasm, ultimate relaxation: natural, 104 beats per minute. See the graphs and then the BPM lists which you can easily pull from the dropdown screens above. hard to find a song *near* 104 bpm that doesn’t reek of self-comfort that is laid back and humble – breezy confidence.

This song had 100’s of VERY strong opinions online. I reprinted , with applicable names changed to protect the innocent, some of 1000s of wild ravings about this song of self pity disguised as deluded infatuation. As I noted, it is a Pete Rose song. We like to feature those on this page. To be frank, this Pete Rose song arose when my wife-then-fiance said she *actually liked* this song. I said to her – “but there’s nothing there.” But that is the beauty of music – “music” is just noise that satisfies some people’s brain as ear candy – that’s high music. Then there’s that music that of which you do not even know the style – NOISE! Yet, while we can close our eyes, and over half of the neurons devoted to sensory input in human are eye or optically related, we react in the most raw form and emote in the most raw form with our *ears*. You know what I mean.

Ian Schneider

meanspeed music

February 1, 2008

note: someone wrote it to inform me that the wikipedia post that I had cut & pasted a few months ago – I did it *especially* because the comment seemed so out of place – that Moody Blues’ NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN has anything to do with any racist element anywhere in the world. That post has been edited – and not to say I told you so, but those who take wiki seriously or ever have are making a mistake – it is an almanac, not a fact sheet.

Here is some of the best of the web upon which I crossed in looking for what the actual tempo of HEY THERE DELILAH was. That I could not found, hence the above. It does not make what is below any less interesting – a variety of opinions from the web. Thanks everyone!