“Clap Your Hands Say Yeah” – Alec Ounsworth’s fantastic stage name – implies and encourages audience participation better than perhaps any other band name.
And since this tiny little track only lasts about as long as the average public service announcement, it’s time for a PSA about interacting with live music. Cue the black-and-white footage of a serious-looking person speaking directly into the camera:
Every weekend, millions of people attend concerts. Many of those end up cheering, dancing, feeling the music deep within their bones. But some will take this too far by engaging in behaviour that can ruin the experience of live music for everyone else: by clapping on the ones and threes.
Clapping on the ones and threes takes all the energy out of popular music, reducing it to a plodding, clunky, lifeless rhythm better suited to a zombie square dance than a concert. The only type of music that sounds good with claps on the ones and threes is a funeral march, and if you’re clapping at a funeral march you may have issues of social awareness to address.
So please. If the mindless crowd begins this death clap, intervene in any way you can. Harry Connick Jr can’t always be there to remedy the situation.
It’s twos and fours or you’re out the door. Friends don’t let friends clap on the ones and threes.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. On an album filled with more upbeat and hand-clappy tracks, this one is much more serene. More of a toe-tapper than a hand-clapper.
2. The uneasy weaving from major-to-minor gives it a slightly tense vibe.
3. The rhythm lends itself well to toe-tapping on the twos and fours, or (for advanced tappers only) the “ands” if you count it one-and-two-and-three-and-four.
Recommended listening activity: