A detailed critical analysis of "Beat of My Heart" by Hillary Duff (1022 hits)
Category: Sound & MusicRating: 1.37 on 8 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by gascs (View user info) at 2005-11-18 17:09:49 EST
I'm thinking about,
Letting it out.
I wanna give in,
I wanna go out.
ANALYSIS: Whenever Hillary eats broken glass, the souls of pre-teen girls, or brussel sprouts, a bad case of gas ensues. Unfortunately, her older sister Haylie (that's horse-face Haylie to friends and family) is nearby and Hillary doesn't want to embarrass herself. Still, she's dying to "give in" to the pleasure of flatulant relief, so she makes some thinly-veiled excuse about having to go out and start shooting "Cheaper by the Dozen 3".
Been looking around
I've finally found,
The rhythm of love,
The feeling of sound.
ANALYSIS: I tried really hard to think about funny things that Hillary could be looking for and finding, such as a roll of Smarties or gonorrhea, but I couldn't get past an amazing fact: I really have to credit this stanza for being one of the only appearances of a word with more than two syllables, so kudos to you, Hillary. Unfortunately, I hate to be the one to point this out, but sound doesn't really have a feeling. Unless, of course, it's sound at 160 decibels. Then it might feel like something as it bursts your eardrums. Maybe.
It's making a change,
The feeling is strange.
It's coming right back.
Right back in my range.
ANALYSIS: I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that this is about how no matter how bad a singer is, you can record vocals, then process and layer the track several times until you can effectively weed out all of the off-key notes and weakly voiced parts, making it somewhat easier to listen to and more uniform, though consequently removing any unique aspects or creative qualities that the "artist" in question has added to the track in the first place. It's either that or just random pages out of a rhyming dictionary. I can't decide. That's one of the best things about a Hillary Duff song. They can be interpreted so many different ways.
Not worried about anything else,
I'm waking up
To the beat of my,
To the beat of my,
To the beat of my heart.
ANALYSIS: This section is most impressive, not only for its brilliant composition and musical mastery, but also for the lyrical content. Whereas many teen-pop princesses would be perfectly content writing simple, formulaic, emotionless songs written for those who can't comprehend complicated phrasing, Hillary actually has the brazen adventurousness to put in a SECOND three-syllable word with "anything". If she keeps this up, she may even have to package dictionaries with her albums! Such obscure words might challenge some of her fans, but I applaud Hillary for her efforts.
Chorus:
The beat of my heart,
The beat of my heart,
The beat of my heart,
It tears us apart.
The beat of my heart,
The beat of my heart,
The beat of my heart,
Now I'm back to the start.
To the beat of my,
To the beat of my,
To the beat of my heart.
ANALYSIS: Hillary decided to put every ounce of her emotion into the chorus of this song. Following in the steps of greats such as Mozart and Beethoven, Duff has subscribed to the "A phrase must mean really something if I say it 9 times! Tee-hee!" philosophy of songwriting. I sense slight undertones of influence by her former lovers and fellow brilliant musicians Aaron Carter and Joel Madden. If she can't learn everything she needs to know to master the recording and performing arts from a member of Good Charlotte and a Backstreet Boy's little brother, then I feel that all is lost in the music industry.
I'm up from my down.
I turn it around.
I'm making it back,
I'm not gonna drown.
ANALYSIS: This stanza is obviously about Hillary's relationships with Lindsay Lohan. If there's anything that she must love besides writing ingenious, multi-platinum hits, it's emerging from fights with other teenage pop stars. Note how she contrasts her former attitude, "down" with the brilliant metaphor, "up", even going one step further to "turn it around". I am completely baffled and overwhelmed by the cunningly lingual use of meter and metaphor in this stanza.
I'm taking a stance.
I won't miss a chance.
I want you to see
I'm not scared to dance.
ANALYSIS: In order to save time, Hillary takes classes at Mad Billy's Tae Kwon Do / Ballet School down the street. Mad Billy has an awesome program that can teach you how to kick ass, break necks, survive in the wild, and be graceful at the same time. I think that she'll be able to integrate this wonderful skill set into her already impressive stage performance. Once she has mastered the martial arts, she won't be scared to show off her mad ballet skills. Plie, Hillary, plie.
The way that you feel
Could never be real.
I want you to know
I finished the deal.
ANALYSIS: Now that Hillary is a sixteenth degree camouflage belt, she has taken to being a big bully. After scissor-kicking Avril Lavigne and knocking the punk black nail polish right off of her fingers, she doubts the pain that Ms. Lavigne must be in. Now, without Avril's constant insults to her intellectual artistry, Hillary go on to complete whatever type of deal an eighteen year old pop star might finish.
So I'm sayin to you
I'll always be true.
To the rhythm inside,
To the beat of my,
To the beat of my,
To the beat of my heart,
Away Away,
Away Away,
Away Away,
Away Away,
Away Away,
Away Away,
ANALYSIS: One must wonder if the sheet music for this song really says "Away, repeat 12x" or if this is just a brilliant ad-lib by Hillary. Anyone with this knowledge, please let me know.
[ Repeat Chorus until completely through puberty ]
ANALYSIS: I think it's a great feat when more than 78.5% of the content of a pop song consists of repeating the chorus. It's no wonder that this song is on a greatest hits album.
User Reviews
Submitted by maxmouse (user info) at 2006-02-08 13:26:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good analysis....Someone should give you a cookie....
+2 for digging deep into the mind and words of a post-pubescent stage-whore
(hope you did not suffer permanent damage from this expedition)
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-02-08 12:46:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
So few reviews? This was pretty good.
Submitted by Lisa (user info) at 2005-11-21 16:20:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
It's "Hilary"!
I worry about your obsession with newly post-pubescent girls.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-11-20 01:03:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-11-19 11:42:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
what happened to pulsehead gascs? was trying to get on there to stir some more shit the other day and it was dead. 1 post a day dead. and now I can't even get through, the browser just times out.
Submitted by fuckstick (user info) at 2005-11-18 21:09:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Perhaps next you could do an in depth analysis of how in the blue fuck someone with 2 albums to her name has the goddamn nerve to put out a greatest hits package.
Unrelated: It was pretty sweet when Napoleon Dynamite danced circles around her sister. Suck on that, horse face!
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2005-11-18 21:07:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Wow, a gascs sighting. Didn't you, like, start some "competing" website or something?
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-11-18 17:16:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I think Haylie is pretty hot