Hey Ya - Depressing Hidden Meaning | Video Essay Chords

_ James, my metalhead friend, has the album of Swedish death metal band tattooed on his arm.
He sports the exact same pink Floyd sweater every single day, and he religiously listens
to bands like Tool and Foo Fighters.
I quickly learned during our carpool sessions that if he doesn't like a song on the radio,
he'll immediately turn it off.
One morning I decided to play the song Hey Ya by Outkast to try and bother him.
When I saw him reach toward the radio, I assumed he would switch to another screaming ballad.
Instead, he grabbed the volume dial and blasted the song.
But why was this immensely popular and cheesy song from 2003 the one pop ballad that stood
James' ear test?
The answer is simple.
Because it's amazing.
Billboard named this song one of the top 20 played in the whole 2000s decade.
Its energetic beat, repetitive synthesizer, and catchy lyrics make it mesmerizing.
The Polaroid company had to issue a public statement that said people shouldn't shake
their pictures because of a single lyric in the song that states,
Shake it like a Polaroid picture.
That's the power of Hey Ya.
But besides that and a couple of other lines, I didn't actually know what the song was saying.
My unofficial lyrical poll among my friends confirmed this phenomenon to be true.
Nobody could understand a majority of the lyrics during the verses.
Being an obsessive musical nerd, I decided to look up the words to impress whoever was
near me when the song came on the radio.
Turns out, it's more than just a catchy beat and tenor saxophone riff.
It centers around a long-term couple that no longer love each other and are in denial
of their failing romance.
One of my favorite lines in the track says,
[G] _
_ _ [C] _ _ If _ _
[D] _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ [N] _ _ _ _ [G]
you didn't catch that, [C] they said,
If what they say is nothing is forever, [Em] then what makes love the exception?
So why are we so in [G] denial when we know we're not happy here?
Hey Ya, by OutKast, follows a long tradition of songs that appear jovial but carry depressing meanings.
There's Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind,
_ _ [D] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
[D] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
an upbeat 90s song about heroin addiction,
[A] There's Train in Vain by The Clash,
_ [D] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ a bouncy pop [G] melody about abandonment.
Many artists use this technique of contrasting happy instrumentals to heavy subject matter.
This connection could mean nothing, but I think it goes deeper.
No one wants to be weighed down with problems, especially not their own.
Music are an escape from the real world.
It's why movies almost always end happy.
It's why emo music doesn't strike a chord for most people.
When asked why someone doesn't like Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance, they usually
say the songs are too whiny.
If I told you there was a song where teenagers discussed the struggles of becoming famous
at a young age, you would assume it would sound like a standard teenage whiny ballad
da da da da.
But if I asked if you wanted to listen to the happy song Help by The Beatles, you would
probably want to hear it, despite me just describing that song earlier and you saying
no in my mind.
The masses don't want to be brought down.
One line in Hey Ya!
captures this phenomenon perfectly.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
And they're right.
_ Y'all don't want to hear me dance.
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ [E] _ _ _ _ People generally don't care what the musicians are going through.
They just want them to do their job.
The same principle applies to any line of work.
No one cares what's happening in your life.
Push it aside and do what you're paid for.
An outcast's job, as a pop band, is to make people happy.
The unexpected is powerful.
By hiding the meaning of the song under layers of pep, outcast accurately represents real life.
[N] They use catchy pop music, a musical form where people usually sing about happy relationships
and crushes, to showcase heavy themes about loneliness and what happens when love dies.
The band does articulate a few key lyrics.
Remember how I said people latched onto the line, shake it like a Polaroid picture?
Well there's only three other sections you can actually understand.
This includes, don't want to meet your daddy, just want you in my caddy, and don't want
to meet your mama, just want to make you come-a.
If the audience doesn't know what the song's about, these lyrics sound like stereotypical
lines used in modern hip hop songs, where men generally sing about sex.
However, in this context, these lines are devastating.
It discusses that at one point he did want to meet her parents, but now the romance is gone.
The relationship morphed into a purely superficial trap.
A superficial trap represented by the instrumentals.
Despite the well-camouflaged meaning, outcast does give subtle insights into what they're talking about.
The whole song is one drum beat and one guitar, bass, and synthesizer riff, with a tenor saxophone
thrown in every so often. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The simplistic musical style doesn't progress from the beginning of the song.
It reflects the relationship described in the lyrics, where nothing is being built and nothing changes.
I explain the hidden meaning of the song to James.
He seems to appreciate it more now.
Not only does it appeal to his love of a catchy beat, but also his need for something more
substantial than most pop songs can provide.
Hey Ya, by Outcast, is the only song that can make me inconsolably sad and unreasonably happy.
It's a perfect example of how the pop music cliches can be used to emphasize deep subject matter.
A cry for help in a mass of sickening joy.
I'll talk to you guys next week.
Bye!
[E] _ _ _ [G#] _ _ _ [C#] _ _ _ _ _ [F#] _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G#] _ _ [C#] _
_ [E] _ [C#] _ _ _ [F#] _ _ [B] _