‘Give Me Your Heart’: “a narrative of affection and devotion that touches the soul.” -Beach Sloth
“Give Me Your Heart is sugar in a summer's iced tea.” -Coyote Music Review
“If you believe Bob Dylan is a fantastic natural vocalist, you’ll also likely love the sound Harry makes when he sings” -Skope Magazine
CLICK ON DA PIC TO PLAY AND OR DOWNLOAD FOR FREE ‘GIVE ME YOUR HEART’
BEACH SLOTH: Blind Uncle Harry features an early 90s Beat Happening vibe with the playful “Give Me Your Heart.” Lyrics have a twee sensibility that ties the verses together. Rhythms for the song have a laid-back presence. Keyboards offer that slight retro wheeze within the sound. The atmosphere keeps things low-key, resulting in this gorgeous swirl of color. Melodies ensure that the word choice gets highlighted with this incredible attention to detail. A nice balance is struck as they incorporate indie pop, blues, rock, and more elements in this relatively folksy fashion.
Right from the beginning, the mood is immediately set. The song takes plenty of time to explore every nuance of the theme. Lo-fi in nature in all the right ways, there is a gleeful attitude that feels so celebratory. By keeping the tempos slowed down, more attention is paid to the story that unfurls carefully. A duo of singers helps to represent the spirit of being a couple, allowing the piece to feel ever so soothing. Plenty of the song washes over the listener, helping to give the track a powerful presence. The evolution of the groove happens carefully, making sure to let the song grow ever more extensive and poignant, with the piece having this intimate setting that opens and closes everything off in a pitch-perfect fashion.
“Give Me Your Heart” shows the carefree nature of Blind Uncle Harry with a narrative of affection and devotion that touches the soul.
BEACH SLOTH
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COYOTE MUSIC REVIEW:
“Give Me Your Heart is sugar in a summer's iced tea.” -Coyote Music Review
Blind Uncle Harry shocks, surprises and entertains. His YouTube Channel features the video for "Everybody Farts When They Die" and 2002's album Visualize Industrial Collapse includes the tracks "Dopesmokers of the World Unite and Take Over" and "Jesus Is Coming In A Rat Turd." You get the point. He's over the top, once playing a show causing enough jumping in the crowd to destabilize the floor of the room, giving those in the basement below legitimate concern that their ceiling would collapse on top of them.
It's his veritable shock-and-awe approach to Folk music which makes his February 17, 2024 single "Give Me Your Heart" all the more surprising. I mean, it's just a love song! No fart jokes, no allusions to actually removing one's blood-pumping organ and handing it over to the next suitor in line. Nuthin' like that. Nah, "Give Me Your Heart" is sugar in a summer's iced tea. The first bloom on a rose bush.
Featuring Blind Uncle Harry himself (aka Chris Doran) on vocals and guitar, Ned Joyner on bass, Ryan Heimlich on keys, Mark Edlin on drums and additional vocals courtesy of Heimlich and Sadie Dainko, the track conveys normal heartfelt emotion through its mid-tempo traditional folk/rock arrangement. I re-read the lyrics several times just to be sure. Nope...no humorous hand grenades waiting to go off unexpectedly.
It got me to wondering why Blind Uncle Harry wrote and recorded this song. It's not going to turn heads with any over-the-top antics. Listen to it and try to laugh. Spoiler alert: you won't. And maybe that's it. The catch with "Give Me Your Heart" is that we get to see a softer side behind the wall of antics. Maybe there is simply a warm heart behind all the lyrical hot takes. How heartwarming...
SKOPE MAGAZINE REVIEW
“If you believe Bob Dylan is a fantastic natural vocalist, you’ll also likely love the sound Harry makes when he sings”
“Give Me Your Heart,” Blind Uncle Harry’s most recent single, is about as straight ahead a love song as they come. It’s built upon a slightly jangling electric guitar part, accompanied by accordion. The track also features a female backing vocalist. It simply expresses a desire to partner up with another person.
https://blinduncleharry.bandcamp.com/track/give-me-your-heart
Blind Uncle Harry is Chris ‘Harry’ Doran’s stage name, and the singer/songwriter resides in Bloomington, Indiana. His is quite an evocative performing name. However, Doran actually has an uncle Harry who was – wouldn’t you know it? – blind. This uncle, unsurprisingly, was also a musician. A fiddle player, in fact. Today’s Blind Uncle Harry is a musician, with a bit of a hippie persona going for him that works with a wide variety of different musicians to create his unique sound.
Although the artwork for “Give Me Your Heart” features Blind Uncle Harry in a stylish sports jacket posing in front of a red sports car, his sound is not what one would call smooth and sporty. Instead, this song – and much of his other music – is sung over simplistic instrumentation. This particular song finds him singing over a melody and rhythm that stays pretty much the same, from beginning to end. There are no melodic bridges in it. No electric guitar solos. Nothing fancy, in fact.
If you believe Bob Dylan is a fantastic natural vocalist, you’ll also likely love the sound Harry makes when he sings – which is rough around the edges, and inside and out. Like Dylan, Harry aims straight for the heart (no pun intended) with his music. In other words, he doesn’t try to pretty up his songs with fancy vocal runs and such. Instead, he sings with an admittedly warbly vocal tone that gives his message to the listener straight. Even this track’s female accompanist can’t make this singing particularly easy on the ears. At approximately six minutes, this is a lot of the same, for a long, long time. With that said, though, it’s still an effective musical moment.
The guitar riff the track is based on is one that gets right into your brain and sticks. It’s not flashy, but it’s nevertheless functional. Harry knows a good guitar chord structure when he hears one, and he’s chosen a winner with this song.
Hearts find their way into nearly every love song and play a pivotal role with this piece. It’s strange how a blood-pumping muscle has grown to become the representation of romance. In this lyric, Harry doesn’t want this person’s money or even his/her physical affection. No, he wants and needs this other’s heart – to have and to hold.
ONLINE:
https://blinduncleharry.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BlindUncleHarry/
When compared to Blind Uncle Harry’s other recordings to date, “Give Me Your Heart” stands out as one his most sincere. He can be both silly and sarcastic in song, but not here. No, this is Blind Uncle Harry getting right to the heart of the matter, so to speak, and telling this person exactly what he wants and needs. And really, how can anybody turn down such a heartfelt plea?
-Dan MacIntosh