Pharrell Williams Why This Song Has Grabbed The Country

The song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams is quite catchy but is it truly “ The song that has grabbed the Nation” as author Eamonn Forde has claimed? In his article titled “ Happy by Pharrell Williams: Why This Song Has Grabbed the Nation” he states that this song has done the almost impossible task of captivating the entire nation by appealing to all ages. He starts to build his partly opinion based article with statements like “ You know when a song has gone that one step further and connects with people of all ages when it gets the crowd at the World Indoor Bowls Championship in Great Yarmouth clapping and grooving along. “Happy” by Pharrell Williams did exactly that”. He continues with “Getting an audience like that at the bowls-that’s proper success.” Forde goes on to list facts about the song as it quickly went to number one of the charts in the UK in its first week and selling over 107,000 copies. The song sold more than 650,000 copies at the time of his article and had been played more that 5500 times a week on British Radio at its peak.

Lauren Stewart, a reader in psychology at Goldsmiths in London and Dr. Elizabeth Margulis, director of Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas. By using the quotes of these two doctors he is trying to appeal to the ethos. Dr. Lauren Stewart describes the song as an “ earworm” because it is so catchy and gets into your brain. Dr. Elizabeth Margulis explains how the right use of repetition catches the motor circuitry of the brain. She states the song “ pulls you along and makes you feel really happy”. Dr. Margulis also explains how repetition and irritation go hand in hand so to find the perfect amount of repetition in a song that makes it to where you can listen to it over and over again is