2017Released
3:13

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about HandClap. By Songfacts®.

The lead single from the Fitz and the Tantrums 2016 self-titled album finds lead singer Michael Fitzpatrick crooning lyrics about desire. "'HandClap' is a primal tale of love and lust, a call to arms in the late hours of the night," he said. "It's the X-rated version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind happening on a dance floor."

The band wrote this song with Sam Hollander, who was also working with Panic! at the Disco (Emperor's New Clothes) and Pentatonix ("Sing") around this time. Hollander was a huge Fitz and the Tantrums fan and had been trying to get in with them for a while. He finally got his chance when the band got off to a slow start on the album and brought him in for a fresh perspective. It was a good call: Hollander clicked with them right away. "'HandClap' was an idea that came running and screaming to me," Hollander told Songfacts. "I sang that couplet, 'I can make your hands clap,' and he did this crazy five-clap thing, and right then and there I thought we had something magical. But there was no particular plan of attack with it. I don't think we were trying to write a hit, per se, because the song is so strange. The first verse repeats twice and it's just this strange cacophony of chaos. The fact that it worked was amazing."

As well as being a "primal tale of love and lust," the track has another side to it as well. "There's a moment in the song that speaks to just an innate sense of loneliness sometimes, and you wanna have that connection, you wanna have that love in your life," Michael Fitzpatrick explained to ABC Radio. "And sometimes that desire just takes you down a dark road late at night, and you have to do a walk of shame in the morning."

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of HandClap.
G♯Key
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
140BPM

Album

The album HandClap is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released HandClap.
Elektra (NEK)
© 2016 Elektra Records for the United States and WEA International Inc. for the world outside of the United States. A Warner Music Group Company
℗ 2016 Elektra Records for the United States and WEA International Inc. for the world outside of the United States. A Warner Music Group Company

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