"Keep Your Hands to Yourself"
Single by the Georgia Satellites
from the album Georgia Satellites
B-side"Can't Stand the Pain"
ReleasedNovember 1986[1]
GenreSouthern rock
Length3:26
LabelElektra
Songwriter(s)Dan Baird
Producer(s)Jeff Glixman
The Georgia Satellites singles chronology
"Keep Your Hands to Yourself"
(1986)		 "Battleship Chains"
(1986)
Video
"Keep Your Hands to Yourself" on YouTube

"Keep Your Hands to Yourself" is the debut single by American Southern rock group the Georgia Satellites. The song was written by the band's lead singer, Dan Baird, and was released in November 1986. The single reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the week of February 21, 1987.

Content

The song is a twelve-bar blues in the key of A major with a moderate tempo of about 112 beats per minute. It follows the chord pattern A-D-A-E-A, with vocals ranging from D4 to A5.[2]

The lyrics tell the story of a woman who refuses to become more intimate with her boyfriend until he marries her. Baird said the song "basically wrote itself" on a bus ride home from his construction job.[3]

Critical reception

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic wrote that the song "rocked as hard as an old Chuck Berry song, as well as being almost as clever."[4] In the book 99 Red Balloons: And 100 All-Time One-Hit Wonders, Brent Mann wrote that "it's just a timeless, kick-out-the-jams rock 'n' roll number. Dan Baird digs into the song's vocals with a no-holds-barred zest straight out of a Texas honky-tonk."[5]

Music video

The video for the single begins with the band riding on a flatbed cruising down a highway, along with flashbacks of Dan Baird and his fiancee preparing for their wedding. These scenes continue, until just before the last verse, where they arrive at the wedding, and are greeted by the guests. The band continue to play on the now-parked flatbed. During the instrumental outro, Baird is stripped of his guitar, and carried by two men over to the bride as the wedding cake comes out and is placed on the table. As Baird (now dressed in a tuxedo) kisses his new bride (after being forced by her shotgun-carrying father), it is finally revealed that the bride is quite heavily pregnant. In an overhead shot, the same flatbed, now with tin cans tied to it and "just married" painted on the bed of it, is seen cruising down the highway.

Chart performance

Chart (1986–1987) Position
Australian (Kent Music Report)[6] 20
US Billboard Hot 100[7] 2
US Billboard Album Rock Tracks[8] 2
Year-end chart (1987) Position
US Top Pop Singles (Billboard)[9] 35

References

  1. ↑ "Georgia Satellites - Keep Your Hands to Yourself".
  2. ↑ "'Keep Your Hands to Yourself' sheet music". MusicNotes.com. 11 October 2010. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  3. ↑ Hudak, Joseph (March 7, 2016). "How Georgia Satellites' 'Keep Your Hands to Yourself' Changed Country Music". Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
  4. ↑ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "The Georgia Satellites biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  5. ↑ Mann, Brent (2003). 99 Red Balloons: And 100 All-Time One-Hit Wonders. Citadel Press. pp. 164–166. ISBN 9780806525167.
  6. ↑ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 123. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  7. ↑ "The Georgia Satellites Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard.
  8. ↑ "Georgia Satellites chart history". Allmusic. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  9. ↑ "1987 The Year in Music & Video: Top Pop Singles". Billboard. Vol. 99, no. 52. December 26, 1987.
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