search: pop songs with weird time signatures and metric shifts

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/DavidBowieHeroesCover.jpg
Beware the savage roar
Of 19/84

Bowie himself found the tempo to be a real headscratcher.

Ha, you guys are either tripping or reading that as a REALLY hard shuffle! Obviously it goes "one TWO three FOUR" -- the point's that the spaces between those counts are divided into threes: One-and-a TWO-and-a three-and-a FOUR-and-a

Umm if you're not hearing it, listen to the word "easy" at the end of the verse -- the E is split into exactly the three beats I'm talking about. "It's e-e-e sy."

Bowie himself found the tempometer to be a real headscratcher. He finally figured it out years later during the Heroes cover photo shoot.

We're jazz guys, nabisco. We're hearing those as swing eighths.

I know, that's what's weirding me out -- reading it as a swing/shuffle on lumpy classicist song (which presumably has you putting the Marseillaise at the beginning in swung eighths too)

(xpost)
OK, I heard what you are saying. I guess you could call that 12/8 -"the doo-wop meter" - for the measure with 4 beats, and then you'd have to call the other measure 9/8, like you guys did. It just seems to be easier to say 4/4+3/4 with 8th-note triplets.

xpost - yes, W, I was just coming around
W? As in Alan W. Pollack?

Isn't that kind of another of the Beatles specialty, putting in a few metrical oddities and then smoothing them over so you might not notice them the first few hundred listens until you actually had to play the damned thing? Whereas if some other band had a weird meter song they would be sure to highlight it with a "Look Ma, I Just Changed My Strings And Am Playing In 7/8!" bass solo.

Actually I was joking a little bit: I think those 8th-note triplets are probably too even to be considered swung.

All You Need is Love is in duple meter. The drums aren't playing anything that implies triple meter. And listen to the strings at 1:33 - "one ee and a two ee and a three ee and a four ee and a, one a two, three a four"

I think what you're hearing is a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth, which is close to shuffled eighth notes but not quite the same.

no i just hear swung 8ths, ken was right the first time. that song swings pretty well, for being such an overladen elephant. but yeah the count on that part i think is like seven and a half over 8.

Captain & Tennille - "Broddy Bounce" !!

tipsy mothra, are you talking about AYNIL? I promise it's in 4 and not swung.

National anthem as pop song: Flower of Scotland. It has something odd between the 'when will we see' and 'your likes again' lines. Not sure if it's a bar of 2/4 in a 3/4 song, or just the second vocal line jumping in early. In any case, it's another reason why this is a dreadful choice as a sporting anthem, because crowds can't sing it and immediately go out of time with the band.

Plus there's one bit in the song that the crowd always sing as major when it's actually minor

Okay you guys, there are sections in AYNIL that are definitely swung (like the verses...it's hard to pick out the cymbals, but just listen to the bass/guitar on the turnaround, of course it's swung), and there are sections that are straight (like the intro, and then they switch to straight 8ths at the outro).

And while I guess you could notate jazz that's in 4/4 in 12/8, for me that just falls into the category of feel, not meter. But there's multiple ways to correctly notate something, it's all a way of describing how it sounds to you, blah blah blah.

I still think those are dotted eighth plus sixteenth, not swung eighths. But the distinction is pretty small. The straight sixteenth parts definitely put it in duple meter and not triple, though.

It can be both.

Both what? Duple and triple meter? As in different sections in each, or what?

It's a kind of a corny, Music Hall swing.

(I'm gonna let you argue with Steve, Jordan. It's a good thing Geir doesn't care about rhythm.)

3/4 vs 6/8 how to explain

Yeah, different sections.

I know the difference between 3/4 and 6/8. Which part are you hearing in triple time?

Several parts are certainly in duple and the drums never play a triple rhythm. You can notate triplets in duple time and you can notate duplets in triple time, but I think the former are a lot more common and easy to read, and of the times I've seen AYNIL notated it's always been 4/4 and 3/4.

(Steve has discovered a paradox that could blow up the Enterprise computer)

I remember a friend of mine being annoyed that some fule had said "Let's analyze that transition from the Latin section to the Swing section in 'Green Dolphin Street'" My friend said "you just play in one rhythm for so many bars and then in another rhythm for so many bars- there's nothing to analyze about it!"

Forget the 4/4, 3/4 stuff, I'm just talking about the 8th note feel. I hear the overall feel as triplets/swung 8ths, which is really obvious in that lick that the guitar/bass/sometimes strings play at the turnarounds (ie the 3/4 bar).

There are a lot of straight 8ths and 16ths over the top of that feel too (like that one part where the strings are playing straight 16ths up to the turnaround, which goes back to the triplet feel), but to me the base feel is definitely swung. It's interesting that you don't hear it that way, though.

OK, I'm also going to get in the gutter with Steve. Steve, just listen to what the bass plays on last beat of the 3/4 part, "Three-and." If he played that as straight eighths, the whole feel would be different it would sound really rushed.

(xpost)

Well I certainly hear that, but I'm suggesting that what nabisco is calling "really hard shuffle" and James called "corny, Music Hall swing" might be written as a dotted-eighth and sixteenth (which I guess some people would still call a swing rhythm?) rather than the more common shuffle rhythm of 2 tied eighth note triplets followed by 1. So the notes have a 3:1 ratio rather than 2:1. It's a tough distinction to make, especially since I'm listening to a crappy recording on crappy speakers.

xpost

James, read me again, I'm not saying straight eighths.

Okay you guys, there are sections in AYNIL that are definitely swung (like the verses...it's hard to pick out the cymbals, but just listen to the bass/guitar on the turnaround, of course it's swung), and there are sections that are straight (like the intro, and then they switch to straight 8ths at the outro).

yah. and the swing parts aren't in "triple time," they're just...swung. (swing is an actual notation itself, of sorts. it'll just say "swing feel" or something to that effect at the top of the sheet.)

and the section of aynil with the odd count -- the verses -- is in 4/4, but as far as i can tell they skip a half-beat every two measures, so you actually get a measure of 4/4 and a measure of 3 1/2 beats (or 7/8).

xpost: and you CAN write it as dotted 8th and 16th, but if you actually played it that way it would sound different, more mechanistic.

This is almost related to the mystery by which a bass player can play a walking bass line and never play a single eighth note all night long and still make it swing, like Sonny Dallas on Lee Konitz's Motion.

The distinction I'm talking about is discussed here:

http://www.paulwertico.com/articles/jazzridecymbal1.php

Tipsy, they drop a full beat. It alternates 4/4 and 3/4.

I know what you're saying Steve, but I agree with James, if you count triplets over the 3/4 bar then upbeats are on the "a's" (as in "3 - and - a 1".

xp

Steve, somebody tried the dotted 8th and 16th thing before on the cymbal tapping thread and then somebody else called it corny and riki-tiki. Thankfully, some people are able to learn from their mistakes.

anyway put a little bit more about the mysteries of swing on the beats thread.

xp: yeah maybe it is just 4/4 + 3/4; thought i heard a hiccupped half-beat in there but that could be an illusion.

Yeah, I could hear it as triplets. I'm going to blame my laptop speakers again, and the previous comments about the song's corniness could've affected how I was hearing it.

Ha, corny Music Hall swing is Example Three of the link gypsy mothra put on the other page.

I'm interested in this conversation but not enough to download a fucking Beatles song.

haha. i've just been youtubing it.

I finally ripped my copy of The Yellow Submarine Songtrack and sent it out through the WiFi to the Internet Radio to avoid the cheapo laptop speakers problem that tripped up Steve.

I feel like I'm turning into that Mike Meyers character Middle-Aged Man.

I would like to note that I did NOT call it a "really hard swing" and considered others to be tripping for doing so. This the kind of thing I can't help hearing in 6/8, essentially because that's how it'd be cleanest and easiest to program it on a machine, where you don't have recourse to dots or ties or "oh, but it's all in triplets."

(I do find it weird, though, that people keep saying "well the drums never XYZ," as if drums are the only instrument with meter! Ringo's mostly just playing kick-snare-kick-snare, but the harpsichord-type sound is doing something every single bar that requires notating with dot/tie, with triplets, or just calling it 6/8.)

Just don't show up at the jazz club, nabisco, and try to swing like that, or the ghost of Dizzy Gillespie might come and say you "have a beat like a cop."

I tell the drum machine that every weekend, it's still just got the one shuffle knob. One day I will show you all up with a sweet schaffel cover of this song.

Schaffel?

Oh, I get it.

(I do find it weird, though, that people keep saying "well the drums never XYZ," as if drums are the only instrument with meter! Ringo's mostly just playing kick-snare-kick-snare, but the harpsichord-type sound is doing something every single bar that requires notating with dot/tie, with triplets, or just calling it 6/8.)

agreed, this was my point too.

programming shit to swing with a good feel (ie between triplets and straight) is time consuming at best.

I do find it weird, though, that people keep saying "well the drums never XYZ," as if drums are the only instrument with meter!

It's not that, it's just that if the song were meant to have a triple meter feel the drums would probably be doing something different. All the instruments play within the meter, but the drums still tend to carry the most responsibility in establishing the metrical feel.

I think you should stick to the cheap laptop speakers argument.

I think that since the arrangement is pretty thick and there are some phrases that cut across the feel (ie the occasional straight 8ths/16ths by the string and horn sections), Ringo is probably playing it smart by staying simple and letting the other instruments state the 8th note feel. Kind of like the example above example of a jazz bass player holding it down on quarter notes, partly because the drums etc. are already playing so many eighth notes.

Well, like you said, you could notate it any number of ways. I wouldn't be very surprised if the parts for the different players (strings vs. brass vs. guitar or bass or drums if you bothered to write those down) were notated in different ways, which makes the argument about how "the song" would be written somewhat moot. Overall though I still feel it as duple time.