Songs that fool you about where the downbeat is.

the Stop Making Sense version settles this issue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGofoH9RDEA

xpost!!

This is approaching "sleep! That's where I'm a viking!" territory

lol.

but if you start at the first chorus and count from there, with "days" at your downbeat, the rest of the song snaps into place, with no need to add 2/4 bars anywhere,

Why wouldn't you start counting at the beginning of the song though? If you need a 2/4 bar to get from the first verse to the chorus the you're hearing it, but then there is no 2/4 bar from the second verse to the second chorus, that should be a tipoff that you're hearing it wrong.

And crut otm that the live version settles it, crashes on the 1 and everything.

I wish I could stand listening to the Talking Heads for long enough to weigh in on this.

haha I was expecting you to be the one dude who could settle this

Let's just get Reply All to make a podcast about this thread and have David Byrne settle it

Nahhhh the Stop Making Sense version is missing the key meter-changing element of the rhythm-guitar chorus addition on the recording. And doesn't the chorus sound weird as a result? like they're forcing it to stay 4/4? The way the rhythm guitar comes blasting in on beat 3 on the chorus is so destabilizing and key and I'm surprised [the tour guitarist] didn't pick up on it

But as I expressed earlier, Tina simplifies her bass parts so extremely on all the live performances that I'm always left disappointed in hearing them (in addition to the disappointment in myself for wasting time listening to Talking Heads)

I stick with the Eno-described "this song has two possible weightings" solution, but if pressed to notate this, there is no real reason to notate this in anything other than straight 4/4. The drums and bass don't change so fuck it

I just listened a couple of times and I think Tarfumes and Jordan OTM. For a danceable groove-oriented tune like this, it seems pretty counterintuitive to not refer to the drums and bass when counting or feeling the beat, and, like you say, they don't change. The way the guitars and vocals play against this is what keeps it interesting but that still requires feeling the basic beat in the first place. It sort of hurts my head to think of the metre shifting in the chorus to put "days" on 1.

I think that's the most I've enjoyed the song btw so thanks ILM!

For a danceable groove-oriented tune like this, it seems pretty counterintuitive to not refer to the drums and bass when counting or feeling the beat

I mean, it's a little different with e.g. Zep songs where the guitars are playing in 3 or 5 or 7 against Bonham's 4, but, in this case, where the vocals and guitars are still clearly in 4 and just accenting beat 3, "4/4 with syncopation" seems like the Occam's razor analysis.

Why wouldn't you start counting at the beginning of the song though? If you need a 2/4 bar to get from the first verse to the chorus the you're hearing it, but then there is no 2/4 bar from the second verse to the second chorus, that should be a tipoff that you're hearing it wrong.

au contraire, that was a tipoff to me that maybe i should re-evaluate how i was hearing the verse. when i start at the beginning of the song, i *do* hear the downbeat in a different place than where i hear it on the chorus. that was my point. but that chorus downbeat makes sense to me in the next verse, and i can then go back to the beginning and hear it that way. i don't think i'm hearing it "wrong" and i don't think you're hearing it "wrong" either. i think the song leaves itself very open to interpretation, as this thread clearly proves.

it feels like we're basically arguing what's the top and what's the bottom of an mc escher staircase.

It's nowhere near as tricky as some of the above, but I've always thought the intro to this otherwise pretty straightforward Clash song was weird:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdkuYVsJ7nM

I think "It's No Good" by Depeche Mode

That Clash one starts on beat 3.

I've often used 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' as a classic example of a drumless riff that starts on an upbeat, so it can be deceptive if you've never heard it before.

It's probably been mentioned already but 'Videotape' by Radiohead - the piano chords are syncopated, but the first chord doesn't fall on the "and" of "one and", it falls on the "and" of "four and" so the chords are always ahead of the beat.

Pyramid Song, sorta, in that sounds like a weird time-signature when it's just a slow, syncopated 4/4.

This one particularly is a funny one, because it has the ability to confuse a person where the "one" is for the duration of the entire song. Unlocking where the one is pulls the entire song into focus and makes the song sound as if it played completely straight.

(I count it like: one two three four five six seven eight, with a swung feel)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jySJWwyO5Vg

^ When this guy plays the pattern, you can hear the 4/4.

'Little by Little' has another syncopation trick, where the main riff sounds as if it should be on the "on" beat but is on the "off" beat instead.

this is a fun one to try to follow:

julie grant "stop"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kz0XOly6l0

this one from bee gees' 1st has always made me a little dizzy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JaUaIEh9F8

I've been trying to figure this one out for a while (the intro into the beginning of the song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYfvzo331Pg

Sure, 'cause the piano chords are anticipating the downbeat by a 16th note

“Where Will I Be” by Emmylou Harris is one of these. Check out the released studio version vs either the Spyboy version or the alternate version on the expanded Wrecking Ball. Tricksy downbeat.

This one drives me crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rt5sdsKlYU

Wow, I listened to that Emmylou one and thought I had it, but I was wrong and can't get back to how I heard it the first time. It's all due to that cool beat that Brian Blade is playing (and I checked out the live version, where his brother is on drums and doing a much more straight-forward beat).

In The Air Tonight.

"I'm Free" The Who, back and forth verse and chorus are seemingly different downbeats

― billstevejim, Thursday, November 19, 2009 2:44 AM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

On 'I'm Free', me and Pete had to play the drums and Keith played the breaks because he couldn't get the intro. He was hearing it differently from how we were, and he couldn't shake it off. So we put down the snare, the hi-hat and the tambourine part and he came in and added all the breaks. When we did it live, the only way to bring him in was for Pete and I to go like this [makes an exaggerated step], which must have looked completely nuts.
— John Entwistle[4]

When they played it live on their 1975-76 tours, Pete phrased the guitar part differently so that the one was easier to discern. No longer did he have to make an exaggerated step to cue Moon for his entrance.

Wow, I listened to that Emmylou one and thought I had it, but I was wrong and can't get back to how I heard it the first time. It's all due to that cool beat that Brian Blade is playing

i love that beat, but that one seems kind of straightforward to me. the opening gtr lick lands on the downbeat, as does the last word of every line in the verse.

It seems obvious now, but I was somehow hearing everything land on the 4, with the whole band leaving out the downbeat, lol.

The beat is very second line-ish, very nice.

I never listened to the Who much but it's cool listening to that track knowing how it was recorded, that's hilarious.

Similarly, the first two minutes of this track by a friend's band always confounds me. The bass doesn't start on the downbeat (I think there's one 8th note of anticipation), and the key is that the snare is actually on the backbeat (with the hi-hat accents on the upbeats), but it totally doesn't feel like that. It doesn't make sense until the heavy part two minutes in.

Apparently the bass player still thinks of it totally differently from the rest of the drummer, and still somehow works live even though they disagree where the downbeat is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SXP6OeDIqk

Sure, 'cause the piano chords are anticipating the downbeat by a 16th note

― change display name (Jordan), Friday, December 28, 2018 1:53 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's what's going on DURING the verse, but I can't hear it in the transition between the intro and the verse, I think maybe the downbeat just shifts

Idk I'm pretty sure it's the same from the beginning, but it's hard to feel since the bassline is so squirrelly too. But I can tap it out and it seems to line up once the percussion comes in.

"Tomorrow is Already Here" by Stereolab does this to me, but it's also in 5/4 which accounts for part of the disorientation.

That one's easy once the maraca comes in pretty much immediately.

It might have been mentioned already but does Roxy Music’s « the bogey man » work here ?
The drums seem pretty tricky.

Bogus Man !

Why Music Experts Are Fighting About Ludacris

The chiming 12-string bridge section of "Stairway To Heaven" is a good example of this, there's another thread that goes into it. This video (warning: dude is annoying af) goes into it if you can stomach watching all the way through:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhlLtd19szw

The Ludacris thing is a very stupid argument because all you need to do to get the answer is listen to the entire song instead of just the chorus

everything theo parrish has ever made

The Ludacris thing, I'm in the third group camp. Sounds like a latin jazz rhythm (muntuno?)

Genesis - "Keep It Dark."

The guitar-only intro sounds like a loping waltz. Then the drums and keys come in, and you realize you've been listening to the off-beats of a 6/4 groove.

The Ludacris thing...yes, it's a weird beat that feels very ungrounded, and the harmonic movement of the horns make you want to feel a downbeat on the & of 1, instead of on 1.

But OF COURSE the drums are in 'half time', and of course the snare is playing backbeats.

yeah i found it easy to hear 2 or 3 possible downbeats at first, but once i locked in on that same understanding -- snare playing backbeats -- it suddenly became impossible for me to hear it any other way.

So crazy to me that I would have definitely lined up the horn phrase with the second note landing on the downbeat, like a square, but Timbaland made a CHOICE.

Had to look it up, Tim used a sample (err... interpolation) of the opening horns & rhythm (tumbai/muntuno) of this Senegal Africando song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiOMHAi4Bto

Good call on Keep it Dark. Glorious Om Riff by Steve Village is syncopated in a similar vein, as is Disko by Komeda.

Woo-Hah by Busta Rhymes? Definitely with Space by Galt McDermott, which provides the sample, it's hard to follow the downbeat all the way through the song.