Strange Times

Wouldn't the world of popular music be a stranger place if The Beatles had written "Help" in 5/4 time or The King's "Heartbreak Hotel" was a waltz.
Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" is as its title suggests, is in 5/4 time, but works well.It just wouldn't sound right in common four time would it?
brubeck

Two other songs which fit into this strange world would include Pink Floyd's Money (7/4) and more recently Radiohead dabbled with 5/8 on "15 Steps".
What other compositions in strange signatures can Word readers recommend? If you can't find the beat no worries, you'll know your in the world of strange meters.

Hoedown

by Caravan from "Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night" - 7/8 time I think:

http://www.last.fm/music/Caravan/_/Hoedown

Vulpes Vulpes | 28 March 2008 - 9:26am

Golden Brown

Goes all over the place; i think it's 3 bars of 3/4 followed by a bar of 5/4, but I could be wrong.

They used it recently on 'Strictly Come Dancing' for the waltz and I was very concerned for the dancers, but, of course, the band waltzed up the whole tune.

matthew | 28 March 2008 - 10:25am

Solsbury Hill

Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill is in 7/4, with the last 2 bars of each chorus in 4/4. According to Wikipedia anyway.

phonefreakhoney | 28 March 2008 - 10:52am

All this talk of time signatures...

...reminds me of Julian Cope's description of Pink Floyd's Money being the theme from Are You Being Served in 7/4 time.

Dr.Robert | 28 March 2008 - 11:14am

Jethro Tull

Living In The Past is also in 5/4 time.

More tricky is The Go Betweens' Cattle & Cane is? (Basically 6-beat bar followed by 5-beat bar for a spell, then shifts again...)

Even more tricky (for all you 60s femme-vocal aficionados) is Don't Go Away by the wondrous Margo Guryan. Not even going to make a stab at that one.

Larry Heliotrope | 28 March 2008 - 12:17pm

Congratulations

for the first mention of Margo Guryan on the blog. Is there anything better than discovering lost '60s girl singers? Here's the obligatory YouTube still clip.
(Love the comment that 'as a singer she makes Blossom Dearie sound like Aretha Franklin').

Paul | 28 March 2008 - 1:41pm

...

Ah, Margo...

Larry Heliotrope | 28 March 2008 - 2:13pm

I presume Apocalypse in 9/8,

part of Suppers Ready on Genesis' Foxtrot, is?

Retropath2 | 28 March 2008 - 1:10pm

And of course...

...there's Lalo Schifrin's wonderful theme to Mission Impossible with its 5/4 time - so long as you don't go for the 4/4'd up Mullen/Clayton version from the fillum. Philistines.

Oh, and Yvonne Elleman singing "Everything's Alright" from Sir Tim Cricketfan and Lord Thingumy Webbed-Feet's Jesus Christ Superstar - also 5/4

Of course, if you're looking for odd and changing time signatures then the world of prog is the world for you. For an accessible shifting time sig prog tune try "Limelight" by Rush from their Moving Pictures album. Lots of odd time signatures but presented in a way which sounds really natural and actually adds up to a very decent rock/pop tune.

Oh, and humming it through in my head... doesn't Golden Brown actually average out as effectively 6/8 - making it eminently waltzable?

Trevor_Raggatt | 29 March 2008 - 10:26am

If the audience can't clap...

That opening bit of Tubular Bells is 3 bars of 7/8 and 1 of 9/8. That'll be why you don't hear it in discos. Well... one of the reasons.

Radiohead's Pyramid Song is in some mad compound time - it all seems fairly clear until the drums come in. I remember having a long discussion about it with some other music students and we later reconvened in a music shop around the sheet music for Amnesiac which listed it as being in 4/4 which it definitely isn't.

Solsbury Hill works because you can clap it or walk to it so the time signature doesn't get in the way - sometimes (and the prog rock and prog jazz acts know who they are) complex time signatures seem to be used more to show how clever the musicians are than to actually serve the music.

matt_cochr | 28 March 2008 - 6:13pm

Lots of prog with bizarre time signatures...

...probably the most complex of the lot is an old Canterbury band called Egg. They're kind of like a less bombastic, more light-hearted version of ELP or more accurately, The Nice, with song titles like 'The Song Of McGilicudie The Pusilanimous' and 'Seven Is A Jolly Good Time'. That latter track actually refers to the time signature 7/4. The first two albums are great for any Hammond organ junkies out there too.

Genesis' 'Apocalypse In 9/8' is probably the finest thing they ever recorded. The climax of that section is still very powerful stuff. However, I think 'Turn It On Again' is more relevant here- it was a big hit single yet some of it was in 13/8!

I remember reading Ian Anderson saying he took perverse delight in trying to watch Cliff Richard trying to dance to 'Living In The Past' during a Top Of The Pops playback...

JJ | 28 March 2008 - 6:20pm

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

I don't have my copy of 'Revolution In The Head' to hand, but if someone who does have it handy could please post the myriad time signature changes the Fab's negotiated to deliver Mr Lennon's vision that'd be lovely...

dodger23 | 28 March 2008 - 6:37pm

The greatest warm gun that I possess

Wikipedia (so dutifully apply a pinch of salt) says:
Beginning in 4/4 time, the song shifts to a 3/4 time for the guitar solo and the "I need a fix..." section. This gives way to 6/8, 3/4, and 4/4 measures in the "Mother Superior..." section before returning to 4/4 for the majority of the doo-wop style ending. During Lennon's spoken-word interlude, the song briefly switches into 6/4.

matt_cochr | 28 March 2008 - 7:33pm

21/8 anyone?

Some time in the early 90s, Danny Thompson played a series of shows at the Borderline to celebrate 35 years in the music business (so he must be over 50 by now). I went to a number of them, as he had all sorts of guests with him, along with his band Whatever, which included the elsewhere-mentioned John Etheridge. The guests included Mary Coughlan, Marianne Faithfull and Jakko Jacszyk (not sure about spelling but, hey, it's close enough for jazz). There was a lot of great music played that week, and an unexpected lowlight: on the last night, Danny's old mucker John Martyn was playing up the road at the Dominion. Danny had clearly been led to believe that John would pitch up after his own show, and went on way beyond his gig's natural end, culminating in the horror that was Danny Thompson Singing! How can such a great and graceful musician have such a ludicrously awful singing voice?? John Martyn didn't show, not surprisingly.

Anyway, one of the Whatever tunes was in a pretty involved time signature. At the end, Danny announced "In case you were wondering, that was in 21/8." Gulp.

Azeem | 31 March 2008 - 5:05pm