Songs which use 5-bar cycles to find transcendence

and it's still a 5-bar cycle, just 6 sets of that cycle. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

The Strokes - Trying Your Luck

In an effort to avoid the tedious work I'm supposed to be doing irl I've spent the morning digging through non-standard pattern length music to try and find more 5 bar examples.

So far, the verse pattern on Eleanor Rigby is probably the most well known 5 bar pattern afaict? Radiohead - Idioteque is also based around a 5 bar loop with occasional flips to a 2 bar pattern.

Not sure how 'transcendant' these are, but there are a few examples of hiphop guys giving the 5 bar loop a shot:

Busta Rhymes & Q Tip - Don't Go
Jay-Z etc - Brooklyn's Finest
Jay-z - Hovi Baby
JonWayne - City Lights
Mobb Deep - Clap
Pete Rock / 9th Wonder - Am I Dreaming?

There are also a few cases of using 5 bar patterns as a trick for a suspenseful outro, eg:
Deerhunter - Desire Lines (outro)
Guns & Roses - November Rain (outro)

There is likely loads more obscure synth stuff that fits the 5 bar bill, eg; East India Youth - Glitter Recession. Whether this is intentional or a side effect of noodling around on a modular synth I don't know.;)

Other notable bits I came across:
Quasi - I Give Up (once it gets going)
The Fall - 'Smile' (kind of could work as 5 bars depending on how you count it ;))

yeah Desire Lines was what made me start this thread

Whoops, forgot it was mentioned already :)

but - good research haha, ty for contributing to the quest

Stereolab - Refractions In The Plastic Pulse

From around 4:30, also in 5/8

I'd say November Rain, great as the outro is, doesn't really pursue transcendence in quite the same tail-chasing way - the best thing about a 5-bar cycle is that it can give the impression of having no beginning point, it is constantly unresolving

whereas the November Rain cycle is a very standard 4-bar cycle with a very obvious start-point that adds an extra bar's widdling to really make the point

When I opened this thread I happened to be listening to Miles Davis' "Johnny Bratton (Insert 1)" from the Complete Jack Johnson Sessions, and it does exactly this. I feel like there are lots more songs I love that do this, but I'm blanking at the moment...

I kind of want to say "Gouge Away"...?

I think Gouge Away works. Frank Black's also got at least a few 5-bar cycles in his solo catalog:

Dog in the Sand
The Marsist
I Switched You
Parry the Wind High, Low (last section)

That reminded me of something similar at the end of "No. 13 Baby", but it turns out that is a 3 and a half bar repeated cycle.

it's 4/4 but has a 5-bar chord progression which is a bit awkward yeah but that's also one of the things that makes it interesting

― ufo, Thursday, 6 April 2023 23:00 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

re: Hey Ya lol