search: pop songs with weird time signatures and metric shifts

Beach Boys possibly?

much as it pains me to type his name, I've a feeling elton john's 'are you ready for love' has a strange time skip in the chorus.

Yes it does. Although its very successful in making it sound straightforward and danceable.

Beatles: "All You Need Is Love"

Layla and other songs that just change into something else almost unrelated
Top 100 songs that sound like they're really 2 or 3 songs cobbled together

(F. Mac's) "Go Your Own Way" sounds really complicated with its odd accents and drum pattern, but it's just plain old 4/4 throughout.

Also, "Carry on My Wayward Son" may just count.

King Crimson, Yes, Genesis... all UK chart acts no? Or is that cheating.

She Said She Said
Good Morning
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Dig a Pony

And if that one doesn't count as "pop", then I guess that Puff Daddy/Jimmy Page collaboration based on "Kashmir" does anyway.

This is straightforward 4/4.

Does "Say A Little Prayer" count?

Weezer's got a few that play some tricks in this vein

Like which?

anyone?

I think that counts as a metric shift.

Maybe it's unfair to exclude Devo. But is Jocko Homo (Are we not men?) the only one?

It's a bar of 3, isn't it? What other pop songs have this?

It does, it's just not very unusual or weird in my estimation.

I guess my question is, at what point does a song become "two bars of 4/4 followed by a bar of 3/4" instead of just 11/4?

It depends on the accents. A lot of this ground was covered here.

Part of "Tallest Man, Broadest Shoulders" or whatever it's called from Illinois is in 11/8. It's 6+5 or 5+6, I forget.

And "Everything in its Right Place" is in 10, I believe. It's 4+4+2.

This is straight 4/4.

The verse in 'Hey Ya' is a six bar phrase where the last bar is 6/4 (or a bar of 4/4 and a bar of 2/4 if you want to think of it like that). Didn't we cover this at length in another thread?

I don't think so, the first section is in 3/4 then the rest is in 4. 'Master of Puppets' has an odd bar in the verse, though, if that counts.

^-^-^--^-^-^

(^ = accented eighth-note)
(- = unaccented eighth-note)

Perhaps to represent the idea of a "schism" itself. Maybe this is what people are talking about when they say Tool are clever/inventive (because to me they mostly just sound like a shitty rock band).

Oh, you're right. And then in the section before the drum break, it's in 3/4 but the drums play through it in 4/4. Then the double-time section is all in 4.

(wow I had not heard this song for years)

Where's this thread? I'm pretty convinced of it being 4+4+3 right now.

There's definitely no bar of three, because the backbeat never changes.

xpost

I know it's not radio-friendly enough for the original question but how do you guys count Sunny Day Real Estate's "Seven?" I hear it as alternating between sections in 4/4 and sections in 5/4 (e.g. the bit that begins at 0:13, switching back to 4/4 around 0:40), but with tempo shifting at the same time so that one bar of 5/4 takes as long as one bar of 4/4 (allowing them to sometimes use similar riffs over both sections.) (I'm a little disappointed that none of it is in 7.) Am I off?

-- Sundar, Saturday, 5 May 2007 14:28 (Yesterday)

Revive on the back of Starless being all 13/8 and polyrhythmic and such.

I'll also chuck in Gorillaz's '5/4' just to sound clever.

"Wanderlove" by Claudine Longet, which alternates 6/4 with 4/4, I think. Extraordinarily pretty tune, written by Mason Williams though her version is much better.

Not a huge hit, but De La Soul - Stakes is High

Also it's more of a strange number of bars per phrase for a hip-hop song than a strange time signature

50 Cent's "Like My Style" is in 7/8, if I remember correctly.

Genesis: "Turn It On Again". Some of their earlier material with weird time signatures may not be called "pop songs" but that one is, no doubt.

oh POP. Bugger. I was about to go on a big Yes fondleftest.

fest

Ha, some youtube commentator refers to Take Five as being in 2/5.

"Play 'Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries' in 5/4, man."

I found that while looking for the Al Jarreau vocal version.
(xpost)

Punchline to one of my favourite jazz anecdotes: "Kid, you don't have to play all that Elvin Jones stuff, you're making it too hard on yourself - it's just a simple backbeat on the two and the five."

(Nine Inch Nails') "March of the Pigs" has one of the most unusual meters of any song to enjoy popular radio play, alternating three bars of 7/8 time with one bar of 4/4 time (in effect, a 29/8 time signature). The song has a BPM rate of 269.

Andrew Lloyd Webber actually tended to do this:
"Memory" does some weird metric stuff during the bridge. "Take That Look Off Your Face" has some strange metric instances during the chorus.

I think everything's a pop song so I'm staying outta this.

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.

The only song I liked in Once was the one in 5/4.

Amerie's One Thing has a curious rhythm that always seems to sidestep me.

The Who's "Happy Jack" has some strange metric shifts, switching between 4/4 and 5/4. And it was a chart hit in the US (their first), at #24.

Amerie's One Thing has a curious rhythm that always seems to sidestep me

It's just 4/4, surely?

I'm sure you're right, chap, as I'm no expert, but to a layman's ears the rhythm gallops in a pleasingly fucked up way.

It is a good funky beat, I won't contest that.

Jona Lewie 'You Will Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties' - 4/4 but the chorus comes in half a bar or so early which is odd, and then there's the bizarre switch to ragtime style (or whatever it is).

Was System of a Down's "Question!" a hit anywhere? Lots of odd stuff going on there.

The only song I liked in Once was the one in 5/4.

That was a cool one.

Also, The Music Next Door by The Lucksmiths has verses in 7/4.

Haha, MVB, I posted that joke here once. I'd like to believe that that is where you learned of it.

(Nine Inch Nails') "March of the Pigs" has one of the most unusual meters of any song to enjoy popular radio play, alternating three bars of 7/8 time with one bar of 4/4 time (in effect, a 29/8 time signature). The song has a BPM rate of 269.

I love it when people who have no concept of music theory invent little math games in their head. I had someone do this with "Hey Ya" once to me. Tried to tell me it was in 18 or something. I was like "No, there's just a measure of 2/4, guy" If you handed someone a piece of sheet music with 29/8 on it, they'd laugh you out of the room. It would be the dumbest looking piece of music ever.

"I Will Always Love You" is in 29/8 time.

f you handed someone a piece of sheet music with 29/8 on it, they'd laugh you out of the room. It would be the dumbest looking piece of music ever.
That's why I thought the 2/5 comment was funny. It would have to come from some bizarro planet where the base case was to assume 5 beats per measure.

Yeah, that sure would be dumb. But it would still be easier to look at than something in 29/8!

Haha, MVB, I posted that joke here once. I'd like to believe that that is where you learned of it.

Nope, sorry! I got it from Jazz Anecdotes by Bill Cole. (At least I THINK so - can't say for sure 'cause I just skimmed without buying.) And that bizarro planet was in fact Greece!

Well

In any case I just recently a variant answer to "How many bass players does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"one, five, one, five"

The more common answer being: "None, the keyboard player can do it with his left hand."

Since there is no "natural" notation for a 5th note, 2/5 is pretty much impossible to notate.

True. You might as well call it 2/4 (or maybe 2/2) and spare yourself the agita.

Unless you are in the Cyclops's cave in the Aegean Sea and they only understand 5.

Damn, what a disappointment if that's just a plain ol' joke and not a true story...:(

xpost

I only notate music in binary.

You and everybody else

nice use of 9/8. (although it's more fun in bellydance and balkan brass stuff.)

And Wagner.

yeah, i like that 9/8 track.

yeah, who are those guys?

Nhhmbase? It's like a prog jam band?

japanese prog something something

I just noticed the post upthread but I had figured out that SDRE thing. Took me a little while though. It sounded not-too-uncommon but I was confused when I tried to actually count it! haha, moments in retardation.

anybody know steeleye span's version of "one misty moisty morning"? it does one of my favorite rhythm tricks. it has a melody line of plucked quarter-notes, nice and straightforward, but then on one of the verses they shift so the quarter-notes are played on the offbeat, while the vocal line continues as before. totally simple move, but it sounds great and weird. my dad asked me to figure out what was going on and when i told him they were just playing the offbeats he didn't believe me because it sounds like they're doing something much odder.

Beatles "It's Only Love" is in 4/4, but the guitar hook is syncopated and then the vocal comes in and takes over and is just straight quarter notes, having some similar effect to what you are describing, maybe in reverse.

Time Signature Cheat Sheet.

OK, I give up. This page lists some time signatures with really high numerators including some by Kyle Gann. If you go to http://www.kylegann.com/Gannscores.html you can actual see the score with the 29/4 time signature notated in black and white.

Maybe it's finally time to get the Moondog book.

The high numbers are just ways of saying it's a measure of 4/4 followed by a measure of 9/8 (ie 17/8) or whatever. It's speaking to form more than anything else, and I don't find it at all useful to think "oh, it's in 19/8, cool".

And to think I used to believe that Kyle Gann was a down-to-earth kind of guy.

If somebody is capable of accurately counting out to large prime numbers in their head, I say more power to 'em.

my favorite time signature joke goes something like, "yeah, I got this hot beat in 7, check it out -- [while playing normal rock beat] ONE, TWO, THREE , FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEV-, -VEN!"

I don't find it at all useful to think "oh, it's in 19/8, cool"

No one does except for tubbies filling out the Mars Volta entry on wikipedia.

i was gonna say rush fans, but i guess either/or.

This Rush fan couldn't care less about the goddamn time sig.

I just had a vision of Bela Fleck covering "Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown" and changing the time signature.

Or Muddy Waters singing "She's Nineteen" in a slow 19/8.

Well...

I count one...

two...

three...

four...

five...

...

...nineteen!

Too bad Scorsese left it on The Last Waltz cutting room floor.

Or "Hey Nineteen," where they really can't dance together.

To say nothing of "19/99"

21/12

"In the time signature 25/25 ..."

31/21

25/41
Big beats so dancers have fun

Chronic 200/1

19/77
And we are going mad

18/7 on a motherfuckin' cop

Ram Jam's 'Black Betty' has got some weird timing/shifting going on. Or maybe the CD was skipping when I heard it last...

3/6 Mafia

blink 1/82

0.041666666666666666666666666666667

0.81818181818181818181818181818181818181

peep this groove in π/8, yo

roffles roffles roffles LOCK THREAD

Ha, yeah, if you're going to count partial measures and such as part of the overall time signature (which you shouldn't), then "Walk the Line" would be in something like 42/4, and "Ring of Fire" would be the best-known song to be alternating between 11/4 and 6/4 and whatever else -- but they are not, they just have truncated measures and whatnot.

(I think "Walk the Line" just has a half-measure going into each verse section, to loop back to the vocal faster. If I'm remembering right, "Ring of Fire" has three-beat bars that could probably trip you up if you were asked to, like, play the bass part unrehearsed, and couldn't remember exactly how they worked -- but still a conventional signature.)

Ha, wait -- just call those cut time 2/2 and you're good (except "Ring" would have a few 3/2 bars when the horns are involved)

Yup. This happened to me on a gig with "All You Need Is Love", because I am the only person on earth who doesn't really listen to the Beatles and I didn't know where the dropped beats were on that tune.

xp

0/9

867/5309

tipsy mothra, if you ever do one of those "Music Together" classes with your kid, watch out for this tricky clapping exercise they throw at you near the end which is a couple bars of kind of syncopated 9/8 followed by a turnaround bar of 4/8.

What about Battles? Aren't "weird time signatures" and abrupt shift changes what they're known for?

God that 29/8 thing still makes me angry. WHY DON'T YOU JUST ADD UP ALL THE BEATS IN THE SONG AND MAKE THE WHOLE SONG ONE MEASURE OF 1568/8

re: Beatles. Yes, there's a link upthread to another thread called John Lennon and his penchant for silly half-time changes in almost every song.

And, of course, nabisco otm.

xpost re: all you need is love

Aww! It's the last beat that drops, which is presumably why someone on Wikipedia is saying it'd be 7/4 (ha, and 4/4 + 3/4 would look like something else entirely) -- but I think it's actually in 3s (like a 6/8), and not just shuffled, which would make it ... slightly out of my depth. How would you denote that? Consulting the song via YouTube has not helped, but I like how Lennon was apparently chewing gum while singing this on their global broadcast.

4/4 : 6/8 :: 7/4 : ?/?

(Middle-school math suggests "10/8," but that doesn't help at all.)

I mean 9/8, actually

Isn't there some theory that Lennon chewed gum before, and apparently during, singing to mucify his vocal chords to rectify the damage that started with "Twist and Shout"?

I'd check Allan Pollack for the "All You Need Is Love" time signature.

nabisco: 6/8 + 6/8 + 9/8

OR LIKE 21/8 GOD THE BEATLES ARE PROG LOL, I'M GONNA GO PLAY HOT BASSLICKS TO MY TOOL ALBUMS GUYS

xpost - yes, W, I was just coming around

(I just wound up doing exactly what I was bitching about upthread -- like "would that be 21/8, then?" when putting it in 6/8 makes the half-measure not weird anymore)

double x-post haha!

I just listened to All You Need Is Love on youtube, it's pretty simple...7/4 bars for most of the verses (OR 4/4 + 3/4 IF YOU PREFER), and a 3/4 bar at the turnaround coming out of the chorus. Where are you getting 6/8 from, nabs?

Because it's in 3s:

LOVE-2-3 2-2-3
LOVE-2-3 4-2-3

You could consider that an extreme shuffle, but if not for the dropped beat I'd call that 6/8 easy.

(Or rather in 6s, if that's easier -- LOVE-2-3 / 4-5-6, etc.)

But the backbeats are on "one TWO three FOUR five SIX sev". If it was what I think you're describing, I'd only expect a backbeat on four.

Each of the spaces between your "one TWO three FOUR" etc. is subdivided into three beats, not four.

Hopefully this will line up proportionally -- O is kick and X is snare:

1 2 3 / 1 2 3  / 1 2 3  / 1 2 3  / 1 2 3  / 1 2 3  / 1 2 3

O       X        O        X        O        X        O

LOVE             LOVE              LOVE              dump-da

I was gonna go count this out for myself, but I just started watching Leonard Cohen doc on Sundance. Maybe he'll provide some time sig food for thought,

There are two reasons to break 21/8 into 6/8 + 6/8 + 9/8 (or 3/8 + 9/8 + 9/8 or whatever): 1. Since certain time signatures are often, but not necessarily, associated with emphasis on certain notes, it gives the musician some idea of how to interpret the score, and 2. It's a lot easier to read 21/8 broken into 3 bars than as a unit. In some cases, however, it's better to keep the time signature more odd-looking. I've seen scores in 17/16, and while this is difficult to play, it made more sense than shoveling it into 4/4 + 4/4 + 4/4 + 5/4.

speaking of the beatles, i've always been fascinated/confused by the intro to "got to get you into my life." the hi-hat, which counts out 16 beats, and tambourine, which joins for last eight, seem to be playing a simple 4/4, while the horns are playing a 4/4 of their own with the 1 in a different place.

That one actually sounds kind of like a recording issue -- like maybe everything originally came in on the same rhythm as the horns, but they wound up re-tracking bits and had to fudge the first few notes.

So far this song Antony is singing seems to be in 3/4, but maybe there will be some metrical fireworks at the end to go with the vocal ones.

Beth Orton number in 3/4 too! Man, this is boring!

Rufus Wainwright too. I give up.

OK, I count "All You Need As Love" same as Jordan, I think: "one TWO three FOUR one TWO three-and"

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.

http://www.9thx.com/content-thumbs/d1f95e1dd0402783153936798e06e4512
Three is a magic number.

Ringo is probably playing it smart by staying simple and letting the other instruments state the 8th note feel.
Which was an especially smooth move given that if he screwed up, hundreds of millions of people would see him do so on live television.

Actually, I'm pretty sure you can see him fudge what he's doing on that 7th beat at least once, in terms of kick-or-snare. It just doesn't really matter enough to call it a "mistake." (Put a percussionist's arm right next to him would seem to be doing ... not what he's doing.)

Put = But

http://www.delafont.com/music_acts/Music_Images/delasoul-album-three.jpg
How high is the water, Mama?

http://www.retrojunk.com/img/art-images/nick_lowe_coolf.jpg
I remember the night they put a percussionist's right arm

a percussionist's arm right next to him would seem to be doing ... not what he's doing.

yeah there are a couple different percussion parts going on. i haven't tried to work out the different bits but ringo's just doing one of them.

as for who's doing the swinging, everybody is. the drums are mostly holding down the quarter-notes (although of course you can swing even on just quarters), with most of the swing coming from elsewhere.

http://www.vaporrecords.com/img/jonrichman/jr_be_promo_250.jpg
You know about history and geometry
But you don't know enough to just let the baby be
And you think I should be tired now
That's because I'm not yet three

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000046XT.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

(But a percussionist's arm right next to him would seem to be doing ... not what he's doing.)

That percussionist is Keith Moon (you can briefly glimpse his face early in the clip). And yeah, he pretty much never did what anyone else was doing.

Haha, Moon would explain it. Although there IS something about Ringo's face that looks like he was all kick, snare, kick, snare, kick, snare, kick, s- oh wait that was the half measure KICK, snare

Yeah, Ringo might've been high. He usually handled the tricky time signatures with ease and swing ("Here Comes The Sun," especially...I mean, he does fills during the trickiest parts of that song).

And he was no doubt distracted by Moon's brush-twirling antics.

If it had been done a few years later, he would have had Jim Keltner to help him.

http://www.rutles.org/rpix/leggy.jpg

Right. Now that that's been sorted out, lets figure out the weird bumps in "She Said, She Said."

I just listened to that song for the first time, sounds like it just goes to 3/4 at the bridge that starts on (when I was a) "boy", then back to 4/4 on the 8th bar.

AWP has that one pretty well covered:

http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/ssss.shtml

I love that song though.

Ha, that entry has more or less his trademark statement about this stuff
Our great illustration of the principle of keeping some musical parameters steady when maxing out on others is two-fold: rather than "fight" the changing meter (at risk of obscuring it), both the harmonic rhythm and the drumming are slavishly at the meter's service. The chords change on every measure boundary, and the drumming (and the bass as well) forgo fancy syncopation for strictly even eighth-note marking of the beat.

^^ that's what I be saying about programming drums in threes, people

apart from the bridge section though the drumming on that song is really inventive. one of my favorite beatles drum tracks.

(i'm just guessing, but it sounds like some keith moon influence)

The drumming sort of does obscure it/smooth it out. If you're playing the snare on every single beat then there's no real indication of where the downbeat is.

xpost

Yeah, marking the beats is not necessarily the same as serving the meter.

^^ that's what I be saying about programming drums in threes, people
say what?

I mean, I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to say.

Do typical Syd Barrett songs count as pop songs?

I guess everybody is over on the Heath Ledger OD/RIP thread.

time of the season

Just syncopated 4/4 no?

I count it
four-and-One-(two)-AND-(three)

Repeat.

Unless I got up on my bad foot and started on the wrong beat...

yeah, nothing odd in that song.

OK, I read the AWP thing and listened to S^4 last night and started to understand the bridge. Once it really settles down into 3/4 it feels pretty natural, it's just the very beginning that is disorienting, where it's technically in 4/4 for two bars and then 3/4 for two bars, but there's no real backbeat as Jordan pointed out and no other hook, bass or otherwise, to hang your hat on.

I wish I understood this stuff. I bet it could enhance listening to music, it could allow you to listen with different ears. Nice work guys.

possible side effects include ranking britney spears above arcade fire.

(oops sorry you were saying high on fire, not arcade fire. um, that too.)

"Fire"? 4/4, but doesn't start on a downbeat.

You're good, tipsy, very good (yes, high on fire). I hadn't had my coffee yet when I went on a rant on that thread this morning.

we could get into led zep shit

"Fire"? 4/4, but doesn't start on a downbeat.

starts on the 4 right? yeah not starting on the 1 is a good way to sound off kilter without being off filter.

Wait the 4/4 beginning of the bridge of S^4 does have backbeat which continues into the first two 3/4 bars, so he hits the snare like this one-TWO-three ONE-two-three. The bass does a pick-up on the "two-three" and the we settle into waltz time. The SECOND time through the bridge only the first 3/4 bar is transitional having the extra backbeat carryover, drums go: one-TWO-three, one-two-three and bass figure starts on the downbeat of the second 3/4 bar, "one-two-three".

(xpost)
I think so. I think somebody makes a mistake coming back in at the end too. Not a timing mistake per se, but playing the wrong section.

Isn't "Black Dog" in 7/8 or something, I can't remember.

There's no AWP website for easy reference.

led zep, that thread about the "fool in the rain" fills is pretty good. and there's always the crunge (9/8?).

My itchy g00gle finger tells me BD switches between 4 and 5.

the crunge is so awesome. it's in 9/8, and the bridge goes three bars of 4/4 and then one bar of 9/8.

Black Dog kind of fucks me up because Bonham basically slams through it in 4/4. Also, because of the stops and starts, it's too easy just to think of the riff and not really know the time signature. Haven't listened to it in awhile.

The Crunge is a great goddamn tune.

kashmier = 4/4 but six bar phrases, i think.

lol at "jumbo time signature"

i like that you can hear some stick clicks during "black dog," it's nice to know even bonham couldn't count that in his head.

oh shit, i think youtube took down the SNL clip of P Diddy & Jimmy Page, which had the sickest drumming ever!

"Kashmir" = drums in 4, everyone else in 3, right?

I mean, for the main riff.

Stevie Wonder: Livin' For The City

This isn't all that strange: the verses are 4/4 the chorus is 3/4.

xpost Sundar OTM re "Kashmir"

yeah. i think of it as a hemiola over a six-bar phrase, but it comes out to the same thing.

same with livin' for the city, actually...it feels like 3/4 of course, but the number of bars are such that you can play in 4/4 through it and comes out correctly. this is drummerthink, i guess!

i think of it as a hemiola over a six-bar phrase, but it comes out to the same thing.

otm. it's 6/8 but bonham plays it like it's 4/4, so his beat works in a sort of ellipse with the time signature, meeting back up every two measures.

Actually, there are two bars of 4/4 at the end of the chorus for Livin' for the City. So either the chorus is in 3/4 until those bars (which is probably most accurate), or the whole thing is seven bars of 4/4.

Well, "Livin'..." mostly sounds weird because that "head" or whatever has some elongated notes that can't be subdivided easily into 4s or 3s, seems to me. And does the drum track continue at the same tempo throughout that little playlet, or does it fade entirely and then return? I'll have to give that a listen when I get home...

the drums hit quarter notes, so they're not really defining any meter during the chorus (a la that beatles tune)

All right, I had one more thing to say about S4 but I'll save it for later. In the meantime I ripped How The West Was Won. I'll see you blecches tomorrow!

OK, the dropped eight note in "The Ocean" is pretty easy to deal with, "Black Dog" is kind of hard to figure out, can't find Physical Graffiti to work on "Kashmir." Without AWP I am lost.

OK, Sorry for the geocities, but John Paul Jones explains Black Dog to you

neat

Speaking of Zep and weird time changes, I love what they always did with "Heartbreaker" in concert, changing the verses from 5 measures to 4 by playing that little tricky bit when Plant's only halfway through singing the final line in each verse. Dunno exactly when they began to perform it that way, or whether the change made it easier or more difficult to play, or neither. But it definitely makes the track swing and groove a bit more.

oh yeah, i see what you mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVM9Q6pBBWo

I think what you're hearing is a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth
You probably were thinking of the samba version, that was only broadcast in Latin America, and had Ringo manhandling a pandeiro.

"Fire"? Is that all there is to "Fire"?

Dionne Warwick's "Anyone Who Had a Heart": It goes from 3/8 to 2/4 to 4/4....in the first line.
Hm. Lots of people on the web have quoted some source (AMG?) saying it goes from 5/4 to 4/4 and back. I'd say it's in 3/4 with bars of 5/4, which sound like two bars of 3/4 with the last beat cut out. (I guess you could also say 3/4 with an extra 2/4 now and then if you wanted to)

"Promises, Promises" also has a weird time signature, but we don't have to argue about it since, according to the myspace page of Bacharach & David
In this song, he incorporates a very complex time signature sequence of |3/8|÷|4/8|3/8|÷|4/8|.

OK, extra level of confusion over "Anyone Who Had A Heart" is the way the bars are grouped, there are five bar phrases alternating with four bar phrases.

Hm, maybe there's no chopped off bar, just a little hiccup of syncopation. I guess people mean 5/4 and 4/4 with triplets, so what I was calling 5 bars is considered one bar.

Anyone who killed a thread...

The Fiery Furnaces - Straight Street

I would call this a pop song.

The Go-Betweens had their fair share: "Cattle and Cane," "Two Steps, Step Out," "The Ghost and the Black Hat."

What's going on in 'Fake Empire' by The National? Some bits are 4/4, others 3/4 - or maybe it's 4/4 throughout but the drums are 3/4 - or maybe the drummer just uses triplets a lot, I don't know. This is why I'm not a musician.

The song is in 3/4, but the piano is playing that dotted 8th note pattern that creates a 4/4 feel over the top.

The Elvin Jones/Greek bandleader joke is in the "Jokes" section of Jazz Anecdotes.

"Welcome To The Cheap Seats" by The Wonderstuff is in 5/4 plus it has some triplets in the chorus which adds to the rhythmic complexity.

I was listening to a tune of the newest Low album last night that's in 9. Can't remember which one offhand but I'll check later.

Oingo Boingo were big on playing half- or third-measures all the time

Surprised no one's mentioned:

Sugababes - Round Round

"Hey Ya" is definitely crowded with weird time signature, and that is very much a major reason for its appeal and impact. Not at least because it is from a genre where this kind of thing (apart from polyrhythmics and other microrhythmic tendencies, it must be added) is so unusual.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, September 22, 2006 8:00 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

that TOTALLY PROG bar of 2/4

The verses of Arcade Fire's "Modern Man" have a very weird structure.

This is as best as I can figure out the first verse, from when the guitar comes in:

one measure of 8
four measures of 9 (Win's vocal comes in on the second)
two measures of 8
two measures of 9
two measures of 8
four measures of 9
one measure of 8

"i love rock and roll"

(some accelerated turnaround bars of 7 in there)

okay i generally don't listen to the arcade fire but i am on the case

jaymc, are you counting 8th notes? here's why i think it comes off as tricky: there are bars of 5/4, but they always accent the "&" of 5 before the one, and don't really mark the one (at least in the drums). usually when people play odd times they hit the one pretty clearly, and you only hear that kind of anticipation in 4/4.

so, i hear the verse as alternating measures of 4/4 and 5/4, but downbeat of the 4/4 bars is anticipated by an 8th note. does that make sense?

I believe Juliana Hatfield's 'Spin the bottle' is in 5/4.

xp I guess that makes sense; I've always been lousy at counting off-beats.

It's been mentione upthread but just a moment ago I was listening to 'hey ya' and noticed for the first time it doesn't have a straight 4/4 time signature.

9/8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-YrTtYaCD0&feature=player_embedded

I think we discussed this in another thread but there's a single bar of 3/4 at the end of the bridge in Beyonce's "Single Ladies".

There was a really good article in an old issue of the English musicology journal Popular Music on the really free meter in some early Incredible String Band songs. "October Song" from the first album is a good example.

And, interestingly, both of those guys did it. Try counting the meter in "Gently Tender."

Pink Floyd - "Bike"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIkOVe0MF1k

lots of early Pretenders songs boast unexpected time signatures ("Tattooed Love Boys") and chord changes ("The Phone Call").

Ignition (Remix) adds an extra bit of a bar here and there

There was a really good article in an old issue of the English musicology journal Popular Music on the really free meter in some early Incredible String Band songs. "October Song" from the first album is a good example.

Pop songs. I could list 20 songs from "Trout Mask Replica" if you just want songs with funny time signatures etc

That's a great deal more obvious, though. If someone had pointed it out in a Donovan song or something, I wouldn't imagine anyone would raise that objection.

I think we discussed this in another thread but there's a single bar of 3/4 at the end of the bridge in Beyonce's "Single Ladies".

ha, we discussed this in great detail iirc

Ignition (Remix) adds an extra bit of a bar here and there

yeah but it's always even (like a two beat extension, standard pop stuff)

Plus, the main thing about that article was how extreme those ISB songs are.

"Painting Box" was released as a single from the 2nd album, is in 4/4, and doesn't sound like a different genre entirely from the songs that are all over the place metrically.

It's been mentioned upthread, but recently experienced firsthand that phenomenon of thinking a song might be in a weird time signature, The Smiths's "Oscillate Wildly," when actually it was on 4/4, but with the eighth notes grouped 3-3-2, which I guess is not actually that uncommon

i tried and failed to find that 'single ladies' discussion, but i definitely remember dan and i arguing about the bar at the end of the bridge.

Maybe it's naive on my part, but I tend to defer to your judgement in these discussions since you're a drummer.

Devo's "It's Not Right" is I think 6/4, 2/4, 4/4, 2/4 during the verse, but there are variations in there as well where they omit the 6/4 and use 4/4. It's great.

On the same LP, "Snowball" is in 4/4 but it has an accent on the "and" of 4, which makes it sound like an odd meter.

Wow, my ear sucked five years ago.

Anyway, an obvious one that wasn't mentioned here: "Strawberry Fields Forever" (a bar of 9/8 on the title line).

Try counting this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODJ-AAmCM-A

Will do when I get home.

the main reason that one is so hard to count is that there is counting in it

Ha, yeah they were messing us kids up

I think it's 7 - 7 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 3 - 4 - 4 - 2??

It's two bars of 14/8 (or four bars of 7/8), followed by a bar of 11/8, then a bar of 15/8, then I think it's either 16 or 17 -- the transition to the bridge confuses me

actually johnny's divisions make more sense

The vibe solo's in 4/4!

Steel drums, rather

right, but there's a weird extra bar going into it I think

I mean extra beat

Yes, that transition is very odd.

The Beatles' "Good Morning" is another fun one to count.

ten, isn't it?

No, it changes multiple times throughout the song. It's really wacky.

Devo has some weird ones in their day. Never was able to figure out the first half of "Jocko Homo" though I believe it's 7/4. Todd Rundgren also messed around a bit on "Izzat Love?"

Alan Myers from Devo rarely gets mentioned in 'great drummers' discussions but he was terrific. Even on "Freedom of Choice" they were still using a kit on almost all the tunes.

yeah and that drummer they brought in to replace him couldn't do the same things, they had to slow songs with trickier rhythms like "Satisfaction" or "Whip It" way down. though they're now touring with Josh Freese and from what I've seen he's really a very good drummer, but he plays Devo a little too straightforward. Alan was key to Q: Are We Not Men's success to me, the drumming really amplifies the nervous and skittish feeling of the songs.

Man, Rush's "Limelight" is great. I've heard it so many times but never tried to count it until now.

The Pinball Song can be counted like

4 3 4 3 4 4 3 3 4 4 3
4 4 4 3 4 4 4 5
14 bars of 4 followed by one bar of 2
4 3 4 3 4 4 4

But the ending makes it clear that it should actually be a division of 8.

A few Lennon's already mentioned, but Don't Let Me Down alternates 5/4 with 4/4. He uses that trick a few times

come to mention it, Here Comes the Sun has odd bars of 3/8 amid the 4/4

How about "Bubbles" by the Free Design, is it 15? The 'bridge' part is in 7, I think.

seems like 8/8 to me with some bars of 7 and some bars of 6

Intro:
8 8 8 7
8 8 8 7

Verse:
8 8 8 7
8 8 8 7
8 8

Chorus:
8 8 8 8
8 7 8 8
8 7 8 8

Bridge:
8 6 8 6
8 6 8 6
8 6 8 8 8

or if you like to add stuff together into needlessly large numbers...

16, 15, 16, 15
16, 15, 16, 15, 16
16, 16, 15, 16, 15, 16
14, 14, 14, 14, 14, .... then what? 16, 8? 24? silly.

Dionne Warwick's "Anyone Who Had a Heart": It goes from 3/8 to 2/4 to 4/4....in the first line.

This has been bugging me. Just sounds like straight 6/8 to me. I pulled out my Bacharach songbook and they notate it as alternating bars of 5/4 and 4/4 which is insane. You could easily count the whole thing as 3/8, but it also makes sense to do
6 3 6 6 6
6 3 6 6 6 and then straight 6/8 for the chorus

Re: 15, I meant I was hearing one less 16th note, counting it as 4/4, but after listening again that's not right. How do you count 8/8? ONE two three ONE two three ONE two?

one two three four five six seven eight. really fast in the case of bubbles.

I mean you could say it goes 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3 but grouping it into bars of 8 beats fits better with where the downbeats are.

and I think when you write it out like that with eights, sevens and sixes, it helps visualize the structure better. My brain can't really parse a list of 16s and 15s. But with 8s and 7s I can see that they just cut the last bar of each phrase one beat short during the intro and verse, and then did the same thing with the second bar during the chorus phrases. just makes more sense to me that way but of course it's all arbitrary.

Ok, I was able to follow your notation--I was originally trying to count those 8ths as 16ths but it wasn't adding up. When I see 8 in the bottom of any notation I automatically think 'triplets'.

Heavy Vegetable - Song for Wesley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtgYvUpto4M

Short (1:16) but poppy song but counted out
4 4 4 4
5 5 5 5
6 6
11 13
4 4 4 4
5 5 5 6
11 14

Mario Rubalcaba (drums) does some kinda tricky things when the meter switches, always thought this was an odd song.

Ok, I was able to follow your notation--I was originally trying to count those 8ths as 16ths but it wasn't adding up. When I see 8 in the bottom of any notation I automatically think 'triplets'.

Yeah I think Bubbles is a good example of when it's necessary to count as /8. When the song starts off it sounds like it's in 4/4 and you could loop the first bar of the verse "blowin bubbles out of the window" and it would be in 4/4. But then when you get to the end of a line it's cut short a half beat which is why you need to count it in 8 or else you'd have a bar of only 3.5 beats.

Heavy Vegetable - Song for Wesley

cool song. I think the parts that you counted as 11, 13 and 14 could just be counted as 6 instead. It's just that there's a downbeat in a weird spot somewhere in the middle there.

I'm not a musician. Does either "Rikki, Don't Lose That Number" or John Cale's "Fear" fit? They always sounded rhythmically weird to me, or at least parts of them.

I just put on "Rikki" and counted 4 all the way through.

Plenty of syncopation on top of the basic beat, though, which is what I'm guessing you were hearing.

Man, Rush's "Limelight" is great. I've heard it so many times but never tried to count it until now.

OTM. On the first go, I count: Riff 1 in 4
Riff 2 in 7
Verses in 3 with one bar of 4 as a transition back to Riff 2
Chorus, part 1 ("Living in the limelight") in 3
Chorus, part 2 ("Put aside the alienation") in 4
Guitar solo first in 3, then in 4

The use of 7/4 for Riff 2 foreshadows the interplay between 3 and 4 in a way.

Chorus, part 2 ("Put aside the alienation") in 4

This begins on "Those who wish to be" obv

Actually, the first part of the guitar solo is more like 2 bars of 3, a bar of 2, and a bar of 4. It all adds up to a multiple of 3 so I simplified it that way but this is where the accents fall.

Queen - Bicycle Race.

The Stranglers had several too:

Golden Brown (3/4 - 4/4)
Nuclear Device (4/4 - 6/4 - 7/4)
Peasant In The Big Shitty (9/4)

I count Limelight's verse like this:

3 - 3 - 4 - 2 - 4 - 2 - 3 - 3 - 4(?)

But like you said it's a matter of grouping.

Yeah, yours is more precise.

I'm going to revise my pinball interpretation to:

8 6 8 6
8 8 6 6
8 8 6
8 8 8 6
8 8 8 10
14 bars of 8, one bar of 4
8 6 8 6
8 8 8 6

I count Limelight's verse like this:

3 - 3 - 4 - 2 - 4 - 2 - 3 - 3 - 4(?)

that's really cool. on paper there are 4 divisions of six, but the way it's played is just like you say. It sort of has a consistency and a symmetry despite the odd meter.

Listening again, I believe that last 4 in Limelight's verse is actually a 7/8. What a great song.

bob weir - "playing in the band" the entire song is in 10/4.
allman bros. - "whipping post" is in 11/8 for a few bars.

I love how Give It To Me by Timbaland has a single drum sample throughout, yet it shifts it (or crops it?) so that, further into the track, beat 1 of the bar occurs at a different part of the sample than it did in verse 1, which defeats your expectations in an exhilarating way.

Survivor's Eye Of The Tiger does a clever thing in the intro, dropping a beat so that the guitar chord triple whammy occurs a heartbeat earlier than it did the first time round, mimicing an expert boxer's unexpected (to his opponent) timing.

I'm not sure these are genuine "weird time signatures" or rather examples of odd beats being cut in order to "create interest". The I Should Be So Lucky example six years upthread is a good one - some weird triplet thing happens at "hand in hand I'm dreaming...", although it stays in 4/4.

Listening again, I believe that last 4 in Limelight's verse is actually a 7/8. What a great song.

I think you're right!

'Rockwrok' by Ultravox is mostly in 4/4, but the guitar solo section is in 7/4.

That's just 'missing a beat out' tho.

It's still a time signature change.

tru

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

This song is 4/4 but the "In the evidence of its brilliance" line she sings in 7/4, but around 3:48 she sings it on top of stuff that's being sung in 4/4 and it sounds kind of crazy.

Suddenly I think I understand part of the appeal of Idlewild's When I Argue I See Shapes. The middle-eightish vocal line that comes in at 3:13 is in 3/4 but then merges over another line in 4/4. (Video might be blocked, it is for me, fuckers.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPNFApou5_4

The chorus 'Remind Me To Smile' by Gary Numan has an interesting one:

(4/4) - "Remind me"
(4/4) - "To smile, you"
(4/4) - "Know the 'old"
(4/4) - "friends' line it"
(4/4) - "gets so I"
(7/4) - "feel like I'm in this"
(5/4) - "cold... glass cage"
(4/4) - *riff*

The 7/4 and 5/4 could be written as three bars of 4/4 - and this seems to help keep the Roland drum machine rhythm pattern in time when it gets to the next verse (which is rigidly stuck in 4/4), but it seems impossible to count them as three blocks of 4 because of the way the beats are stressed.

always enamored by this one:
Barbara Manning - B4 We Go Under (teenbeat records classic, written by Robert Scott, later re-covered by his Magick Heads)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsfW6QmL_zc

my attempt at parsing:
intro/verses: 4 4 4 6
chorus: 4 4 6

This is a crazy one that doesn't get talked about a lot, would love for the formalists talk this one through:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V7lTFzdSn0

Pre-chorus and chorus are obv in 4/4. In the verses, the rhythm section's parts are based on a pattern of 10 eighth notes grouped 3-3-2-2. You could notate that as a dotted rhythm in 5/4 or else in 10/8, which isn't a very common time signature but does seem to describe what's going on. The keyboard part still seems to be in 4 though!

(It's late and I've been drinking rum nog though.)

AMG describes it as "a surprisingly straightforward ballad"!

Is anything on the rest of Panorama this ambitious, rhythmically?

You could notate that as a dotted rhythm in 5/4

Would prob do this.

Please tell me I'm not crazy! My friends hear nothing but 4/4 in this George Jones song, but I'm hearing shortened measures early in the main verses. First happens about 13 seconds in. Very unusual for a traditional country song, methinks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whj-ONfbH64

You're crazy.

Yeah, Jazzbo, you're not crazy...but you're not hearing the song correctly, I think. It's straight 4/4, a very simple two-step, completely standard structurally. Nothing unusual about it at all. What may be fooling you is the way it picks up within the measure, and the way it goes from I to V within the structure. You'll look in vain for a country tune that has any metric shifts or unusual time signatures; it simply doesn't occur.

There is absolutely one measure of 2/4 in each verse

Count along

4 bars of 4/4
1 bar of 4/4 • 1 bar of 2/4 • 2 bars of 4/4
4 bars of 4/4
4 bars of 4/4

It's not Dream Theater or anything but there's two beats dropped in each verse

yeah, E, but the song is simply a two-step. does the bassist ever deviate from playing the same pattern? Nope. you simply count the song in 2. One, two, one, two. Where's the complication here? There is none. What is perhaps notable is the structure of the song, which is completely standard in country music. There are no beats dropped at all. This song is quite similar to the Jones hit "Someone I Used to Know." Any country musician worth his salt would immediately see this is nothing to worry about and also, completely intuitive. The thing that makes it distinctive is the way it picks up from the second beat of the 2/2 measure, which I guess gives the illusion that there's something like "dropping beats" going on here. Great song.

Whiney's schemata is correct. The only difference between this part of the verse:

4 bars of 4/4
1 bar of 4/4 • 1 bar of 2/4 • 2 bars of 4/4

and this part:

4 bars of 4/4
4 bars of 4/4

...is that it spends less time on the V chord in the first part. Otherwise, the chord progression is the same both times through.

I wouldn't mind the idea of notating it in 2/2, though.

Here's another one: "Knock Three Times" by Dawn.

In the Jones song, there's a measure of 3/4. At :46, when he sings "I broke the heart." So it actually adds a beat. It's probably best notated in 2/4.

what's this song's time signature? on the album version you can hear a woman (Anna W., presumably) counting off "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgVHJjD5Bcw

i have no idea but i am so hyped that that dog. have a new record out

You'll look in vain for a country tune that has any metric shifts or unusual time signatures; it simply doesn't occur.

Brandy - What About Us
The chorus to the Bee Gees' 'Jive Talkin'
The instrumental part of MacArthur Park

Agreed that country rarely has metric shifts, but Mexican Banda and Mariachi music often does add extra beats, so when country emulates Mexican music, as with Ring of Fire, it will use metric shifts.

that that dog song is 4/4, the chorus sounds like alternating measures of 6/8 and 4/4

"What About Us?" is straight 4/4, isn't it? Just with a lot of singing behind the beat or sounds off the beat

I think the George Jones song is confusing because he starts singing before the beat appears, so every line seems to start on 2 instead of 1.

I don’t know how to say it in proper music terms.

that that dog song is 4/4, the chorus sounds like alternating measures of 6/8 and 4/4

I'd say 6/4 & 4/4 but yeah. Although, the part at 2:30 is in 7/4, but the drums keep rolling through in 4/4.

thanks. i guess i thought it was weirder than that. shows what i know!

odd that Golden Brown hasn't been mentioned http://www.rebelmusicteacher.com/blog/2016/6/14/asymmetrical-compound-meter-in-the-stranglers-golden-brown

oops, I see it has, but it's not 3/4 and 4/4

You'll look in vain for a country tune that has any metric shifts or unusual time signatures; it simply doesn't occur.

The Carter Family's Rhythmic Asymmetry

Time on the Crooked Road: Isochrony, Meter, and Disruption in Old-Time Country and Bluegrass Music

On occasions like this I like to pull out "South African Man" by Bohannon - which was a hit single in case anyone objects, in the UK at least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO3BEUMyzgs

I overheard MGMT’s Electric Feel and noticed it has an unusual time signature. Double checked on google and it’s apparently on 6/4 safe from the instrumental bridge which is 4/4.

This song is quite similar to the Jones hit "Someone I Used to Know."

Except that song ("A Girl I Used to Know") features the standard 32 beats per 8-measure verse. "Not What I Had in Mind" has 30 beats in each verse — just count them.
Even if you consider this a two-step, there are still two beats "missing" in each verse. It doesn't bother me — I actually think it's a pretty cool thing to do in a country song. But I'm surprised so many people can't hear it.