Songs that fool you about where the downbeat is.

Totally disagree about it having a 2/4 before the chorus!

"DAYS" really does not sound like the three to me. I think the bass is on the three.

Count from the beginning, though. There has to be a measure of two somewhere.

Basically the chorus melody follows my favorite clave, five dotted 1/8th notes starting on the first upbeat of the phrase.

The bass is in a two bar loop, where it starts up on the first upbeat of the first bar, then on the downbeat of the second bar. The count makes sense to me from the beginning.

i've alwyas heard it the same way as Jordan, straight up. 'Letting' is on the 2 and 'DAYS' is on the 3.

Would that suggest that the rhythm guitar enters and exits on the three, then?

Yeah, I'm not hearing how "Once In A Lifetime" could be misinterpreted rhythmically.

I think a case could be made that it's polyrhythmic.

There are no abbreviated measures inserted before the verse and the verses/chorus are standard 8-bar constructions; I'm not hearing where people are getting thrown off.

What ciderpress and Jordan and DJP said. Also, there is no 2/4 anywhere in the song. Chris Franz is playing the same 4/4 beat throughout, with no variation. The cymbals and toms are overdubs (that is, they aren't fills played by Franz).

xxp: It's syncopated, yes, with swung meter in the percussion. I don't know that that qualifies as polyrhythmic.

"DAYS" is absolutely on three, if the entire song is in unchanging 4/4. But it feels to my ears as if it's on the one, suggesting single 2/4 bars at the start and end of the chorus. If you parse out the trebly guitar riff on the chorus, it clearly is a pattern that cycles with the downbeat on "days".

I hear "how did I get here?" as a bar of 2, and the final "water flowing under..." as a bar of 2 (with the "...ground" being the downbeat of 4/4 again). I have to really concentrate to beat 4/4 and sing the chorus with "days" on three lol

What is interesting to me btw is that for all the bands that took cues from Talking Heads, very few bands actually came close to their rather insane level of rhythmic complexity. The bass line on "Born Under Punches" (I seem to remember reading that it is a punch-up of Tina and an uncredited session bassist) is the most bizarre and cool bass lines I've come across (and it's always bummed me out that Tina never plays it live the way it occurs on the record)... there's a series of dotted-eighths that descend across the downbeat without hitting the downbeat, it's so cool and nobody writes stuff like that

Honestly I think it's an interesting example of bi-meter. There is no solution. It could go either way. I mean, as mentioned above, the song sounds like it could be in two different keys already, with the bass line implying D-major (or even A-major!) against the Eventide-y high pad stuff holding a Gsus4.

It's syncopated, yes, with swung meter in the percussion. I don't know that that qualifies as polyrhythmic.

Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about beat divisions. Was talking about hearing the chorus with "DAYS" and the entry of the rhythm guitar on the one. So, it would be overlapping four-fours if we're saying the bass is on the one also.

That trebly guitar part comes in on '3', yeah, but it ends right on the downbeat of the next verse. I totally get where you're coming from, but hearing 2/4 bars in and out of sections is usually a cue for me that I'm hearing something wrong.

xp

Although this reminds me of an old ILM thread about 'Single Ladies', and that random acapella 3/4 bar right at the end of the bridge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_in_a_Lifetime_(Talking_Heads_song)

Oh I said Gsus4 up above but I mean Gsus2add6
Otm about "Single Ladies", that's the other song I hear shifting meters on and can't hear any other way

Oh shit, well there it is lol, explains everything

"Single Ladies" absolutely has a meter shift in it where there's either an extra 2/4 bar or a 3/4 bar at the end of the bridge, depending on how you're subdividing

well i'll be

Brian Eno introduced Fela Kuti's multiple rhythm music style to the band, and during production Eno used a different rhythm count for some members of the group than others, starting on the "3" instead of the "1." It gave the song what Eno called "a funny balance within it. It has really two centers of gravity: their '1' and my '1.'" This rhythm imbalance was exaggerated in the studio, and is present throughout the song. Jerry Harrison developed the synthesizer line and added the Hammond organ climax, taken from the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On".

As the song essentially consisted of a repetitive two-bar groove (with the pattern reversed between the verse and chorus), Eno decided to approach the production by allowing each of the band members to record overdubs of different rhythmic and musical ideas independently of each other, with each member being kept blind to what the others had recorded on tape. In the final mix, Eno faded between these independent ideas at different parts of the song. This is very much in keeping with his production technique of Oblique Strategies.

It's kind of hilarious that Eno did all of that and then mixed the entire thing down into a 4/4 shuffle beat.

Well, I for one very much enjoyed this discussion before we just looked on wikipedia.

haha same

^^truth bomb new borad description etc

We Will Rock You - Queen
Is it just me or does the accent on the down beat that is so prominent at the beginning fade away as the song progresses? I think the transition is most noticeable when the guitar comes in.

Aphex Twin "Schottkey 7th Path" – the bass drum sounding thing is on the offbeat, right?

you mean the persistent quarter note part? because i definitely hear that on the downbeat. where do you hear the synth part starting?

a few songs come to mind that may or may not fit this thread:

"Hold On To Your Genre" - Les Savy Fav, the way the drums come in, it takes a while to tell the snare is on the back beat
"Disko" - Komeda, down beat seems to change around :30
"Return The Gift" - Gang of Four, intro kind of fakes you out until drums come in
"You Hit The Nail On The Head" - Funkadelic, just a generally tricky groove during the intro

The "Meet you all the way" part of "Rosanna" by Toto

so many john lee hooker solo songs. he taps out an accent-free beat with his foot, starts lines wherever/whenever he feels like starting 'em, improvises as he goes, is awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwlg3m-7N64

Yeah, I think maybe that it's not just that he starts lines wherever he wants, improvising as he goes, but that there are also some "irregular" metric tendencies inherent in his music that are just not easy to understand or hear?

The second song on the video - It's a triple meter until he gets to the guitar line at 2:52. That line, to me, suggests an extension. He deliberately extended the bar for one beat.

The passage shortly after that I can't figure out at all.

You know, "Price Tag" by Sleater Kinney. Lots of weird meter stuff going on at the start of this one.

Kind of a war between 4/4 and 3/4, where 4/4 wins.

I don't know, fcc, maybe you're right. If I listen to "Drifter" from Hooker 'n Heat, they seem to be putting the downbeats wherever they want them. I don't where he's putting them, though, sometimes, and he seems to know.

Steely Dan, Bodhisattva.

I have friends in a cover band who have struggled with Once in a Lifetime, because no one can agree where the "one" is. Same with Zep's "Black Dog" (which to be fair was designed to mess people up).

(xp) oh yeah, i don't doubt that hooker knows where his 1 is, i just think his style is super idiosyncratic, very possibly born of improvisation, and he adds or drop beats without appearing to worry about it, as if the 1 at any given moment is wherever he says it is. supposedly he was recorded solo in his early years because other musicians couldn't figure out how to accompany him.

Small Faces "Afterglow" intro always throws me

you mean the persistent quarter note part? because i definitely hear that on the downbeat. where do you hear the synth part starting?

e, e-d#, d#-a#, e, e-d#-d#

the first e is on the downbeat to my ears. i can't hear it any other way but i think i'm wrong!!

Zep's "Black Dog" (which to be fair was designed to mess people up)

the first time you try to play "black dog" is always a strange and fun moment.

Even weirder are Bonham's stick clicks, which allegedly were there to help everyone know where to come in. But they're inconsistent, and don't clear anything up.

Late to this party, but "Once in a Lifetime" absolutely has a bar of two in "Letting the..." and then the "DAYS go by" and "FLOW-ing underground" are on the one. They wouldn't keep the accented notes on the three would they? You see the same thing in "Hey Ya" during "...and this i KNOW for SURE."

They wouldn't keep the accented notes on the three would they?

Sure they would. "Days" and "FLOWing" are on 3 in their respective measures.

The trick with that one is, again, deciding where the one is. Bassists/drummers/vocalists might not agree.

I think years of singing choral music and living with the rubato inherent in that discipline, which is often necessary to both convey emotion and to allow the chorus time to breathe before a big phrase, has inured me to a lot of the rhythmic complexities identified on this thread.

Like Black Dog for example, I have zero problems finding the downbeat in that song; just listen to the drum and know that Plant's sections in the verse are in a freer tempo than the instruments and the instrumental interludes in the verses have three eighth note pickups at the beginning and you're golden.

Now that I read that back, I have an overwhelming urge to call myself a dick.

"Days" and "FLOWing" are on 3 in their respective measures.

I don't believe that's what the article says. There is no overall one, only ones in different spots for different players.

was clicking my fingers along to pointer sisters' sesame street "12", 2 year old son sat on lap and got lost.
which doesn't happen when i don't click my fingers.

I don't believe that's what the article says. There is no overall one, only ones in different spots for different players.

That's the way it was recorded but, when mixed down, it falls into a clear, easy-to-understand 4/4 that lines up across all of the components. I really don't hear how it can confuse any listener as to where the downbeat is no matter how many times I play it.