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4.00pm
31 March 2008
Online
I was flying back to the UK from Berlin last night and began singing Two Of Us to myself (“We’re on our way home, we’re going home”), and started thinking about the unusual time signature changes in the song. Most of it’s in 4/4, but with the odd bar of 2/4 and 3/4 dropped in. For example:
- when they sing “someone’s”, “arriving”, “letters”, “latches” etc, it’s a bar of 2/4.
- The “We’re on our way home” section is mostly in 3/4, but has a 2/4 bar for “we’re going home”.
It got me thinking about other Beatles songs with odd time signatures. The obvious ones are Happiness Is A Warm Gun , which I daren’t try and untangle, and Good Morning Good Morning , which is all over the place. I’ve also written before about the bar of 2/4 that’s in Revolution and Revolution 1 (“We-eel you”).
Are there any others?
(For those who don’t understand time signatures, try tapping a steady beat of 1, 2, 3, 4 during Two Of Us . You may find that it doesn’t follow a straight sequence, and occasionally goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4. In basic terms, a 1, 2 bar would be 2/4, and 1, 2, 3 would be 3/4.)
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4.55pm
5 February 2010
Offline The most obvious one that comes to my mind is “Here Comes The Sun “. It’s in 4/4 for the majority, but the bridge (“Sun, sun, sun, here it comes”) breaks into a weird combo of 3/4, 5/4, 2/4, etc. It’s a real rat’s nest to untangle.
I can’t prove it at the moment, but I seem to remember that “Across The Universe ” has some odd bars of dropped beats as well; it’s like John just got tired of strumming and decided to start the next verse on-the-spot. That sort of thing.
This doesn’t fall into the category of odd time signatures, per se, but I once thought that the second verse of “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window ” went into an irregular meter, until I realized that the drum snap was just inconsistently placed (it falls on the half-beat of 4 the first three times, then it switches to the half-beat of 1 for no apparent reason – it’s very cool).
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Matt Busby, BeatlebugNot a bit like Cagney.
7.29pm
31 March 2008
Online 
Ah yes, in Across The Universe there’s a bar of 5/4 just before ‘Pools of sorrow, waves of joy’. ‘Possessing and caressing me’ is also a bar of 2/4 and one of 4/4 (or even a single bar of 6/4). They do the same in the final verse (‘Inciting and inviting me’).
The second verse is more conventional, but has an extra beat before the chorus. I think irregular songs tended to come more from Lennon than McCartney, in part because he often wrote his lyrics first and fitted the music around them. Across The Universe is a prime example of that, as is Good Morning.
You’re right about Here Comes The Sun too. It’s a bastard to play the drums on Rock Band during that song, as it stops following a regular 4/4 beat. They must have been incredibly intuitive musicians to all make that work.
I forgot to mention Rain , which has a bar of 2/4 just before the first chorus. I still don’t know whether they did this on every take of the song, or was a one-off that was performed on the released version. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any outtakes of Rain .
I guess some of this is less about time signatures as such, and more about odd beats that were thrown in or removed on an irregular basis.
One other song that I’ll mention here is A Day In The Life . In the introduction The Beatles do a very interesting thing, where the second chord on the guitar is almost played for an extra half beat (the third beat in the bar isn’t emphasised), and the piano and bass are also on the off-beat (they appear on the first ‘and’ if you count a ‘1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and’ rhythm). The first few times I heard it I found it quite hard to follow. The version on Anthology 2 is the same, although the on/off-beats are less pronounced.
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1.11am
6 May 2010
Offline
“Fighting…”/”Ask You…” sections are in 3/4 for 4 bars
Always catches me off guard on guitar.
2/4 intervals aren’t really too odd but they’re common in Beatle music; think of the chorus sections of She Said She Said ” and “Doctor Robert .”
Would the changes in The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill be considered time signature or tempo changes? That’s always perplexed me.
Knowing you,
You'd probably laugh and say that we were worlds apart…
11.40am
13 November 2009
Offline All You Need Is Love has time signatures of 7/4, 4/4 and 6/4. Apparently it was the first (and one of only two) songs with a 7/4 time signature to reach the top 20 in the USA.
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Beatlebug, Leppo12.52pm
31 March 2008
Online Was the other one Money by Pink Floyd?
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2.25pm
13 November 2009
Offline Yes it was apparently. I’m getting my info from Wikipedia though – I’m hoping it’s right. Money got to #13 so that means All You Need Is Love is the only US top ten and number 1 hit with 7/4 time – that record will take a while to beat.
12.21am
4 September 2009
Offline The End . At the end of the the guitar breaks when it’s just the piano playing eigth notes. The piano notes don’t change, but the time signature changes around it. From a 4/4 to a 3/4 and slows back to a 4/4. It is pure genius!
I could listen to Abbey Road side 2 over and over.
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3.31am
27 February 2010
Offline Joe said:
Was the other one Money by Pink Floyd?
Wait a minute: What about “Spoonman” by Soundgarden? That’s 7/4 too, I think.
I'd like to say "thank you" on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition.
John Lennon
2.13pm
13 November 2009
Offline Marcelo said:
Joe said:
Was the other one Money by Pink Floyd?
Wait a minute: What about “Spoonman” by Soundgarden? That’s 7/4 too, I think.
I don’t think it was a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 or 200 though.
3.52pm
27 February 2010
Offline McLerristarr said:
Marcelo said:
Joe said:
Was the other one Money by Pink Floyd?
Wait a minute: What about “Spoonman” by Soundgarden? That’s 7/4 too, I think.
I don’t think it was a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 or 200 though.
Sorry, I thought that this counts as Top 20:
Chart positions
| Chart (1994) | Position |
|---|---|
| US Mainstream Rock Trackshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…..ard.com-14
|
I'd like to say "thank you" on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition.
John Lennon
12.30pm
13 November 2009
Offline Yeah, that’s were I looked it up too. According to that page, it didn’t even chart on the Billboard Hot 100, which is the main chart for the US, and the one people usually mean when they just say “number 1 in the US” or something. It’s confusing with all the different charts, I don’t see the point of it. They need a better way of counting the sales so that different charts cannot get different results, as what happened to Please Please Me .
2.39pm
14 October 2009
Offline ‘She Said She Said ‘ also has a time signature change……..
"If we feel our heads starting to swell.....we just look at Ringo!"
3.25pm
5 February 2010
Offline I finally looked it up because it was driving me crazy: the bridge from “Here Comes The Sun ” alternates between 3/8, 5/8, and 4/4. It’s messy. But it sounds GREAT!
Incidentally, do any of you other musician-types own that gigantic book of Beatles’ music called The Complete Scores? It has musical notation for all of the instrumentation, guitars, bass, drums, horns, strings, whatever. It’s a decent book, even if it does have a few misprints (in both the lyrics and the music); it’s hilarious to me to read the “score” for Revolution 9 . Oh to have been a fly on the wall for that transcribing session … (“Seriously, Olaf, do we have to include this? I mean, it’s not even really a song, is it?” “Hush, Sven, I’m trying to decide if this ambulance siren should be notated in the key of E-flat, or in F-sharp with accidentals.”)
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3.15am
30 May 2010
Offline PeterWeatherby said:
I finally looked it up because it was driving me crazy: the bridge from “Here Comes The Sun ” alternates between 3/8, 5/8, and 4/4. It’s messy. But it sounds GREAT!
Incidentally, do any of you other musician-types own that gigantic book of Beatles’ music called The Complete Scores? It has musical notation for all of the instrumentation, guitars, bass, drums, horns, strings, whatever. It’s a decent book, even if it does have a few misprints (in both the lyrics and the music); it’s hilarious to me to read the “score” for Revolution 9 . Oh to have been a fly on the wall for that transcribing session … (“Seriously, Olaf, do we have to include this? I mean, it’s not even really a song, is it?” “Hush, Sven, I’m trying to decide if this ambulance siren should be notated in the key of E-flat, or in F-sharp with accidentals.”)
Haha, I’ve been lurking on these boards for a long time, but that’s one of the funniest things I’ve read
Just out of curiosity, were the people who made the book actually named Olaf and Sven, or did you just make those names up?… and even as I’m typing this, I just read it over, pictured it in my head, and started laughing again 
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Beatlebug12.16pm
14 October 2009
Offline PeterWeatherby said:
Incidentally, do any of you other musician-types own that gigantic book of Beatles’ music called The Complete Scores?
I bought it when it first came out – cost an absolute fortune 
I think it was about £45…………around 16 years ago???? Anyway, it is good if you want to tinker along……..but I haven’t got round to guitar picking to Revolution 9 …..YET 🙂
"If we feel our heads starting to swell.....we just look at Ringo!"
1.13pm
31 March 2008
Online Oh I meant to reply to this before but forgot. I’d love to see that Revolution 9 score.
I might try and get a copy of this book. I don’t really read music any more (lack of practice means it takes me forever) but it’d be nice to have on the shelves to refer to Now And Then . Plus, this is the book Walter Everett refers to throughout The Beatles As Musicians, mentioning points A, B, C etc in the song scores. Without the scores you can normally work out what he’s talking about, but it’d be useful to have the two side by side.
Brother_Mustard (hi, welcome, glad you decided to post rather than lurk!) – Amazon.co.uk lists the author as Tim Cain. No Olafs or Svens mentioned!
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2.56pm
14 October 2009
Offline Joe said:
Plus, this is the book Walter Everett refers to throughout The Beatles As Musicians, mentioning points A, B, C etc in the song scores. Without the scores you can normally work out what he’s talking about, but it’d be useful to have the two side by side.
I din’t know that – wish I did when I read Everett – duh!
"If we feel our heads starting to swell.....we just look at Ringo!"
10.03pm
30 May 2010
Offline Joe said:
Brother_Mustard (hi, welcome, glad you decided to post rather than lurk!) – Amazon.co.uk lists the author as Tim Cain. No Olafs or Svens mentioned!
Haha, thanks Joe 
Aww, that’s a little dissapointing. When I pictured Olaf and Sven, they had funny accents. Tim Cain isn’t nearly as fun…
3.33pm
15 May 2010
Offline mjb said:
PeterWeatherby said:
Incidentally, do any of you other musician-types own that gigantic book of Beatles’ music called The Complete Scores?
I bought it when it first came out – cost an absolute fortune
I think it was about £45…………around 16 years ago???? Anyway, it is good if you want to tinker along……..but I haven’t got round to guitar picking to Revolution 9 …..YET 🙂
I got it last christmas, and the transcription is by… wait! Tetsuya Fujita, Yuji Hagino, Hajime Kubo and Goro Sato. lol
And hey! There are also time signature changes in Revolution 9 ! From 3/4 to 4/4 and back… but honestly, does anyone even hear a beat? I don’t…
Isn’t it musique concrète? Or what exactly is the difference?
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