Five iconic songs with bizarre time signatures
When we listen to music, it’s easy to be swept away by its in-your-face nature. We are drawn to a guitar solo, excellent vocals and intricate rhythm sections. However, when you get lost in the musical stylings of bands such as Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam and Radiohead, there is a lot more to it than just those playing the instruments. One of the most overlooked parts of a song is the time signature.
Anyone who has studied musical theory will see the words “time signature” and immediately roll their eyes. Those two numbers at the beginning of a bar have caused headaches for musicians, producers and engineers for centuries now. Why do we need to make songs so unnecessarily complicated? Well, these time signatures are incredibly important.
We need time signatures in music. They’re essential when it comes to measuring and organising different sections of songs. They wouldn’t be able to be structured in the way they are or written in the way they are without a solid time signature. Without them, tracks would completely fall apart.
Of course, pinpointing the time signature of some songs isn’t always easy. Many artists opt for complicated signatures to give tracks off-kilter and haphazard sounds. These tracks are all great examples of iconic songs with bizarre time signatures.
Famous songs with strange time signatures:
‘Black Dog’ – Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were already regarded as musical geniuses and some of the best in the world at their chosen instruments, but they had to take it one step further when they released their song ‘Black Dog’. A lot of people were so confused by the time signature and rhythm pattern of the song that they thought the band had made it so confusing on purpose to ensure that no other artists tried to cover it.
What makes the song so tough to understand is that the guitar and the drums are played in a different rhythm. They bounce off one another but don’t complement each other like rhythm and lead sections usually do. The time signature is 4/4 for the guitar but 5/4 for the rhythm section, meaning the whole track sounds haphazard. Interestingly, the band wanted it to be even more chaotic when it was initially written.
“It was originally all in 3/16 time,” admitted John Paul Jones, who wrote the track, “But no one could keep up with that.”
‘Even Flow’ – Pearl Jam
Musicians are great at creating problems for themselves. When Pearl Jam started recording ‘Even Flow’, it was evident that they were working on what would prove to be one of their biggest tracks. Drummer Matt Cameron heard it instantly, “I distinctly remember hearing the chorus for ‘Even Flow’ and thinking that’s HUGE,” he said, “So hooky, it’s got a really rad Zeppelin huge rock feel to it.”
Despite the song’s clear potential, though, Pearl Jam had to make things that bit harder for themselves. It ended up taking over 100 takes to get right. “The chorus is one tempo, and the verse is another,” the band explained, “And never the twain shall meet…”
‘Pyramid Song’ – Radiohead
It’s no secret that Radiohead has a range of songs set in time signatures that persistently perplex fans. A quick scan of their discography brings tracks to light, such as ‘Everything In Its Right Place’, ‘15 Step’, and ‘Paranoid Android’. However, when it comes to Radiohead songs that feel off-kilter and difficult to move to, nothing is more confusing than their track ‘Pyramid Song’.
The time signature feels off throughout the track, to the point that many fans and theorists have been left confused by it. A quick look at the sheet music will tell you that the time signature is a simple 4/4, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Just because a song is written in a simple time signature doesn’t mean it has a simple sound. Some songs use a 4/4 time signature and yet alter the rhythm between bars. For instance, tracks might have a 4/4 time signature, but some bars will play in a standard rhythm, and others will play in a syncopated rhythm. ‘Pyramid Song’ takes this idea and enhances it.
The entire track is based on the same two-bar rhythm. If you think about it in quavers, the rhythm lines up as 3, 3, 4, 3, 3. The symmetry almost resembles a pyramid (which could be where the name is inspired from). This is the glue that holds the entire track together, but over it, Radiohead plays with different chords over that rhythm to complicate things. It’s a great example of the fact that even simple time signatures can be confusing.
‘Hey Ya!’ – Outkast
A lot of the time, when you listen to a track with a complicated time signature, it can make it difficult to dance to that specific track. Outkast doesn’t have this problem on their song ‘Hey Ya!’, which has been flooding dancefloors for two decades despite having a weird time signature that is difficult to wrap your head around.
The call-and-response rap and soul track is written in a 4/4 time signature, but when counted, because of the rhythm that different bars are played in and the strange structure of the track, it sounds more like 11/4. The result is that while the song may be easy to move to, it also has a persistent offbeat feel.
‘Lateralus’ – Tool
Sometimes, bands can be too clever for their own good. Tool is one of those bands. While their music may be loved universally, and they have fans worldwide, some of the artistry still goes underappreciated as the complicated nature of their tracks and the true talent of their musicianship goes over a lot of our heads. A great example of this is in their song ‘Lateralus’.
Granted, Tool has a number of songs that could be referenced as tracks with a strange time signature, but their most complex comes in ‘Lateralus’. The timing consistently shifts, taking inspiration from Fibonacci and modulating between a 7/8, 8/8, and 9/8 time signature. It changes in line with the lyrical pattern of the song and makes for a truly intriguing listen.
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