Hit songs in unusual time signatures?

Was listening to the only album by the 90s group Mono and discovered the final track is in 5/4 time. Made me think of Dave Brubeck's Take Five, and was wondering if that was the only chart hit in an unusual time signature (also 5/4, of course)? I guess you'd throw in Dave's own Blue Rondo A La Turk, which is primarily in 9/8 (at least the main theme is).

Of course a number of Bacharach tunes are in tricky time signatures, but those are mostly standard time with a few unusual bars of 2/4 or 3/4 thrown in. Ditto Lennon compositions like Strawberry Fields Forever, with random bars included here and there, and prog-rock numbers like Yes' Roundabout, with the occasional off-time passage.

So what I'm thinking would be songs that :
1) are predominantly in something other than standard time (2/4, 4/4, 8/8, etc.), and
2) made the Billboard Hot 100 as singles. (Sorry, no Grateful Dead "The Eleven.")

(I'd also be curious as to any hits that were in true 3/4 waltz time, so uncommon in the rock era. Two I can think of, Friends and Time To Get Alone, both by the Beach Boys.)

 

Jethro Tull's "Living In The Past" in 5/4 made the UK charts at least. Not sure how it went in the US.

 

You're quick! I just checked the "quintuple meter" page on Wikipedia and that song jumped out. Very astute, and yes it was a fairly huge hit for JT over here as well.

 

Turn It On Again by Genesis
6/8 then 7/8 ... 5/4 4/4... something like this (???)

 

A couple in 7/8 time: Grateful Dead's Estimated Prophet and Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill.

 

The 90s version of the Mission: Impossible theme (5/4 time) was a top ten hit.

Pink Floyd's Money (7/4 time) was a top twenty hit.

 

"All you need is love" has bars of 4/4 then 3/4, etc in the verses, IIRC.

--Geoff

 

"Fooling Yourself" by corporate rockers Styx was a Top 30 hit and has extended passages in 7/4 and 6/8.

Not sure how big a hit it was on the main chart, but "Spoonman" by Soundgarden was a hit on a couple of the more specialty charts and is mostly in 5/4.

"Golden Brown" by the Stranglers was a UK #1 in the early '80s and is made up of bars alternating between 6/8 and 7/8.

 

'If You've Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody' by Freddie and The Dreamers was a hit in Britain in '63, I think that may be in 3/4 but I haven't heard it in 40+ years. Rudy Clark wasn't it?

 

First one I though of! So annoying when you open up a thread to post and your 'clever suggestion' already occurred to someone else on the first page of the thread!

 

Yes it was. Ian Anderson said in the December issue of Uncut that he got a real kick watching American hippie audiences tryying to dance to it.

 

More proof that, all things considered, Phil Collins was a fabulous rock drummer!

 

Two Beatles tunes in 3/4 waltz time. "Baby's In Black" and "And I Love Her"

 

While playing "And I love her" in my head, it sounds like 4/4. But I'm not a Beatles fanatic, just a trained musician.. so what do I know?

 

It was in 13/4.

"Misunderstanding" was done in 12/8. It's weird time signatures like this why I love Genesis.

 

9/8 is very much standard. You see it all the time, especially in Baroque music. Also know as compound triple meter. Nothing weird about it.

 

+ "I, Me, Mine"

 

"And I Love Her" is in 4/4.

 

I was thinking about 9/8 the other day. Curtis Mayfield used this signature quite a bit with the Impressions. Both sides of the single "Fool For You" b/w "I'm Loving Nothing" are in 9/8.

 

Huge numbers of doo-wop songs and soul/R&B ballads are in 9/8 and 12/8. The odd one achieves this through unusual additives, e.g. 5+4 or 2+3+2+2.

There are many pop-rock songs in weird additive meters (e.g., 11/8 or 13/4), but I don't think any of them achieves this through units other than 2, 3, and 4. We like to hear an accent at least every four beats in the west.

 

Exactly, those would be odd iterations of 9/8 meter. The standard one is 3+3+3. If it's not that, then it is an odd meter.

 

The Bacharach/David penned "Anyone Who Had A Heart"

 

"Here Comes The Sun" - I don't know what the time signature is, but I've heard interviews with Ringo, and also Dhani Harrison talking with George Martin mentioning about the Indian-based time signatures used.

Oops, not a single... but it should have been.

 

Previous threads on the topic:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/music-in-unusual-time-signatures.35988/
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/songs-in-a-non-standard-time-signature.38636/
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/interesting-famous-time-signatures.19083/
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/songs-with-odd-meters.163559/
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/top-40-pop-hits-with-unusual-time-signatures.196946/
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/favourite-songs-in-non-4-4-time.270882/

 

This one may take the cake for "Hit song with the weirdest collection of time signatures ever." Wikipedia: Bacharach had finished the score which, in his words, "changes time signature constantly, 4/4 to 5/4, and a 7/8 bar at the end of the song on the turnaround. It wasn't intentional, it was all just natural. That's the way I felt it." This was the first use of polyrhythm in popular music.

Wikipedia also quotes Allmusic as saying the song goes from "5/4, 4/4, to 7/8 and resolving on 5/8 in only eight bars." However, that claim no longer exists on Allmusic's own site, so perhaps it's been rescinded for inaccuracy?