Songs that gradually speed up

I've just noticed that the title track on Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush" CD speeds up slightly in pitch. The final verse is sharper then the first. Presumably a spool tension problem, unless it was varisped intentionally. I don't have the original LP to hand nor the "Greatest Hits" CD to see if the same thing happens there.

It's got me wondering what other songs on vinyl and CD gradually speed up in pitch due to unbalanced tape spool weight. I recall The Rolling Stones' "Beggar's Banquet" suffered from this issue until the SACDs corrected the problem.

 

U2's Shadows & Tall Trees. that last chorus you can literally hear Steve Lillywhite wind up the tape speed a semitone.

 

I swear that the opposite phenomenon, a gradual slowing down as the song progresses, is heard on The Merry-Go-Round's "Had to Run Around."

 

Simon and Garfunkel's "Baby Driver", 45rpm version, dropped an 1/4 tone just before the instrumental outro. I assumed it was a bad edit of tape copies from mismatched machines. Drove me crazy. When the album version was released, it was corrected - well OVERcorrected: the thing jumped UP a 1/4 tone. Almost like it was another mistake but they liked the result (?). To make things more interesting, when S&G played the song on the reunion tour, they duplicated the step up...

 

The intro of "Roxanne" by The Police wows in on some releases.

 

the doors the end!

 

Since you brought it up, how about Steve Miller's "Living In The U.S.A."? The groove is great for the first two minutes or so, and when they hit the bridge, it sounds like it comes from a completely different take. I did a search here and could not find out any background on the song, if it was assembled from different takes, two takes, or they just felt like slowing down. Anyone?

 

"Helpless dancer" from Quadrophenia... well more like a quick tape glitch.

 

"Beep Beep"-The Playmates

 

Intentional...not what the OP had in mind.

But if you're gonna go that route, then I'll nominate "Bend It" by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.

 

George Harrison and "Soft Hearted Hannah" slows down then speeds up past normal speed.

 

"Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison.

The edit piece on the mono version that replaces "making love in the green grass" with the bit from the earlier verse really sticks out as it's slightly slower.

 

Rocket From The Crypt: "Glazed" (though it's sped up on purpose... very gradually)

 

Speed creep was not uncommon in the early days of electric recording, when the electric motors of early cutting lathes weren't all that strong, although the effect is a drop in pitch at constant speed playback because the lathes turned faster as the cutters moved to the center of the record. In multi-record classical sets, that poses a problem when trying to splice the sides together. For instance, I have one of the "pre-LP" 33 1/3 RPM disks that Victor issued early in the Great Depression, coupling Liszt's 2d Hungarian Rhapsody and Weber's Invitation to the Dance; like most such, it's dubbed from existing 78 RPM masters. On each side, there's a sickening pitch lurch where the end of what had been the first 78 RPM side joins to what had been the beginning of the second. Felix Weingartner's recording of Beethoven's "Pastoral" symphony (a Columbia set, not issued in other than 78 RPM format before the LP era) has the same problem.

If memory serves, I've read that the Gramophone Company in England used lathes turned by great, heavy stone weights and a gravity feed for years after the introduction of electric recording just because electric lathes would not reliably stay on pitch.

 

I always liked when the piano "rises" at the end of Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig In The Sky".

 

If you mean speeding up due to performance and not mechanical reasons, the Stones did that a lot on many of their early recordings. I can't think of particular titles at the moment, but I do notice it when listening to the early albums.

 

Martin Medelski and Wood have a great song that speeds up a treat. Jellyfish or something it's called

 

This has nothing to do with tape speed fluctuations but Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason" seems to speed up and slow down.
To me, it sounds like it was recorded live in the studio (or at least the rhythm section was live). I've heard it many times over the years but hadn't really listened until it popped on the radio one day last week. I really focused on the song for the first time. Listen carefully and see if you can hear it too.

 

Stereo version of Kinks' "Love Me 'Til the Sun Shines," start of song, shifts up in pitch at least 1/4 tone, maybe almost a 1/2 tone. I notice this phenomenon often in the first few seconds of an LP side. What's that about?

There was a late 60's compilation called "Do It Now" where several of the songs slowed wayyyyyy down during their fadeouts. Maybe even a full step or more. The comp featured the Beatles' "Nowhere Man" and Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye." It was so severe that the comp is virtually unlistenable. I don't know _what_ went wrong.

 

Regarding Tracy Chapman's hit. I'm guessing that the session produced many takes, and the producer (was it Tracy herself?) chose this version simply because it works. It's not all that interesting a song if you think about it. But it IS an interesting track. It could have been one magic take, or just as likely a bunch of edits created a song that felt good.

 

"Begin the Beguine" (written by Cole Porter)

The version by Tom Jones gradually speed up from the middle up to the end of the song.

 

Dylan's "Hurricane"

Steve Miller's "Living in the USA"

Joan Jett's "Crimson and Clover" (at the end)


These are all performances that ended up much faster, rather than a technical issue.


Dan

 

I hadn't thought of that. It could be a combination of different takes or it could be as simple as the drummer speeding up and slowing down. I'm just surprised I didn't notice the tempo changes until recently.

 

The way I heard it The Clash did a take of 'Brand new Cadallac' and assumed it was a wash because they had sped up. Producer Guy Stevens declared that Rock n Roll was supposed to speed up and it was the first take that went on London Calling.