Nice use of 5/4 time | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Funny Paper said
(First thing I’ll do is revisit “Here Comes The Sun ” to test out that claim about the cluster of odd time signatures at a certain point.)

Here’s a nice little video of George Martin & Dhani Harrison at Abbey Road , at the  2:21  mark towards the end of this clip Dhani explains the Indian time signature that his Father utilized to Sir George, he identifies the name of the signature but I have no idea of its spelling:

Most interesting to hear the lead guitar that George opted to leave out of the final mix…:-)

Funny Paper said
Sorry, I didn’t see anything in that video directly relevant to the topic….

Well, maybe the video link wasn’t working properly for you?  At the mark that I specified above, Dhani Harrison counts out the time signature used in the song (even provides its Indian name) that you wished to “test out that claim about odd time signatures” for.  The only thing not “directly relevant to the topic” of ‘Nice use of 5/4 time’, in my opinion, is the fact that this example appears to be a ‘Nice use of 7/4 time’ instead but come to think of it, didn’t you also mention “7/4” in your original post as well?…:-)

Funny Paper said
In “Don’t Let Me Down ” — during those verses where John is conspicuously doing his unctuous John voice, like “Nobody ever does me like she does” — that measure is 5 beats instead of four, making that measure 5/4, whereas the rest of the song is standard 4/4.  My sense is that John’s responsible for this bit of 5/4, as well the bit of 7/4 that nicely intrudes on the beginning of “All You Need Is Love “.

After all these years of having listened to this song, I only noticed it this morning when a friend sent me a tube of it just to ask me if I liked the Fender Rhodes style employed by Billy Preston (I don’t — it’s too “watery” sounding for my taste).

I found this bit of info in the wiki entry for the song All You Need Is Love :

The main verse pattern contains a total of 29 beats, split into two 7/4 measures, a single bar of 8/4, followed by a one bar return of 7/4 before repeating the pattern. The chorus, however, maintains a steady 4/4 beat with the exception of the last bar of 6/4 (on the lyric ‘love is all you need’).

The article mentions Strawberry Fields Forever and  We Can Work It Out as two other examples of their playing games with time.

Oudis said
I know some will say that this comment is out of topic, but I liked John’s early demo of Don’t Let Me Down more than the final version. Some very nice modulations there. OK, you guys go back to your time signatures now. 

Is that the version on (what my copy is called) Anthology 2000?  Paul gets a few words wrong at 2:34, and John gives a 4 count into the song?  If so, I like John’s voice even if some of the high notes were iffy, the soul that went into them made up for that…and I think John was given a tad more volume in the mix (as well as no reverb) so his true voice stands out more (and we all know what an incredible “un-studioed” John could do with his vocal chords!).  I also like that version in that Billy and George played a soft, slow reverb almost like a very slow resonating organ.  Ringo was defiitnely there but totally unobtrusive.  Not sure if John played rhythm, diidn’t hear it if he did.  Well anyway if that’s not the version then never mind  

And one thing I learned early on here was to check the date of the last post.  In this case it was April, which is just about recent enough to perhaps restart the thread.  But sometimes I would get to reading a 2 year old thread and respond to something and even had a moderator mention to me (jokingly) that I should check the last post date to gauge if anyone would care

Finally, congrats on reaching Abbey Road !