The last time I was due up for Friday Mix Tape I put together a list of rock tunes written in 5. Well, let’s add two more beats to the measure as we take a look at songs with at least large portions of the tune written in 7.
Now count with me: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
Leading off we have to go with Estimated Prophet by The Grateful Dead, it’s in a nice slow seven count. From there we will follow up with the song that features the first licensed Dead sample and that’s Animal Collective’s What Would I Want? Sky. When you write a song in an odd time signature, it’s very popular to reference it in the song title as is illustrated in Dave Matthews Band’s Seven, Soulive’s One In Seven and Broken Social Scene’s 7/4 (Shoreline). You would think Radiohead’s 2+2=5 is a reference to a possible time signature, but that is not the case. And finally, of course we have Phish’s Harpua which starts out in 7. To hear just how weird things get when you attempt to play songs written in 7 in common time instead, listen to the Vegas ’96 rendition last on the playlist.
There are many others, what are you favorite songs in 7?
4 Responses
Pink Floyd “Money”. Too obvious?
Money as well as All You Need Is Love were left off not because they were not worthy, but because they weren’t on Grooveshark =)
You can add in “Guyute”, as well. SKB used to play “Good Lovin'” in seven.
How ’bout Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel? The majority of the song including the verses are in 7, though there are a few measures of 4/4 in the chorus.