Multiple Time Signatures? Music Exercise Project - Everybody Wants to Rule the World -
3Multiple Time Signatures?
Music Exercise Project
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
MIDI FILE HERE
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xSmUuJDJI_y6G0pozZtK6eWmf6I2-4JT/view?usp=sharing
The sheet music for Everybody stipulates 12/8 time at brisk 112 beats per minute. Yet what’s going on here is more subtle than that – it doesn’t really have the 1-2-3-1-2-3, 1-2-3-1-2-3 feel that 12/8 time would imply, at least not in the drums. The hi-hat part plays a shuffle (first and last beats of the triplets only), with the second beat of each triplet merely ghosted. The opening guitar riff is determinedly in triplets, but the melody of the chorus is square on-the-beat crotchets (replace the lyrics “most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts for ever” with “one two three four, one two three four, one two three four, one two three four” to see what I mean). So there’s really three feels present at the same time, with the 4/4 shuffle coming out as the dominant feel (for me, at least – others will feel and play it differently, and if anyone versed in these things can explain it better, please do leave a comment) because the vocal melody insists on those four strong beats.
It’s a masterly piece of writing, a great arrangement and one of the finest moments of a group not short of great songs.