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5/4 time song

20 Sep 00 - 04:55 AM (#301229)
Subject: 5/4 time song?
From: Dave the Gnome

I have been racking my brains trying to remember a song.

I heard on radio recently that the only 5/4 time song to feature in the standard british pop charts was 'Just take five' (was that Dave Brubeck?). I disagree as I think 'Living in the past' (Tull) is another example. I can vaguely remember another one as well. I think is was by Pentangle (Janch, Renbourne and co) but I have just gone through Amazons listings of Pentangle albums and no bells were rung - perhaps it is just the five connection clouding my already addled brain! I think it was the theme tune to a popular british TV series in the 60's or 70's. But for the life of me cannot remember tune, words or title.

Can anyone help?


20 Sep 00 - 05:06 AM (#301231)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Dave the Gnome

Ahhhhh - just remembered a bit

It goes

dah-da-da-doo-da-doo-da-da-doo-dah-dah

in a female voice!

Doesn't realy help much does it.....:-(


20 Sep 00 - 07:11 AM (#301252)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: GUEST

The old "Mission: Impossible" television theme song was in 5/4 time.


20 Sep 00 - 07:56 AM (#301264)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: GUEST,Brian

The Pentangle song you are thinking of is on the 'Basket of Light' Album. I too suffer from adled brain syndrome ( is it alcohol , age or both ?), but I think the song is also called Basket of Light, but I'll have to check that. I hope that helps


20 Sep 00 - 07:57 AM (#301265)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Dave the Gnome

So it is! Getting popular again as well (Most downloaded tune for Nokia phones I believe!)


20 Sep 00 - 08:13 AM (#301269)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Dave the Gnome

The MI theme that is - not basket of light! Doh!


20 Sep 00 - 08:23 AM (#301270)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Hamish

Er, yes it was on Basket of Light, but was called "Take Three Girls". It was the theme tune for a TV series of the same name.

Also John Miles' song 'Music' had a section in 5/4.

btw, the Brubeck tune was just called "Take Five". He also had another called "Unsquare Dance" in 7/8.

Cheers

Hamish http://www.lombardy.clara.net


20 Sep 00 - 01:21 PM (#301463)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Hamish

Ah, no! I was called 'Light Flight'. Other details correct...


20 Sep 00 - 01:57 PM (#301490)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: M.Ted

I think that "Mission Impossible" was in 10/8, but not the 10/8 that is a compound of five duple beats, it is the ten that is a compound of two triple beats and two duple beats-- For those of you who are intimidated by odd meters, they are really just groups of Long (triple meter) and short(double meter). You would count out a measure of MI as SLOW-SLOW-QUICK-QUICK-- Take Five is just SLOW-QUICK.


20 Sep 00 - 03:30 PM (#301573)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: GUEST,GUEST: Mary

Hi. I found your website just now as I was looking for some lyrics. This is very nice. Hope you don't mind that I've stumbled into your discussion...

Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Everything's Alright" from *Jesus Christ, Superstar* must have been on the British charts in the 70's? It is in 5/4.


20 Sep 00 - 04:01 PM (#301591)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Noreen

Not at all, Guest Guest Mary- pull up a pew and join the discussion! I'd forgotten that one.

Noreen


20 Sep 00 - 05:29 PM (#301677)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Dave the Gnome

Wow - mudcat turns up trumps as usaul - Thanks Hamish -thanks Mary - thanks everyone. I may well order the Pentangle collection from Amazon now. and listen to JC superstar once again (If I can find the vinyl that is!)

Cheers one and all

BTW - did you hear 'Life is just a bowl of cherries is 5/4 time. It goes 'Life is just a bowl of ******* cherries..... ;-) *******(Insert your own expletive)

D the G


20 Sep 00 - 05:50 PM (#301706)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Lanfranc

The version of Katy Cruel I sing is in 5/4.


20 Sep 00 - 05:52 PM (#301708)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Jim Dixon

The Weaver And The Factory Maid, which is in DT (as recorded by Steeleye Span), is in 5/4 time. Martin Carthy also sings it as a soloist on a Brass Monkey album, where it is called The Handweaver and the Factory Maid.

By the way, I believe the first verse as given in DT is actually from a different song, which Steeleye Span combined with TWATFM as a medley.

I found TWATFM a difficult song to learn and sing, mainly because the rhythm is so exotic and unfamiliar, but it is a haunting tune for that very reason.

By the way I once had the album "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck and I believe all the tunes on the album were performed in unusual time signatures. Can't remember their names now, though.


20 Sep 00 - 06:09 PM (#301726)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Jacob B

"Rondo al la Turk" is another of the pieces from the "Take Five" album, in a Turkish 9/8 rhythm which bears no resemblance to a slip jig.

Jacob


20 Sep 00 - 06:23 PM (#301736)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: mousethief

I saw an old lady's face once on a Japanese train
Half-lit, rich with soft luminosity
She was dozing, straight upright,
Head bobbing almost imperceptibly

The wheels were playing fast in 9/8 time
Her husband's friendly face suddenly folded up in a sneeze...
Across the straight a volcano blew a white-smoke flag of surrender

-Bruce Cockburn ("How I Spent my Fall Vacation", Humans, 1980)


20 Sep 00 - 08:00 PM (#301811)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: pastorpest

There is a fine American Christmas Carol, "Some Children See Him", words by Alfred S.Burt, lyrics by Wihla Hutson, in 5/4.

Straying from our genre, Ferde Grofe, best known for his Grand Canyon Suite, has a 5/4 movement in his Death Valley suite.


20 Sep 00 - 08:01 PM (#301812)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Lucius

I know that Take Five and Living in the Past and Everything's Alright are notated as 5/4, but I've always thought that it would be more correct to notate them as 6/8+2/4, with the eighth note as constant. The only two tunes that I hear as 5/4 without using compound meter are Holst's Mars and Mussgorsky(sp?)'s Pictures at an Exhibition (The Promenade).Oh--and Life is just a bbowl of F***** cherries. My two cents.

Lucius


20 Sep 00 - 08:19 PM (#301820)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: GUEST,Mary

Hi again. Here's one more: Sting's "Seven Days" from *Ten Summoner's Tales*. Realized too late -- in my earlier post, Webber should have two bb's. (I'm usually too addled to do more than lurk.) I'm going to listen to my old Brubeck albums now. So glad I found this site...thanks for a great diversion & for letting me be your guest-guest today!


20 Sep 00 - 09:32 PM (#301852)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Barbara

And if you don't want whole songs, part of "All You Need is Love", the Beatles classic, is in 5/4. There is also a contemporary round (can't remember the name) about women circling holding hands in 5/4.
Blessings,
Barbara


20 Sep 00 - 09:54 PM (#301864)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Chocolate Pi

Much of the score to the musical "A Chorus Line," especially the opening dance number, is in 5/4.
And "Mars," from Holst's "The Planets."

Plorkwort


20 Sep 00 - 10:06 PM (#301879)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: GUEST,mag (public machine)

"Calypso Chant," sung by many UU choirs (like mine), is in 5/4 time.

We come - from - the water,
Flowing - from - the water...

I will not type in more, the copyright police may be lurking.


21 Sep 00 - 01:02 AM (#302009)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Amos

I played with a band in the 60's that did a number that alternated between 13/9 and ...I think...5/4/. Memory does not serve.

It happened that the drummer was Dannie Brubeck, then eleven or twelve; he still supports his father's group onstage to this day. But even then he was able to run 5/4 in one hand and 3/4 in the other without breaking a sweat, which I could not do if you paid me.

Two of his three older brothers, Chris and Darius, are hard at work filling the world with first class music. Ya gotta hand to them -- those Brubecks really started somethin' good.

Amos


21 Sep 00 - 08:09 AM (#302116)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Whistle Stop

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God is in 5/4. I learned a beautiful fingerstyle guitar arrangement of this off Ed Gerhard's Christmas CD.


21 Sep 00 - 08:32 AM (#302135)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: GUEST,Michael in Swansea

Take 3 girls, Light Flight, is that the one that goes

Let's get away you say find a better place
Miles and miles away from the city's race
Looking for somebody, lazing in the sunshine
Marking time, hear the sighs, close your eyes
da da dada da da da dada da da

That's all I remember

M


21 Sep 00 - 09:22 AM (#302172)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler

For the real tv trivia freaks who were the actresses who played the 3 girls? I think they were Susan Jameson (later in When the Boat Comes in)Lisa Goddard (saw her recently on stage as an unfeasibly gorgeous Lady Bracknell)and the third one was in Glittering Prizes, was it Angela Down?
RtS


21 Sep 00 - 10:37 AM (#302222)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: M.Ted

Lucius--interesting point you make about Take Five. The way you put it, it works out to being a compound meter in 10/8.

The melody is based on five eight notes to the measure, and you can play it "square" (like a classical musician would read it) and have it really come out to five, but when it is played with a Jazz feel, often it slides into what amounts to 3/8. The popular Brubeck recording, if memory serves, has a very straight forward 1-2-3-4-5 in the rhythm, and the swing feel comes from the soloist--incidentally, the song was written by Paul Desmond--


21 Sep 00 - 11:07 AM (#302256)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Moleskin Joe

Spot on Roger.


22 Sep 00 - 12:51 AM (#302847)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: Lucius

M Ted

It been a while since I've heard Take Five, but I'm listenng to Living in the Past right now, and it does sound like 123-123-12-12 or 10/8 as a compound meter. Now do Barbara and I another favor and listen to All You Need is Love. I hear it as 7/4+7/4+8/4+7/4. What do you say?

Lucius

Oh, and I do stand corrected. Paul Desmond.


22 Sep 00 - 01:31 AM (#302859)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: gourd

uh, yeah, a couple 5/4 numbers nobody's mentioned yet:

tchaikovsky: symphony #6, 2nd movement
XTC: english roundabout
julianna hatfield 3: spin the bottle



partial fives:
led zeppelin: four sticks (first guitar in fives)
liz phair: soap star joe (refrain in 5s and 6s)
gentle giant: racounteur troubadour (5s and 6s)
frank zappa: zomby woof (lots of 5s thrown in) and others

gourd


22 Sep 00 - 08:26 AM (#302920)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: GUEST,Brian

Thanks Hamish. the Pentangle track was called Light Flight. I said the brain was getting adled!

Brian


22 Sep 00 - 10:41 AM (#303005)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: L R Mole

I own a truly hideous CD of various people mangling Beatles'tunes and someone combines "Mission Impossible with "Norwegian Wood": (I,[2,3], once had a girl,[2,3], or should I say,[ 2,3] well, you get the idea. No words, luckily.


22 Sep 00 - 12:57 PM (#303153)
Subject: RE: 5/4 time song
From: M.Ted

Lucius, now I've got to go sort through the drawers and cabinets to find the Magical Mystery Tour CD--and I haven't seen it since we moved!!

Mole--It sounds like you have a real treasure--what is the name of this bit of dementia, and where can I get one? We have a CD called "The Beatles" that someone brought back from Hong Kong--George,Paul, John and Ringo are on the cover, but it turns out to be some sort of Taiwanese copy band. Deliciously bad.