Re "Odd Meters": some notes on the weird meters of Kate Bush

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: Re "Odd Meters": some notes on the weird meters of Kate Bush

     Many of Kate Bush's songs feature anomalies of meter. Even those
which seem to be--or sound as though they are--in simple 4/4 time frequently
deviate from a basic 4/4 cadence at strategic points. Here are some
of her more unusual song-meters:

 All We Ever Look For (4/4 to 2/4 and back several times)
 And Dream of Sheep (4/4 to 2/4 twice, with one measure in 5/4)
 Army Dreamers (3/4)
 Blow Away (a very tricky meter in 2/4, 4/4 and 3/4--creating the effect
     of 5/4 at times)
 Breathing (2/4, 4/4 and 3/4)
 Coffee Homeground (2/4 and 4/4)
 December Will Be Magic Again (4/4 and 2/4)
 Delius (4/4 and 2/4)
 Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake (in 4/4, 3/4 and 2/4)
 The Dreaming (ostensibly in 4/4, but including a _6/4_ counterpulse)
 Egypt (4/4 and 2/4, with a _7/4_ musical bridge and fadeout coda)
 Feel It (4/4 and 2/4)
 Full House (4/4, 2/4 and 3/4, with one additional bar in _3/8_)
 Get Out of My House (4/4, with a 3/4-and-4/4--actually a 7/4--chorus)
 Hammer Horror (4/4, but with one 3/4 bar in the pre-choral refrain)
 Hello Earth (4/4, with occasional half-time bars)
 Houdini (4/4, with occasional half-time bars)
 The Infant Kiss (4/4, with half-time bars in the chorus)
 In Search of Peter Pan (4/4, but with one beat removed from one bar in
     the pre-choral refrain <giving it one 7/4 bar>)
 Kashka From Baghdad (4/4, with one beat missing before the chorus <giving
     it one 3/4 or one 7/4 bar, depending on how it's read>)
 Kite (a typical early Kate Bush meter, with 3/4 bars interspersing the
     otherwise simple 4/4 meter, throwing in an odd propulsive movement
     to the rhythm in the pre-choral refrain; with an additional half-
     bar <one 2/4 measure> inserted just prior to the chorus)
 L'Amour Looks Something Like You (ends with an odd extra two beats in
     the coda--2/4 time?)
 Night of the Swallow (4/4, but the first pre-choral refrain
     <"I won't let you do it"> is in 3/4, and the second pre-choral
     refrain <"I won't let you go through with it"> is in _5/4_; also,
     the chorus <"With a hired plane..."> is in _6/8_)
 Ran Tan Waltz (3/4)
 Room For the Life (4/4, but with a 6/4 measure in the middle of each
     verse)
 Sat In Your Lap (3/4, with choruses in 4/4 and 2/4)
 Saxophone Song (another typical potpourri of odd cadences: 4/4, with
     3/4, 2/4 and 5/4 measures in the pre-choral refrains)
 Suspended in Gaffa (3/4)
 There Goes a Tenner (strict 4/4 time--_except_ for one 5/4 measure
     in each pre-choral refrain <"My excitement/Turns into fright...">)
 Under Ice (repeated alternation between 4/4 and 3/4)
 Waking the Witch (4/4, but with an extra beat in the "chorus")
 Warm and Soothing (one odd 2/4 measure in the second verse <"For most
     of the winter we were strangers...">)
 The Wedding List (4/4, but with several half-measures)
 Wow (4/4, except for one 2/4 measure finishing each verse <"Hitting
     the Vaseline", for example>)
 Wuthering Heights (Kate's most famous, and arguably most representative,
     use of multiple meters: It's in 4/4, but jumps to half-time <"I
     hated you, I loved you too," and "Leave behind my Wuthering...">;
     and its chorus skips between 4/4, 2/4 and 3/4--in a pattern
     so unusual in the field of pop music that even the drummer can
     be heard losing track of the backbeat in the complex rhythms of
     the coda. Listen to his snare during the last two minutes. He covers
     himself well, but it's definitely a screw-up.)

     This is not a complete list--there are other odd shifts of meter
in Kate's early songs (the so-called Cathy Demos). And there are also
one or two unexpected patterns in _The_Sensual_World_, though Kate's
trend in recent years has definitely been toward the use of unvarying
4/4 and 3/4 time signatures.

-- Andrew Marvick
                 "Here in the studio...
                 "How come they're scolding me?
                 "'Well, little thing, ah, you're looking lost!'"

                     -- Kate Bush, writing about her own early studio
                        experience--and perhaps recalling her own
                        problems with handling the treacherous meters
                        of songs like _Wuthering_Heights_--?