In tonight’s show, Gordon and I listened to songs in 12/8 time – that’s 4 beats to the bar, with each one divided up into three beats. Depending on tempo, 12/8 can give you anything from a soulful slow blues to an upbeat country bounce to a grooving R&B slow jam. As ever, we’ll have a selection of songs old and new, and include some not-so-famous recordings.
When I’m teaching 12/8, for some reason I’ve always found myself drawn to use Unchained Melody as an example. I think it’s because the rising and falling keyboard arpeggio on the intro immediately highlights the 12/8 feel, making the time signature the centre of the listener’s world for a moment. Music is by Alex North, with lyrics by Hy Zaret; the song was initially written for the obscure prison movie Unchained (1955) but was made famous by The Righteous Brothers’ 1965 rendition.
The song flows along in a gentle 12/8 and is one of the most covered of the 20th century; with over 1,500 recordings by more than 670 artists in multiple languages.
Etta James’s blues classic I’d Rather Go Blind captures the pain of love lost with its slow, swaying 12/8 rhythm. Co-written with Ellington Jordan and Billy Foster, this track has become a standard of soul music. Some listeners will notice a striking similarity between James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind” and another 12/8 slow blues: Chris Stapleton’s cover of Tennessee Whiskey. Plagiarism? I don’t think so, although the similar tempo and identical key combine with the twangy bass-register electric guitar riffs to make the sonic allusion undeniable – and clearly intentional!
Led Zeppelin’s Since I’ve Been Loving You is an almost painfully slow C minor blues jam, and you can really hear the 12/8 pulse. John Bonham’s drumming on “Since I’ve Been Loving You” showcases not only the rhythmic possibilities of a 12/8 blues, but the importance of oiling your drum pedals…Bonham’s preferred pedal, the Ludwig Speed King model 201, squeaks during the recording, and has since been called labelled the “Squeak King”. Although it is considered a classic today, it didn’t endear itself to the critics at the time; Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone described it as a “slow and lethally dull seven-minute blues jam”.
We move on to James Taylor’s version of How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You), written by the legendary songwriting team Holland–Dozier–Holland. The 12/8 is a whole lot faster here, so the time signature is perhaps more difficult to perceive for this reason, but it’s got a clear triplet swing to it – as telegraphed by session drummer Andy Newmark’s tom-tom fill that serves as the intro. Marvin Gaye’s 1965 original was a lot more poppy and peppy, but Taylor’s decision to bring down the tempo has made it arguably the better known version.
D’Angelo’s Send It On, from his groundbreaking album Voodoo (2000), takes 12/8 to the neo-soul realm, blending classic soul arrangements with modern production. The song’s rhythm sways naturally, driven by Questlove’s ‘inebriated’, unquantised drumming. Recorded live to tape at the iconic Electric Lady Studio, Send It On is a masterclass in the subtleties of turn-of-the-century neo-soul.
To keep things interesting I wanted to ensure we had some electronica in tonight’s show, and it took some digging – 12/8 is unusual in electronic music. I’ve chosen Disclosure’s Latch, partly because it’s an interesting use of the time signature, and partly because it is the track that introduced most of the world to guest vocalist Sam Smith. In the pre-chorus (“I feel we’re close enough”) the synthesiser chord pad is ‘sidechained’ to the bass drum – a mixing process that means the volume of one instrument is partly controlled by another in real time. This gives a sort of in-and-out effect that I want to describe as “swimmy” – perhaps indicative of the protagonist’s borderline obsessive point of view in the lyric. “Got you shackled in my embrace” – eek! Latch became an unexpected crossover hit, peaking at number seven on the US Billboard Hot 100.
If time allows, I hope we get to play Pantera’s 1992 track Walk on the show. Dimebag Darrell’s much-loved riff grooves over a 12/8 time signature, creating a heavy and clearly triplet-based pulse.
If even more time allows (why oh why is this show only an hour?!) we’ll get to Aretha Franklin’s 1967 classic (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman. This record has it all – wonderful dynamics, beautiful melodic shapes, a super-sensitive and concise lyric, and of course Aretha’s world-beating vocal, which goes from reflective reminiscent lament to roaring celebration of love in less than 12 bars!
Our soundalike this week is perhaps the most ambitious one we’ve ever looked at. We’ll be dissecting topline melodies that are similar to Bon Jovi’s You Give Love A Bad Name. TikTokers and YouTubers love to comment on this one (particularly the Ava Max “Kings and Queens” connection) so we decided to take it to the (ahem) Max, by finding as many 2-bar similarities as we could of this common chord loop and melodic shape. There are 13, including some that predate the 1985 “original”. You’ll hear religious pop (Harry Belafonte), Swedish symphonic metal (Sabaton), banging EDM (DJ Raul), and nursery rhymes, all using the same 3-4-2-3 melodic fragment. This is, to me, a super clear demonstration of why not all melodic similarity is plagiarism, still less copyright infringement. The lesson here (for some songwriters) is – just because you wrote a melody that sounds like someone else’s hit, it doesn’t necessarily mean they copied it from you.
For the quiz you will need to identify six famous 12/8 pop hits from their intros alone.As always, find the show and blog at joebennett.net/5live, with occasional Instagram extras at @joebennettmusicology. All together now, “ONE and a TWO and a THREE and a FOUR and a…”
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Words: Joe Bennett, John Pierce O’Reilly and Maddy Plummer
Audio production and mashup wizardry: Rafi Waters
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