4 Songs with Confusing Intros
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Published 2024-04-08
Check out my previous video on songs with confusing intros: • 6 Songs with Confusing Intros
The outro music to this video is my track "Clap" which you can hear in full on Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/0wKKJoOZd8JQJDgGU8sb8V?si=… 🎶
This is the cover of Beetlebum I used in this video: • Beetlebum - Blur (Full Band Cover)
And, an extra special thanks goes to Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/davidbennettpiano 🎹
0:00 What is a Confusing Intro?
0:33 Fashion by David Bowie
1:24 Veridis Quo by Daft Punk
3:20 Car Wash by Rose Royce
5:58 Hooktheory
6:40 Beetlebum by Blur
9:30 Pat
All Comments (21)
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i think because claps are so commonly used on beats 2 and 4, that even with no other elements to provide context it still feels like its supposed to be on beats 2 and 4.
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The song Veridis Quo is actually very smart play on words. It means ‘Where are you going’ in latin, but it also sounds like ‘Very Disco’ which is a pangram for ‘Discovery’ the name of the album ;). Clever, just like the intro
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The best example pf a confusing intro i can think of is Everybody Want's to Rule the World. The misdirect isn't that long, only a couple of bars, but it misleads you on the tempo as well as the rhythym.
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There’s a fun video of Harry Connick Jr. playing a solo and the crowd is clapping along, then his bandmates start laughing as he keeps playing. He had just played a measure of 5/4 to get the crowd clapping on the 2 and 4, and no one noticed but the musicians.
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Not first, but i'm the real downbeat!
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One of my favorite examples of a misleading intro is “La Mer” by Nine Inch Nails. The piano plays a 3/4 riff to start off the song. The drums come in playing 4/4 and the bass follows the piano in 3/4. It’s a really cool song!
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The bell ringing at the beginning of High Hopes by Pink Floyd is another one. It gets you nicely into thinking it's on the 1 but when the keyboard comes in you realise that the bell is not even ringing on the 2 and 4 but on the '2-and' & '4-and' - an eighth note behind the 1 and 3.
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Rock and Roll by Led Zeppelin is one that even most drummers struggle to get right.
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For me a better example for Daft Punk would be Daftendirekt. Veridis Quo didn't give me trouble when I first heard it, but for Daftendirekt my first listen was great because the beat came in and established in almost a goosebumpy way after the low-pass filter was effectively off
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Also: the reason Car Wash is confusing is because the kick drum enters with the claps on 2 and 4. So even if you feel it correctly at first, it makes you second guess.
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Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis always throws me off. Not just from the intro onward, but already starting there. Feels like the singing sets in on the wrong beat every single time, and then when the chorus hits I'm completely lost.
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There are so many covers of Beetlebum on YouTube that get the timing wrong. It’s easily done, I heard it the wrong way for a long time.
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Interestingly, I remember a time when Veridis Quo and Car Wash were new to me and I heard them the wrong way, but after listening to them so many times, I basically trained my brain to hear them correctly. Not an intro, but the middle 8 section of Lean On Me by Bill Withers is very metrically confusing, since I've never heard a single cover that does it the same as the original.
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There is also Invaders Must Die by the Prodigy. the bass loop which starts the song basically begins on bar 4 of an incomplete 4 bar loop.
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I've always heard "Veridis Quo" the intended way, but that's probably because I was already used to that kind of arpeggio in classical music, and I subconsciously ignored the offset bass notes.
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Alan Parsons Project - I Robot. The sequenced and quantized bass synth line comes in and it's so regularly paced... and because it fades in, the downbeat could be anywhere. Then finally the drums come in to give you the reference point for the 1, but they've got a shuffle groove to them, and suddenly somehow the synth becomes the off-beat part.
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also david love your videos you got me into music theory, and i am about to do abrsm grade 8 because of you
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Two songs that always come to mind are Cups by Underworld (which is pretty cheeky about tricking you at the beginning) and Swap Meet by Nirvana. Now that my ears have figured out what's going on in Swap Meet, I actually have a hard time not hearing it the right way, and honestly I kind of miss how my brain used to interpret the intro. It's like a black/blue-yellow/white dress situation.
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I find a lot of genres where syncopation is a big component can be hard to count along to in the beginning. My favorite example is “The Impression That I Get” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. A Ska punk song where the first 4 bars are just the guitar and the rest of the band (minus the drums) is the next 4 bars. Then the drums come in and finally anchors the rhythm to the correct place.
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Nirvana - Swap meet, to me the riffs "totally changes" when drums come in, but is the same riff with another "1"
