I don’t usually follow up one music Tuesday with another along the same lines, but Charlie Watt’s death, which I commemorated last Tuesday here, inspired a conversation on a politically and culturally conservative social media board I participate at called Ricochet. One has to pay to participate at Ricochet, but I find it worth it. It keeps out all the obnoxious riff raff that you get on free comment boards and it pulls together a group of really intelligent people with whom I constantly challenged intellectually.
A member, KirkianWanderer, wrote a wonderful tribute to Charlie Watts a few days ago, well worth reading. Non-members can read articles that get selected for Main Feed, and that did, so you can read it if you like. But KirkianWanderer had a very interesting paragraph concerning the relationship between Charlie Watt’s drumming and Keith Richards’ rhythm guitar in Rolling Stones song composition. He says:
The 1960s saw the Stones at their chart-topping peak, and experimenting with a range of styles, from the blues that first brought them success to Beatles-esque psychedelia. It was also in this era that the unique rhythm section pattern of the band was cemented. In the vast majority of rock bands, everyone, from the guitarist and bassist to the singer and (possibly) keyboard player, follows the drummer. That wasn’t their formula. Instead, the drums followed the rhythm guitar player, i.e. Keith Richards. It’s something most drummers would have bristled over at best (if Jack Bruce had suggested that Ginger Baker follow him there would have been one less bassist in the world in short order), but Watts went along with it because he saw what it contributed to the band’s sound. Namely, a sense of tension, as the drummer was always chasing the beat, and an unmistakable musical signature.
I wanted to follow up on this insightful paragraph which I think gets at the heart of Rolling Stones song composition.
That’s an interesting observation that the drums follow the rhythm guitar. I think for the most part that is true but I would not say universally. I have notice the opening intro to Stones songs falls into four main patterns depending on where the drums enter the song. There may be other patterns, but I would say these four are the overwhelming majority: (1) Songs where the riff (melody, but I’ll call it riff for rock songs) is established fully and then the drums enter. (2) Songs where the beat is ahead of the riff. (3) Songs where the beat is held back significantly from the introduction of the riff. And (4) songs where the beat comes in the middle of the riff.
I think each of the above permutation will give the song a particular aesthetic, and I think it’s very much part of the Stones’ composition process. Let me take each one of these permutations and give what I think is the aesthetic effect that comes as a result. I’m only going to embed one or two videos per permutation. I’ll list other songs of that type. You can look them up on YouTube.
A. Let me start with the easy one, songs where the beat is held back significantly from the introduction. These are usually ballads. The classic is Angie, where drums don’t come in until the second verse. These songs allow the drums to really fade into the background and allow the tone and cadence and pitch of the various instruments to create a sound effect to accentuate the ballad mood. Here’s Wild Horses where drums don’t enter until the first chorus at about 1:20 into the song.
Other songs in this category would be Ruby Tuesday, Memory Motel, You Can’t Always Get What you Want (though it’s not Charlie on drums), She’s Like A Rainbow. Also you could include in this category songs with no drums at all: As Tears Go By and Lady Jane.
B. Songs where the beat comes before the melody seem to have the opposite effect of the beat chasing the rhythm. There are a fair number of songs in this category: Under My Thumb, Get off My Cloud, Hang Fire, One Hit to the Body, Emotional Rescue, Time Waits for No One, Dance (Pt1), Undercover of the Night.
Now in this category I think there are one of two possible aesthetics the Stones are after. One aesthetic is the sense of the music and the singer chasing the beat. A perfect song for this aesthetic is Time Waits for No One where the music is trying to catch the ticking time of the beat, time always moving forward.
That aesthetic accentuates songs like Hang Fire where the narrator character is lazy and so falls behand the beat or Hand of Fate where the character is on the run and you get the feel of the narrator running.
The other aesthetic from songs with the beat ahead of the riff is that it highlights the drummer. I know Charlie eschews solos and attention, but sometimes the band does ask him to show off his virtuosity. Get Off My Cloud is an early song where drums come in first to showcase the drummer. Undercover, Dance, even Emotional Rescue, which I think is such an underrated song. But I think the best example of showcasing Charlie’s virtuosity is If You Can’t Rock Me.
C. The category where the riff comes ahead of the beat is the most common, and supports the claim that the beat feels like it’s chasing the rhythm. Many of their great songs fall into this category. Satisfaction, Brown Sugar, Paint It Black, Let’s Spend the Night Together, Jumping Jack Flash, Gimme Shelter, Last Time, Rough Justice, Midnight Rambler, Beast of Burden, and so on and so on. The list is endless. But I think Not Fade Away illustrates it well.
In some ways having the riff be laid down ahead of the beat makes perfect sense musically. It establishes the melody on which the rest of the song will develop and reach a conclusion. It’s classical in a way. This is such a huge category that perhaps a second song should embedded for an example, one off a more recent album, Rough Justice.
That’s a great example of rhythm ahead of drums. That’s identifiably Stones.
Before I get to the final category, I want demonstrate a song that combines the riff ahead of the beat and then in the same song the beat ahead of the riff. It may be the only song in their opus that actually does that and it’s one of their finest compositions, Can’t You hear Me Knocking. First listen. It starts off with the melody clearly defined before the drums.
\Yeah, you can feel the drums chasing the riff until the 2:45 mark and then the song shifts. This song has been criticized as being two songs forced together, but in my humble opinion that is flat out wrong. Some say the first two and a half minutes is supposed to be one song, a hard rocker, and the balance of the song some sort of pasted-on jazz rock instrumental that has nothing to do with the first half. No I disagree. The melody from the second half is a variation from the first. It’s not a separate melody. The second melody seems like an inversion of the first. And the percussion is also inverted. Where in the first half the drums trail the riff, in the second the riff trails the percussion. When you listen to this song it almost feels like you are looking into a mirror. Great composition.
So I think you can see how the aesthetic can be altered when the beat comes after the riff is established and when the beat comes before the riff. There is always a sense of chasing, and whichever comes first alters the listener’s perception of who is chasing who. But what about songs where the beat comes in the middle of the riff?
D. Now there are just a hand full of Stones songs that bring in the beat in the middle of the riff. In a way it’s kind of odd. Doing a quick survey I only found four songs, but I didn’t listen to everything. But some of these are great songs: Tumbling Dice, It’s Only Rock and Roll, Miss You, and the fourth is the one that just came out last year, Living in a Ghost Town. I’m not sure what to make of these. Living in a Ghost Town feels more like it’s in the riff chasing the beat category. But listen to Tumbling Dice with this in mind.
The beat came in before the initial completion of the melody. Overall the song feels more harmonious, more integrated. Neither seem to be chasing the other. I think the same holds for It’s Only Rock and Roll. I don’t know if I would say that for Miss You. There it feels like the riff is chasing the beat. Not sure.
Anyway,
I hope you found this interesting.
Perhaps it’s just my imagination but it does strike me that the Stones
compose around this relationship between riff and beat, and who is chasing who.
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