Listening to a song wrong.

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I just realized earlier today that I've heard Vince Guiraldi's "Linus and Lucy" wrong my whole life. Until a few weeks ago, I hadn't really heard to the song except for in a few Peanuts specials (= very very occasionally). I'd always perceived the main melody as starting an eighth rest later than it actually does. (I can't really describe it in any other way; forgive me if this makes no sense.) I've been struggling for weeks to learn this song on the piano and after I realized my folly it took me about five seconds.

Has anyone else experienced this, where the perception of a song you've kept in your head forever is fucked over when you actually hear the song again and say, "WTF, this isn't anything like I remember it!"?

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 23 February 2004 00:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I've had a few records that got scratched. Then when I heard them on an unscratched record, they sounded wrong. Some scratches you sing them in.

― All Bunged Up. (Jake Proudlock), Monday, 23 February 2004 00:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!! and yeah, happened to me with a Talking Heads song a while back. can't recall the track off hand, though

― ken taylrr, Monday, 23 February 2004 00:31 (twenty-two years ago)

"Once in a Lifetime"!!! That happened to me!

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 23 February 2004 00:51 (twenty-two years ago)

the beginning of people of the sun by rage against the machine.. the difference in the rhythm of the guitar riff before and after the drums come in. it's always seemed odd to me

― astroblaster (astroblaster), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha ha. I know what you're talking about. It's like looking at something for a while, then coming back to it later and hardly recognizing it. Or the way you interpret the structure of a song. You hear another time and something in it just sits differently.

Alternately, there's a part in a "Crow" by Shellac where you can tell they're building to something, and I'm sort of playing along with the drums in my head for the whole song because of the momentum, and the guitar starts signaling it's going to come in with a little sequence of two-note riffs. But the momentum is always ruined for me because the big chords come in with the drums at a time that seems either late or early. Can't tell which. And it makes me think I was listening to the song "wrong" by focusing on the "ands" instead of the "one" or "two" or "three" or "four," using the example of "one and two and three and four" as a rythmic meter, or whatever.

But the big chords come in, and they fit, but I just suddenly think something's off, like it was my fault.

― Famous Athlete, Monday, 23 February 2004 04:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i tried to program 'sweet child o mine' into my mobile phone a while ago and i couldnt get the riff right from memory, i had to listen to it again and again til i got it

― jeremy jordan (cruisy), Monday, 23 February 2004 04:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and this always happens to me when I'm listening to "Masochism World" by Husker Du. "I love it, I need it, I love it, so how abouuuut you") The bars or measures (or whatever -- I've played guitar for 12 years and still don't know the difference) seem to get dragged out longer than it seems like they should. The guitar just hangs there for a moment, and tricks me into expecting a new bar or measure or whatever to start.

― Famous Athlete, Monday, 23 February 2004 04:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Yep. It makes sense to us old timers as well. Damn, I wish I could come up with something for you, but rythym and lead sometimes don't mix perfectly in my mind either. Right now I'm thinking of a very old Kinks tune "So Tired of Waiting For You" It drove me close to craziness. Overall the song, in tact, is a nice trick.

― jim wentworth (wench), Monday, 23 February 2004 05:28 (twenty-two years ago)

the best way to experience this on purpose is to play the Smiths' "How Soon is Now" with only one channel. just unplug the left speaker. holy fuck. the guitars sound totally fucked.

― ken taylrr, Monday, 23 February 2004 05:34 (twenty-two years ago)

The way the drums and vocals work off each other in the verses of Pere Ubu's "Heart of Darkness" always throws me off.

Weirdly, I never seem to know exactly where the 'one' is on Madonna's "Into the Groove" until the drums kick in.

Also, it seems like in certain Joy Division songs (especially live versions) Curtis loses track of where the verse starts. Has anyone else noticed this?

― Clarke B., Monday, 23 February 2004 06:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Car wash - the clapping always registered as a beat later than it was, so when the song proper kicks in, it seems a beat too early.

Similar, but for the whole song, was "Hands off she's mine" by the Beat.

Different, one time Radio 1 played "Johnny B Goode" Chuck Berry, stereo version, left channel only (no lead guitar). Interesting one. "GO.." (no solo) "Go Johnny Go, GO" (nothing but bass and drums) "Go Johnny Go..."

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 23 February 2004 10:08 (twenty-two years ago)

beck's loser was the last one this misperception stuck with me for a long time. i only heard the song in my girlfriend's beat up saab, she had the cassette on a boombox underneath some mcdonald's wrappers and notebooks. it was cool when i realized the correct beginning of the beat but now i wish i could squint my ears and hear it the old way

― mig, Monday, 23 February 2004 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

um,
i played the first Butthole Surfers' album both sides on the slow speed, yet felt it sounded right. in fact, when played at the correct speed, it seemed too fast...

― eedd, Monday, 23 February 2004 21:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Theres always been two Bowie songs that have curious timing blips that bug me loads.

Jean Genie, just before the 1st chorus the band play a couple more beats to fit into the metre (it's hard to explain, check it out) also there is a voice in the background, poss Bowie signalling the chorus.

Diamond Dogs, at the start of the bridge before the 1st chorus (during the call & response singing 'will they come?') the beat appears to flip back to front for no real reason, listen to the cowbell.

Am I mad?

― mzuio, Monday, 23 February 2004 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I know what you're talking about. Happens mostly with syncopated guitar intros.

"The Girl That I Knew Somewhere" by the Monkees is one. And no matter how often I heard the verse, where the same guitar figure is there and makes perfect sense, I heard the downbeat on the upbeat in the intro as well as coming out of the break.

You haven't lived until it's happened to you with one of your own band's songs. Or (as above) one your band is covering.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Monday, 23 February 2004 21:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Has anybody noticed on the second half of Bowie's original version of China Girl, he mimics the girl and says "Oh baby, just you shut your mouse?" Brilliant and xenopobic at once!

― The Second Drummer Drowned (Atila the Honeybun), Monday, 23 February 2004 22:06 (twenty-two years ago)

My girlfriend thought Arthur Russell was black.

― jeff ryan, Monday, 23 February 2004 22:21 (twenty-two years ago)

It happened to me with the shimmering middle part of "How we used to live"

― daavid (daavid), Monday, 23 February 2004 23:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I heard Spiritualized's "Run" incorrectly for years. The drum part is syncopated, and I was hearing it in 4/4 rather than in 6/8. I eventually straightened myself out by listening to live versions, with more insistent drum work.
Re: Ian Curtis singing on the wrong beats, I think that was just more of a blunder on his part than due to complex rhythms. Live, Joy Division could be very sloppy in general.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Monday, 23 February 2004 23:50 (twenty-two years ago)

"Spirits In The Material World" own this thread.

― JP Almeida (JP Almeida), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I know exactly what you mean, until recently I played in a band doing very twiddly Don Cab type stuff and had to deal with head melting polyrhythms.

MP3's here http://www.foemusic.co.uk/index2.html

Another good example is the start of Peter Gabriel's I Don't Remember

― mzui, Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Yep, I had that very same problem with "Street Fighting Man", "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me & My Monkey" and many other songs you probably aren't familiar with. Mistake the main beat for the off-beat and the whole thing sounds out of synch. Many Slayer & other thrash-metal songs give me that problem: hear one beat wrong & I'm doomed, the song's too fast for my ears & brain to get re-aligned properly.

― Myonga Von Bontee, Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:40 (twenty-two years ago)

The theme from "Some Mothers Do Ave Em" is in such an odd time signature. It just doesn't reach my ears and I translate it into something else.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 02:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I've struggled with the intros to the Prodigy's 'Charly' (album version) and the Chemicals' 'Piku' as well as the breakdowns in the Prodge's 'Everybody In The Place' (album version) for years. I'm sure there are lots of others.

― Barima (Barima), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 12:35 (twenty-two years ago)

The king of this for me is the original studio version of James Brown's 'I Got the Feeling'. The horn stabs are on the offbeats, but the beat Clyde plays is so fucked up that within the first sixteen bars I always end up hearing it as on the beat. Apparently this took a whole lot of takes to get right, and from what I've seen not even Clyde can really repeat it these days (or cares to anyway).

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Btw, we've done a couple threads on this before...musical illusions, I think?

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

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