"hope I die before I get old"--The Speed of Song #11/500 on the Rolling Stone List : "My Generation," The Who

Meanspeed Graphs Copyright © 2007 meanspeed.com. All Rights Reserved.


screen shot of my iTunes ® playlist of the Top 500--so far--listed by popularity

screen shot of my iTunes ® playlist of the Top 500--so far--listed by descending speed



On Rolling Stone Magazine's List of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time ®, song #11 is My Generation, by the British band with Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, Keith Moon and Roger Daltrey--those of The Who.

The speed graphs above were a tricky to measure: while the singer Daltrey was stuttering on purpose, hand claps were added to the rhythmically complex drumming of Keith Moon.

The method I used is as described on meanspeed.com and I can make the Excel chart with which the graphs were created if you ask.

The measured speeds of My Generation are;
number of beats per song=300
mean time=3 minutes, 7.7 seconds
meanspeed=95.9 beats per minute
meanspace=626 milliseconds per beat

Ian Schneider
meanspeed.com
May 12, 2007