#29 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time List--The Beatles "Help!" meanspeed=189.8 bpm, quarter note getting the "driving" beat

The Top 29 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time List

The Top 29 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time List in ascending order of speed

Y-axis=hundredths of seconds, X-axis=time as beats played

Eight trial speed charts by meanspeed music



"I don't like the recording that much," Lennon told ROLLING STONE. "We did it too fast, to try and be commercial." John Lennon wrote Help! while going through a period of overeating, drinking too much and smoking pot "for breakfast." Thus, the fast quarter notes The Beatles play on this recording are displayed below as instructed in the actual sheet music, Copyright © 1965 NORTHERN SONGS LIMITED, All Rights Administered by BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC., under license from ATV MUSIC (MACLEN) & CBS UNART CATALOG INC. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured., are abandoned in favor of the underlying half notes. Why? The tempo instruction on the sheet music is, verbatim, "Moderately, with a driving beat" That's all. In the Official sheet, the *half* note gets the beat, and the song is in 2/2 time rather than 'common' 4/4 time. Measuring the speed was a tough call. We called on the Beatles expertise of our own Sarah Anthony and asked: Do you hear the *faster* speed and the defining beat or do you hear the underlying half note as the slower beat? Ms. Anthony's listening agrees with the sheet music view. "Help!" works on two levels--the hard driving 94.9 bpm half notes *and* the 189.8 quarter notes which dominate the single. As many Latin songs which can be listened to actively as either 93 or 186 bpm, this Beatles song will either strike you as 94.9 beat per minute or the quarter note double 189.8 beats per minute. Those who hear the 2/2 will hear Help! as 94.9 beats per minute, while those who hear the faster beat as prominent hear the 189.8. Because the Beatles themselves, according to the Stone hear the faster beat as prominent, it is listed accordingly.

meanspeed=189.8 beats per minute
meanspace=316 milliseconds per beat.




Ian Schneider
meanspeed.com
May 29, 2007

#28 Rolling Stone 500 Greatest of All-Time is called "(Sittin on) the Dock of the Bay," Otis Redding, meanemotion=natural, meanspace=580 milliseconds

The #28 song on the Rolling Stone List of The 500 Greatest of All-Time is called (Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay, performed by Otis Redding.

The song was measured for speed and we found:
meanspeed=103.5 beats per minute
meanspace=580 milliseconds per beat
meanemotion=natural.

The primary reason we measure for speed, and have been doing so for 19 years, is because until the digital revolution, your DJ was always someone playing unknown speeds *at* you. When you learn your speeds (take your time!), one of the coolest things you can do is play around with the setlists and playlists. Notice how different the Rolling Stone Top 28 songs of all-time look when arrange according to Rolling Stone rank:
compared with the top 28 arranged by speed, expressed as beats per minute.
Of course, the fantastic thing about this is that with digital music programs, you are not stuck with one arrangement of songs or the other. As most of you know, you can alphabetize, arrange according to "genre," arrange by artist--all without disturbing your songs or information about the songs. As you can see above, (Stiin' On) The Dock Of The Bay is listed as "104 BPM"--this is because my player of choice is iTunes which commands that you round the BPM to the nearest whole number--which works well.

Many times we have said: the measurements were obtained using the method as described on http://meanspeed.com. An example of what the method looks like sits below in these Microsoft Excel screenshots: each measure of 4 beats is measured ten times. The three did it numbers in each box below represent centiseconds, which are totaled, averaged and turned from "base 10"--milliseconds to base 6--beats per *minute*. Both representations of speed are based on the same measurement. Musicians, music lovers, conductors and DJs will use "beats per minute." Psychologists, physicists and neurologists will use milliseconds per beat--a reason we include both "meanspeed" (BPM) and "meanspace" (milliseconds per beat) in our daily reports. The concept of "meanemotion" is one based on listening to every lyric and song we could over 19 years--15,000 songs --and seeing a pattern of order within chaos that was discovered after seeing a mere 100-200 songs and testing and re-testing; in short, trying to prove our *own* theory wrong. So far, we think Meanspeed Music Theory is stronger than ever, and you are most invited to join in the discussion about it. MM Theory is not an invention or forced structure: it is simply a way to see that what appears, or sounds, like chaos in music tempo is really a spectacular act of nature. Speed is territorial and inescapable. We encourage you to try the method yourself--the spreadsheet pages for the speed graphs at the bottom for Dock Of The Bay look like:
page 1 of 5
page 2 of 5
page 3 of 5
page 4 of 5
page 5 of 5

Finally, we see the speed at a glance, whether we are professional musicians or *not*--true "people's sheet music." You will find that if you discover your preferred speeds, knowledge is power. That "different drummer" to whom you are marching to the beat of will be exposed, and instead of some old man Lite-FM DJ (like me!) setting your mental frame--*you* will be that drummer. Just as we all watch which television shows when we want with or without commercials, just as we know the speed of every baseball pitch, just as we can research everything and beyond on Google, MSN, Yahoo or any of the other 100s of search engines, we learn: Knowledge truly is power.

this speed graph is a Microsoft Excel radar chart based on exactly the number above

this speed graph is a Microsoft Excel linear chart based on exactly the number above.


Ian Schneider
James "The Senator" Manning
Sarah Anthony
meanspeed.com
May 28, 2007
Happy Memorial Day

#27 on the Rolling Stone Top 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time: "Layla," Derek & The Dominoes, meanspeed=115.9 bpm, meanemotion=foreboding

The #27 song on the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time is called Layla, written by Eric Clapton and performed by Derek and the Dominoes.

Eric Clapton was undergoing a period of foreboding in his life at the time he wrote the song. He was falling in love with a woman who was was unavailable in the extreme. says the Rolling Stone: Embroiled in a love triangle with George and Patti Boyd Harrison, Clapton took the title for his greatest song from the Persian love story "Layla and Majnoun."

In Layla, we measured the speed as:
meanspeed=117.9 beats per minute.
meanspace=0.509 seconds per beat.
meanspace=2.04 seconds per measure.
meanbeat=1.965 beats per second.
meanpulse=1.93 cycles per second.
meanpitch=247.25 Hertz, 2 cents above B3=246.942 Hertz and 98 cents below C4=329.628.

Ian Schneider May 26, 2007 meanspeed.com

#26 song on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest of All Time: The Beatles, "A Day In The Life," meanspeed=80.4 bpm, meanspace=0.746 seconds per beat

Rolling Stone's top 26

Rolling Stone top 26 arranged in ascending order of tempo


The #26 song on The Rolling Stone 500 of Greatest of All Time is A Day in the Life written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and performed by the Beatles.

meanspeed=80.4 beats per minute
meanspace=0.746 seconds per beat
meanemotion=loneliness

speed graphs copyright © 2007 meanspeed.com






Ian Schneider
meanspeed.com
May 26, 2007

Song # 25 on The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: God Only Knows, The Beach Boys, meanspeed=117.4 bpm, meanemotion=Foreboding

The 25 top songs, according to the RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, in order of The Rolling Stone.

The 25 top songs, according to the RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, arranged in ascending order of speed.

Song # 25 on The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time is called God Only Knows, written and performed by The Beach Boys

From the Stones own digitized article, found at http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595870/God_only_knows: "It's very deep. Very emotional, always a bit of a choker with me," Paul McCartney said of this Pet Sounds ballad.

Everything we've ever heard or read--and this includes our own former famous Nebraska DJ James "The Senator" Manning, indicates that God Only Knows was Paul McCartney's favorite song when it was released in 1966, and so remains.

Meanspeed Music measured the Beach Boys song by breaking it down into contiguous groups of ten beats. This was repeated seven more times. Next, each of the 33 ten beat groups were averaged and the speeds in beats per minute were calculated. A line of advance was create--with Microsoft for Mac--which displays immediately, to literally anyone who can read a road map--how fast the song is playing at any point.

Measurements:
meanspeed=117.4 beats per minute
meanspace=0.511 seconds per beat
meanemotion=foreboding.

We hope these charts allow you to feel the speed of the song. Knowledge of speed is power. If you have a favorite song, we invite suggestions.
speed graphs copyright © 2007, meanspeed.com. Use by permission only.

From Wikipedia:
"In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for "time", from Latin Tempus) is the speed or pace of a given piece. It is an extremely crucial element of sound, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece."


Ian Schneider
James "The Senator" Manning
meanspeed,com New York City
May 25, 2007

The 24th Greatest Song of All Time on the Rolling Stone 500 List, People Get Ready, written by Curtis Mayfield, meanemotion=Grace

The 24 top songs, according to the Rolling Stone magazine, of All Time, in order of The Stone.

The 24 top songs, according to the Rolling Stone magazine, of All Time, arranged in descending order of speed.

Song #24 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time is called People Get Ready, written by Curtis Mayfield, recorded by The Impressions. An excerpt from the Rolling Stone article found at http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595869/people_get_ready:

"It was warrior music," said civil-rights activist Gordon Sellers. "It was music you listened to while you were preparing to go into battle." Mayfield wrote the gospel-driven R&B ballad, he said, "in a deep mood, a spiritual state of mind," just before Martin Luther King's march on the group's hometown of Chicago...."

Meanspeed Music measured 8 trials of the song, each trial divided into contiguous 4 beat groups. Those trials were averaged to minimize error, and the results were:

beats measured=156
mean time=2 minutes, 10.7 seconds
meanspeed=71.6 beats per minute
meanspace=0.837 seconds per beat

The speed graphs below represent the data above visually--

Ian Schneider
meanspeed.com
May 24, 2007

"There are places I remember"--Song #23 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: The Beatles, In My Life, meanemotion=natural

Song #23 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time is called In My Life, written by John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney and performed the Beatles.

This is Rolling Stone list of the top 23 of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time=

1. Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
2. Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones
3. Imagine, John Lennon
4. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye
5. Respect, Aretha Franklin
6. Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys
7. Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry
8. Hey Jude, The Beatles
9. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
10. What'd I Say, Ray Charles
11. My Generation, The Who
12. A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke
13. Yesterday, The Beatles
14. Blowin' in the Wind, Bob Dylan
15. London Calling, The Clash
16. I Want to Hold Your Hand, The Beatles
17. Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix
18. Maybellene, Chuck Berry
19. Hound Dog, Elvis Presley
20. Let It Be, The Beatles
21. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
22. Be My Baby, The Ronettes
23. In My Life, The Beatles

Meanspeed Music measured the song IN MY LIFE in contiguous groups of 4 beats--one measure. I used the method on meanspeed.com, averaging 8 trials of the 4 beat groups.

The speed graphs visually represent the speed of the song. Both are based on the same data, available by asking me through email at meanspeed@gmail.com.

meanspeed=103.5 beats per minute
meanspace=0.580 seconds per beat
meanemotion according to meanspeed music theory=natural

Ian Schneider
Sarah Anthony
James "The Senator" Manning
meanspeed.com
May 23, 2007

Song #22 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest List: The Ronettes, "Be My Baby"--Linear and Radar Speed Graphs

According to Rolling Stone magazine, "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes is the 22nd greatest song of all time.

We measured the speed of Be My Baby by averaging 8 trials of 10 beats groups. This is a method that is described at http://meanspeed.com in the section of the same name.

The speed maps below represent the measurements in spreadsheet form, using numbers available on request. The summary of the measurements:
beats measured=330
mean time=2 minutes, 33.3 seconds
meanspeed=129.1 beats per minute
meanspace=0.465 seconds per beat
meanemotion=mixed fast





Ian Schneider meanspeed.com May 22, 2007

Song #19 on The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs List with Meanspeed graphs: Elvis Presley, "Hound Dog," mean speed=179.2 bpm:

Speed Charts © 2007 meanspeed.com



Song #19 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest List is Hound Dog by Elvis Presley.

The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

18. Maybellene, Chuck Berry

19. Hound Dog, Elvis Presley

20. Let It Be, The Beatles

We measured the speed of Hound Dog by Elvis Presley--using the identical method described in the section of the same name at http://meanspeed.com/

The results--
number of beats=380
mean time=2 minutes, 7.25 seconds
meanspeed=178.2 beats per minute
meanspace=0.337 seconds per beat


Ian Schneider
meanspeed.com
May 19, 2007

Song #18 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest List: MAYBELLENE, Chuck Berry. Mean Speed=235.1 bpm

Speed Charts like these can be done for any song. Yesterday we received a request for "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Please: Do not hesitate to suggest a song!

Song #18 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest List is the second song on the RS Top 500 List by Chuck Berry: Maybellene.

The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

17. Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix

18. Maybellene, Chuck Berry

19. Hound Dog, Elvis Presley

We measured the speed of Maybellene by Chuck Berry--using the identical method described in the section of the same name at http://meanspeed.com/

The results--
number of beats=520
mean time=2 minutes, 12.7 seconds
meanspeed=235.1 beats per minute
meanspace=0.255 seconds per beat


Ian Schneider, New York with
Sarah Anthony, New Jersey
meanspeed.com
May 18, 2007

The #6 Song of All-Time on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 list: Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, meanspeed=146.5 BPM, meanspace=410 milliseconds per beat

speed chart © 2007 meanspeed.com

The #6 song on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs is the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations. The songs varies in speed from 131 beats per minute at its slowest parts to 155 beats per minute in the faster sections. After measuring the song consistent with the manner explained on meanspeed.com, we measured Good Vibrations as:

number of beats=520
mean time=3 minutes, 13.0 seconds
meanspeed-146.5 beats per minute
meanspace=410 milliseconds per beat.

for more on The Beach Boys classic, an excellent article appears at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Vibrations

Ian Schneider meanspeed.com May 7, 2007

Song #16 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest List: "I Want to Hold Your Hand," The Beatles, mean speed=131.6 beats per minute

Speed Charts like these can be done for any song. I personally like walking around in my Meanspeed "Louisiana Bayou" (live) by the Dave Matthews Band t-shirt. Do not hesitate to suggest a song!

Song #16 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest List is I Want to Hold Your Hand by The Beatles--George Harrison, John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

We measured the speed of I Want to Hold Your Hand--using the identical method described in the section of the same name at http://meanspeed.com.

The results--
number of beats=284
mean time=2 minutes, 9.5 seconds
meanspeed=131.6 beats per minute
meanspace=0.456 seconds per beat


Ian Schneider and
Sarah Anthony
meanspeed.com
May 16, 2007

The Most famous protest song ever: Speeds of BLOWIN' IN THE WIND, Bob Dylan, #14/500 on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest of All Time

speed graphs © 2007 meanspeed.com


my iTunes™ player displaying the top 14 songs of all time, arranged from most popular


my iTunes™ player displaying the top 14 songs of all time, arranged by ascending speed

The measured speed elements for:

Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan, Song #14 on Rolling Sones Magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time were:

number of beats=232
mean time=2 minutes, 36.6 seconds
meanspeed=89.1 beats per minute
meanspace=645 milliseconds per beats.

background on the "most famous protest song ever written," from the Stone itself-http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595859/blowin_in_the_wind-

Written by: Dylan
Produced by: John Hammond
Released: May '63 on Columbia
Charts: Did not chart

In April 1962, at Gerde's Folk City in New York's Greenwich Village, Bob Dylan gave a quick speech before playing one of his new songs: "This here ain't no protest song or anything like that, 'cause I don't write no protest songs," he said. He then sang the first and third verses of the still- unfinished "Blowin' in the Wind." Published in full a month later in the folk journal Broadside and recorded on July 9th, 1962, for his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind" was Dylan's first important composition. It is also the most famous protest song ever written. As a songwriter, Dylan was still emerging from his Woody Guthrie fixation. But in a decisive break with the rhetorical, current-events conventions of topical folk, Dylan framed the crises around him in a series of fierce, poetic questions that addressed what Dylan believed was man's greatest inhumanity to man: indifference. "Some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong and they know it's wrong," he declared in the Freewheelin' liner notes. Earlier this year, Dylan revealed more about the mechanics of writing the song in the Los Angeles Times: "I wrote 'Blowin' in the Wind' in ten minutes, just put words to an old spiritual, probably something I learned from Carter Family records. That's the folk tradition. You use what's been handed down" -- and, of course, pass it on.

Appears on: The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (Columbia)

Sam asked, "a white boy wrote a song like that?" #12/500 On Rolling Stone's Top 500 of All Time, "A Change Is Gonna Come," Sam Cooke, speed=57.6 bpm

The song that comes in at #12 of 500 of Rolling Stone's Greatest of All Time is "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke.

We measured the song for speed in 8 trials, each of which is shown in the chart above.

number of beats counted=154
mean time=2 minutes, 40.5 seconds
meanspeed=57.6
meanspace=1042 milliseconds per beat
meanemotion=melodrama.

I found the history of this song to be notable. From Rolling Stone Magazine ®:

"In 1963, Sam Cooke -- America's first great soul singer and one of the most successful pop acts in the nation, with eighteen Top Thirty hits since 1957 -- heard a song that profoundly inspired and disturbed him: Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." What struck Cooke was the challenge implicit in Dylan's anthem. "Jeez," Cooke mused at the time, "a white boy writing a song like that?"the article is continued at the Stone's own http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595857/a_change_is_gonna_come.


Ian Schneider
meanspeed.com
May 13, 2007

"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

The #10 Song of All-Time on Rolling Stone Magazine's List of the 500 Greatest: Ray Charles, meanspace=337 milliseconds per beat

Meanspeed Graph 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 in descending order of speed


Rounding out the top 10 on Rolling Stone's ® Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time is Ray Charles' What I'd Say. Quite an accomplishment (by Ray, *not* me!). Here is the list of the top ten, with links provided by "The Stone" itself that include fabulously fabulous articles regarding each song:

1. Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan

2. Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones

3. Imagine, John Lennon

4. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye

5. Respect, Aretha Franklin

6. Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys

7. Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry

8. Hey Jude, The Beatles

9. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana

TODAY:

10. What'd I Say, Ray Charles

On the Ray song, we measured:

meanspeed=178.2 beats per minute,
meanspace=337 milliseconds per beat.

Ian Schneider

meanspeed.com

May 11, 2007

The #9 Song of All-Time on Rolling Stone's List of the Top 500 Greatest: Nirvana, SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT, meanspeed=117.4 bpm, meanemotion=foreboding

speed graph © 2007 meanspeed.com





This song by the American band Nirvana called Smells Like Teen Spirit is the ultimate grunge rock foreboding song. What is foreboding, anyway? Courtesy of Mirriam Webster's Collegiate 11th edition: coined around 14 c.--an omen, prediction or presentiment esp. of coming evil: portend. Most useful: the descriptive word "foreboding"' is the presentimet or fortelling which indicates that the speaker/singer/musician feels an indescribable force--often, as noted, a bad omen. Then again, as anyone knows who has been in a situation where all hopes seemed dashed by a terrible sign of things to come, all matters about which you stress are resolved with a positive ending . In Kurt Cobain's case, the result was: suicide. was this song a presetiment of Kurt's blowing himself away? Only Hole knows for sure. With so much written about the apparent "meanig" of this song, as linked above on sites as established as Wikipedia.org and Songfacts.com that I have chosen a graph made with numerical coordinates that visually display the warning about dangerous things to come associated with this song: Kurt's suicide, an American empire so vast as to be almost uncontrollable, and society changing from Agrarian-->Industrial-->Technological-->Digital so fast and furious as to create an undefinable frustrated malaise amongst the young. We really started to see this portrayed perfectly in the classic film Heathers starring Christian Slater and Winona [Horowitz] Ryder: the frustration about the future of the Western world is keenly seen by the Valley people. The final scene of the masterpiece--Heathers--bear the most eerie liking to the music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit.

The meanspeed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on this live recording= 117.4 beats per minute.
The meanspace, or time between each beat on the recording= 511 milliseconds. The mean-beat on the recording = 1.96 beats per second.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second on the studio recording = 1.96 Hertz.
The mean-tone= 500.91 Hertz in equal temperament, just slightly higher than B natural. This song features a frequency closest to that of the note B natural, while the song is played in the key of G major. In equal temperament, in closest in proximity with B4 where the B4=493.883 Hertz, which=29,633.0 beats per minute, divided in half 8 times (256)= 115.8 beats per minute. The next closest tone by frequency is and C5=523.251 Hertz, which=31,395.1 beats per minute, divided in half 8 times (256)= 122.6 beats per minute. For more on tone frequency, sound vibration and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay's The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with Stephen's kind permission on meanspeed.com.

The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method: a) I calibrated groups of every single measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko 300-lap stopwatches; b) Ten trials were averaged, coordinated and synthesized. I the created the speed graph in Microsoft's Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware. The numerical coordinates are available upon request.

Coffee courtesy of Meredith and United States Army Bronze Star Army Captain Jeff Schneider of TexasRoast.com


Ian Schneider
meanspeed.com
May 9, 2007--Happy Birthday, Billy Joel.

The #8 Song of All-Time on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 list: HEY JUDE, The Beatles, meanspeed=74.2 BPM, meanemotion=Grace

photo of Sir Paul McCartney and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
© 2007, Julianna Photography





speed graphs © 2007 meanspeed.com


Music that is between 70-76 beats per minute is predictably full of
Songs at this speed range indicate a tendency toward an expression of unconditional love, grace, mercy, gentleness, understanding, pleasantness, charm, refinement and clemency. Both as a noun and as a verb, Roget’s II Third edition thesaurus yields as fertile a ground in describing the emotional expression of a preponderance of songs at this speed. As a noun: “Kindly, charitable interest in others, and as a verb “to honor or to favor” fits this song’s true genesis: the song--Hey Jude, by the performers once known as The Beatles, originally known as “Hey Jules,” was written by Paul McCartney as a source of inspiration for John Lennon’s son Julian during a time when John Lennon was divorcing and Paul was [closer to Julian that John was]. Which is not to suggest that John Lennon was not a beloved father—we all know that as children there are plenty of adults with whom we feel that we can talk with more ease than with our parents. The song, recorded with a live 36 piece orchestra, featured Ringo not coming into the song until after it had started—he had been stuck in the washroom, but, as Ringo said, the room was “only yards from the drum booth” and as Paul as said “Ringo's timing was impeccable.”

John Lennon is noted many times as listening to a song soon to be seen on this page called A Whiter Shade Of Pale—which has the same speed element: the drifting of speeds between 69 and 76 beats per minute—but a measure or two above that—for example, 78.7—one could be assured that with a measure the speed with either:
a) Decelerate within a measure or two; or
b) stay accelerated but making up speed in order that unconsciously the overall meanspeed of the song is actively graceful.
Hey Jude accelerates slowly and in and arc form, as you can see. The acceleration is not extreme. In the first minute, one measure bottoms out at 69.5 bpm, and then between the 75% and 80% mark of the advance of the song, there is one spiked measure as fast as nearly 77. The song comes back to the mean speed in the last 20% ending by moving from 73 to 74 beats per minute—establishing the unconditional love speed.

The frequencies of the song are noted as:
meanspeed= 74.2 beats per minute;
meanspace= 0.807 seconds between beats;

The graphs are based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) Calibration of groups of every comon measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were averaged, coordinated and synthesized.
I the created the speed graph in Microsoft's Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware. One of the graphs derived from the results, in a radar graph style was printed on an Epson CX4600, scanned on same printing device.
Lists of 1000s of songs at 12 speed categories are available at meanspeed.com.

Coffee courtesy of Meredith and Jeff Schneider of TexasRoast.com,

Ian Schneider
meanspeed.com
May 8, 2007

The #5 Song of All-Time on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 List: Aretha Franklin, RESPECT, meanspeed=115.1 beats per minute, meanemotion=Foreboding