Songs that were Named After their Sound or Composition or Arrangement or Time Signature

?uesto

Silver Member
That may not be the right wording, but there are a lot of tunes, (more instrumental ones) that are named after what the song sounds like or a description of and imaginary "setting" for the tune. Lots of jazz and fusion artists do this.

Unfortunately, I don't quite know too many, and I'd like to get better at identifying song meanings by their name or meaning of their name by the sound of the song.

A few examples of this could be like "Take Five" or "7even" by Nerve or "Schizophrenic" by Oz Noy.
 
That may not be the right wording, but there are a lot of tunes, (more instrumental ones) that are named after what the song sounds like or a description of and imaginary "setting" for the tune. Lots of jazz and fusion artists do this.

Unfortunately, I don't quite know too many, and I'd like to get better at identifying song meanings by their name or meaning of their name by the sound of the song.

A few examples of this could be like "Take Five" or "7even" by Nerve or "Schizophrenic" by Oz Noy.

John Petrucci & Jordon Rudess: Hang 11

Its sort of an homage to Take 5, but they tag on a six to it every other five - to make it 11.

Its neat.

Its on their "An evening with John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess" record.

Love that tune.

Niacin has one called 4's 3. I think King Crimson's "three of a perfect pair" is a reference to song structure, as well.

Dream Theater's Octavarium is loaded with it... 8's within 8's within some other fun stuff.

You could also add in nearly any classic movement you care to mention into this category. Which, when you think about it, is what Prog is. Its classical with modern instruments.

-Ken
 
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Led Zeppelin - Four Sticks

The title came from the fact that drummer John Bonham played with two sets of two drumsticks, totalling four. His decision to play the song with four sticks was a result of him being very frustrated with not being able to get the track down right during recording sessions at Island Studios. After he grabbed the second pair of sticks and beat the drums as hard as he could, he recorded the perfect take and that was the one they kept.
 
While on Zeppelin, there's Rock and Roll.

There's a host of tunes ending in "rag" (eg. Tiger Rag), "swing" ("Mambo Swing), "blues" (a million of 'em), "soul" (a million of em) "rock" (eg. Eagle Rock, Brighton Rock and a million more), "jazz" (eg. This Is Jazz) etc.

Or "disco" ... Disco Boy, Slipped My Disco.

Tower of Power's You've Got to Funkifize.

Beck's Bolero. King Crimson's Bolero.

I had an album by a fusion guitarist where the first track was called something like Punk Funk.

I thought King Crimson's ThraK described the content well. The same band's B'Boom was mostly drum solo. Their song Trio was played by three of the band's members.

There was a Style Council instrumental called Dropping Bombs on the White House, where the teenage jazz drummer did lots of bombs later in the tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOwsSnfGoVo

There are thousands of these out there.
 
Chris Squire's Lucky Seven is in 7/8.

Adrian Belew Things You Hit With A Stick

Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells

Ashley MacIssac Spoonboy

Bruford Sample and Hold

Patapan

Creole Love Call

Curved Air Vivaldi

Frank Zappa Black Page

Rush YYZ
 
25 or 6 to 4, by Chicago:

This was written by Robert Lamm, who is a keyboard player and singer for Chicago. It's about trying to write a song, with the title referring to the time of day: either 3:35AM (25 to 4) or 3:34AM (26 to 4).

Lamm explained on The Chris Isaak Hour: "I was living with a bunch of hippies up above Sunset Strip. One of the advantages of this particular house was that it was in the Hollywood Hills and I could look out over the city late at night. I wanted to try to describe the process of writing the song that I was writing. So, 'waiting for the break of day, searching for something to say, flashing lights against the sky' - there was a neon sign across the city. That song came from the fact that it was 25 or 6 to 4am in the morning when I looked at my watch - I was looking for a line to finish the chorus."
 
ABACAB?

Genesis did, I think it is song structure, not chords or notes.

I was going to say this. Recently, my band was playing Cream's "Badge". I wondered out loud if they were the chords to the song. No, but the guitarist immediately played a little thing using B, A,D,G, and E. It had...possibility.

Which got me to thinking...if I were a songwriter, I would think of every word that uses only the first 7 letters of the alphabet, and play the word basically. See what happens. You never know what may come out! And you have a title. Laziness at it's finest lol.
 
Reel Big Fish - 241

Its a ska band. I believe 241 has something to do with what the horns in the song are doing.
 
I was going to say this. Recently, my band was playing Cream's "Badge". I wondered out loud if they were the chords to the song. No, but the guitarist immediately played a little thing using B, A,D,G, and E. It had...possibility.

ah yes, but who actually named the song ?

our pal Ringo - who walked in as Clapton and Harrison were working at it...saw the chords scribbled on the sheet of paper that they were writing on and said Oh, so that's the title then ? Badge ?"

Ringo strikes again.
 
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Epistrophy by Thelonious Monk.

An epistrophe is repetition of the same word(s) at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.

The tune was named so because is uses an "epistrophe" of notes in the melody.
 
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