The British Steelies Society

We [the jesse conlon band] spent time with this song, rehearsing and getting pretty close to the mark, but all is not what it seemed, not sure i should be even posting this poser on here, probably one for a drummers forum, but i love the steel playing on it, so here it is, the drummer and me have analyzed this track over and over again, re 'time signature' and when we played it at a gig, we found people couldn't dance to it, it was quite comical, they were kinda tripping over their own feet trying to get into the beat, it is what appears to me a fairly straight forward 6/8 beat, thats a kinda double waltz beat, [ie count one to six rather than one two three] but with a very heavy ON beat accent, OK! with me so far? BUT! something happens preceeding both chorus's, as far as i [and the drummer] can make out, for one bar only, it very discreetly slips into 3/4 time, and thats what causes the tangled footwork of the dancers, listen to it? i mean really listen to it! that real heavy accent in effect changes to the 4th beat of the bar as against the first beat of the bar, i hope Basil gets to see this post, i would love to hear his views on it, as he has produced countless recordings in his time, and would analyze this much better than me, i love this song, love playing it, BUT ! we have had to drop it from our dance set, cos of the beat, first time i have had to drop a song for this reason since 'jethro tull's Living in the past' which had a time signature of 5/4, which nobody, not anyone could dance, ANYWAY, just in case your not interested in all this 'time signature' stuff, just play and enjoy the track for some great modern country steel playing, and great fiddle and vocals too,
http://youtu.be/5xNbEQH7TWg

I just listened to the track, it's not intuitive at all, it seems to dwell longer on the IV chord than I would expect, and sometimes goes to the V chord earlier than I would anticipate.

It would seem to be a good decision to drop it from your playlist.

I once played with a one-man-band weekend warrior, who I discovered (too late) had absolutely no concept of timing at all, and would change between the I IV and V chords (on his guitar) at random.
It made it very hard to do fills etc, as I didn't know when he was going to do a chord change.

This George Strait song reminds me of that gig

it has a 6/8 time signature, but with half a bar extra before the chorus...! nice track. You could dance a Viennese Waltz to it quite nicely though! (yes, I do Ballroom dancing as well!)
Jason

Thanks for that Jason, so i was right about half a bar appearing before the chorus, and its that half bar which seemed to throw the dancers, the ones at our gig anyway, but i certainly cant argue with you Jason, as regards a good dancer being able to cope with it, and do a viennese waltz, but i bet even you cant dance a 5/4 though [ for 5/4 think 'take 5' ]

that's when I go for another pint!

ha ha good man Jason, exactly what i would do, i absolutely love that track, i think you really have to have the feel for it, i cant agree with you Richard that its not structured or correct, i think it has a tremendous amount of feel to it, its just that half bar thing that threw me, and in no way can it be compared with that guy you played with who picked his [wrong]chords at random, ive worked with jokers like that in the past, and understand exactly what you mean, they make you sound wrong, no, this is George strait and the cream of Nashville, that steel playing is awesome and so full of feel for the song,