Mission Impossible, Take Five, Led Zeppelin

Behind every great song is a carefully constructed foundation. And that foundation is laid down by the song’s time signature. Essentially, the time signature determines how many beats there are in each measure, establishing the rhythm of the song from the get-go. When you find yourself tapping your foot along with the beat, that’s the time signature you’re following.

Music has many time signatures that vary across genres. The most common is the simple time signature, 4/4. It’s popular because, as the name suggests, it’s catchy and easy to follow. But every so often, a song breaks out of the mold with a distinct, unusual and captivating rhythm that you just can’t get out of your head. That’s likely the 5/4 time signature.  If a song has a 5/4 signature, it means you have five quarter notes in each bar.   

If there’s one song that is synonymous with the odd 5/4, it’s Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.” Released in 1959, it became a hit in the university circles. To create this track, Brubeck arranged two melodies composed by Paul Desmond in a way that let Joe Morello, the quartet’s drummer who often soloed in 5/4 time, showcase his skills. The saxophone melody follows the base rhythm set by the piano and drumbeat. Despite its deceptively simple tune, the first attempt to record the song ended in failure after more than 20 takes in 40 minutes because the beat was so hard to keep. A typical waltz has the ¾ time signature. In the song’s odd time signature, the notes are grouped in sets of three and two. This rhythm makes it feel like an unusually uneven jazz waltz that’s missing one beat from every other bar.  

But the 5/4 isn’t just restricted to jazz. A surprisingly popular theme song that uses this time signature is Lalo Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme. While it has four main beats in the bar, it is split into two sets of dotted notes and regular quarter notes, adding up to five—with the first two notes lingering in the air longer than the last two notes. It gives the tune that thrilling tempo, slowing down and speeding up every bar. Interestingly, the Morse code for M.I. is two dashes and two dots, which could be translated into the beat of the quarter notes we hear.   

John Carpenter’s “Main Theme” from Halloween (1978) also follows the same time signature with its eighth notes connected by two sets of beams—one containing six and the other four.    

This irregular time signature also appears in Classical Music, most notably in Mars, the Bringer of War from The Planets suite by Gustav Holst. The 5/4 ostinato sets the militaristic rhythm for the majority of the piece. Generally, a march would follow the 4/4 time, but the unusual 5/4 rhythm gives it an ominous feel befitting its namesake—Mars, the Roman God of War.  

Even Cream’s “White Room” features 5/4 time for its intro, despite the bulk of the piece being in 4/4  time. The strong contrast with the intro’s 5/4 time signature and the verse’s 4/4 time makes the piece hit the listener that much harder. This is also because the piece was initially written in the conventional 4/4 time signature, before Ginger Baker (Cream’s drummer) changed both the intro and the bridge to the unusual 5/4. The song serves as a good example of how varying time signatures in a single piece can affect the melody.  

“Seven Days” by Sting also uses the 5/4 time. Sting mimicked the chord progression used on Broadway shows with a reggae beat set in a quintuple meter to arrive at “Seven Days.” The rhythm of the song is split into a group of three and two, thanks to the placement of the snare on the fourth beat of the measure. This makes it easier to get the beat of the song down for the listener.  

Inspired by “Take Five,” Jethro Tull’s “Living in the Past” also utilizes the 5/4 time signature. Frontman Ian Anderson wrote this song in an hour in his room at the Holiday Inn, Boston, Massachusetts on February 12, 1969. He deliberately wrote it with an irregular time signature because he didn’t want the song to be a commercial success. He figured that the rock scene was saturated with the simple 4/4, and the 5/4 beat would not become popular. Ultimately, he was proven wrong when the song hit number three on the singles chart, making Living in the Past Jethro Tull’s first song to reach the top ten.  

“Four Sticks” by Led Zeppelin features the same irregular time signature. Notoriously difficult to play, the band performed “Four Sticks” live only a handful of times. The song gets its name from the fact that John Bonham held an extra set of drumsticks in his hand while recording the song, bringing the total to four. It’s definitely easier to make out the 5/4 signature using the guitar score here rather than the drums.    

“I remember Four Sticks was obviously in 5/4, but I couldn’t work out where the first beat was, and he couldn’t tell us. But somehow we all did it—and foxed each other,” the band’s bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones said in the book John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums (written by Jeff Nicholls, Chris Welch, and Geoff Nicholls, and published by Backbeat Books in 2001). 

Another song that draws inspiration from “Take Five” is Nobuo Uematsu’s “Cinco de Chocobo.” The odd time signature even makes an appearance in the soundtrack of a video game, Final Fantasy VII. Cinco, meaning five in Spanish, indicates the 5/4 beat of the song. The grouping of the notes is exactly like Take Five’s set of three and two, also making this song an even jazz waltz. This song appears as a playable piano minigame in the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and is one of the trickier songs to master, simply because of how difficult it is to get the timing right. Named after the bright avian steeds you find in the game’s world, the song really does sound like a flock of Chocobos frolicking in the Grasslands.  

Evidently, whether it’s jazz, classical, rock, film scores, or video game music, the odd 5/4-time signature makes its presence felt across the musical spectrum.