Speaking of what I listen for - I still remember being back in middle and high school learning about literary analysis, thinking it was stupid and a waste of time. First and foremost I was convinced that nobody thought of all of the literary elements when writing, because all writers did was tell a story. I was also convinced that with so many different possibilities for interpretation, it was really just left to chance - because, again, writers only tell stories, right? And finally, I was convinced that looking for all of these literary devices took away from the experience of reading. Here's the thing: at that stage it probably did take away from my reading experience - and I was never any good at it.
When it comes to music, I can see the same argument unfold. Analyzing it you listen for meters, chord progressions, melody line, lyrics, timbre and more. In the beginning, it is probably a big struggle - but for me, this process was driven out of interest and not as an academic exercise, and that made it a lot more organic than when I learned literary analysis. And, lo and behold, for me, listening to all these elements enhances the experience rather than take away from it - even when it gets difficult to unwrap the many layers of a song.
So today's song only has one difficult element to listen for, and that is the meter - or the time signature. Well... Actually, there are a couple of things, which we'll get to in a minute. However, the beginning of the song has an odd meter to it - or rather two of them. It alternates between 5/4 and 6/4. Explaining odd meters (or time signatures) is a little tricky, but I'm still going to try. A lot of traditional pop music uses 4/4 as a time signature, which means that there are four beats to a bar. A lot of pop/rock music use accents on the 1 beat to develop a pulse where you can count ONE two three four ONE two three four. It can (and will) be subdivided further (add an and in between every word to see how it works), but the basic pulse goes to 4, then repeats. Think about the Beatles song She Loves You for an example of a song in 4/4 (especially the verse).
The other time signature of my elementary school days was the good old waltz tempo, which is in 3/4. ONE two three ONE two three. And then... In band, we'd sometimes encounter 6/8, which is kind of a hybrid meter in that you really are counting ONE two ONE two - but the notes are subdivided in threes, so it becomes ONE and-a two and-a ONE and-a two and-a. The differences between 3/4 and 6/8 are used to great effect in the song America from West Side Story ([6/8:] I like to live in A[3/4:]me-ri-ca) - which counted in 8ths becomes something like ONE two three Two two three ONE two Two two Three two. I know - it's somewhat complicated to write it out - but listen to America again (I know you know it) and you will hear the difference.
Then I started encountering Rush - but before I did, I listened to Pink Floyd. The song Money from the fantastic Dark Side of the Moon is in 7/4, and you can detect that when you start counting the riff that goes over the cash register sounds - it repeats itself after 7 beats. It is artfully done - and what's even more skillfully done there is the switch over to 4/4 for the guitar solo before it goes back to 7/4 again.
In Jacob's Ladder you will encounter two odd meters: 5/4 and 6/4. Just count the beats contained within the guitar arpeggios in the beginning (arpeggios is really a fancy word for the picking Alex Lifeson does - it goes either ONE and two and three four five or ONE and two and three four five six with the three being the highest note he reaches before descending again in either pattern). Now I wish that I could stop here, but that would take away one other very effective element of the song - something I will revisit later this week as well - and that is the polyrhythm. When Geddy Lee sings, he sings in 4/4 on top of Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart continuing their 5/4 and 6/4 pattern, which creates an eerie effect.
Now I want to stress that you can listen to the song without worrying about all this meter stuff and still be perfectly fine. That was how I started listening to it as well. However, there is something else that pops up when you start finding the meters, and that is what I hope you do. We will get into other meters later this week - at least I have a feeling we will...
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