Tough, Gruff & Artistic – “I Walk The Line” – Johnny Cash – The Psychology of the Speed of the Ideal Moment: Mean Saccade=569 milliseconds
The Top 30 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time List in ascending order of speed
The Top 30 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time List
First, I had no idea that Johnny Cash and Richard Nixon had been friends!
The number 30 ranked song on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time is I Walk the Line, written, performed and recorded by Johnny Cash.
As “Help!” by The Beatles–this song is in 2/2 time as the half note rather than the usual quarter note is getting the beat. On The Beatles song, we judge that although the sheet music indicates the slower (by half, by definition) speed ought to be counted as the most prominent beat, we saw that words from Lennon and McCartney indicated that they had “[sold out to a fast pop beat that was not what they had in mind for the song].”
This is Cash at his most raw. The slow half notes get the beat. The Rolling Stone article at http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595875/i_walk_the_line is most recommended.
Meanspeed Music Summary
beats counted=280
mean time=2 minutes, 39.3 seconds
average tempo (meanspeed)=105.4 beats per minute
average beat length=0.569 seconds per beat
meanemotion according to Meanspeed Music Theory=natural
May 31, 2008
