Oct 212021
Simple thread, this one. One of my favorites is from T. Rex.
(I offer this live version mostly because of the first comment below the vid, one clearly directed to EPG.)
Here’s the studio version, the better to hear the “One and a-two and a bubbly, bubbly, boo, boo, yeah!”
What’s your favorite count in on a song?
I mean, obvious or not, for me the opening to the first Beatles LP is unbeatable. Was it the first count-in? I doubt it but can’t think of any earlier.
https://youtu.be/oxwAB3SECtc
And the last time the Replacements all played together on record starts, ever so characteristically, with a screw-up.
https://youtu.be/7E-ZIA2cbY4
Scott, that Beatles one would have been my choice – is my choice – but given the recent jousting over T. Rex I had to use that one as the illustration for this thread. I would have bet money that the first response would have been this Beatles one and i’d have won.
I like the Spanglish count in from Wooly Bully.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl00pLpYQhI&ab_channel=SamTheShamAndThePharaohs-Topic
I’ll second Wooly Bully, but as that’s been taken, I’ll go for “one two three four five six” at the start of the album version of Roadrunner, (Twice) as it’s referred to in the single, mainly because it’s Roadrunner (Twice)
Here’s one I don’t like. Billy Joel doing his a-one, two; a-one, two, three, four to open A Matter of Trust. I don’t like that count in because it leads right into a Billy Joel song.
I wonder if anyone ever did a longer than a 6 count.
I don’t know about a count in longer than 6 but you do have James Brown getting it 8 times inside a song.
Totally different I know but I’ve been listening to the HWMISB lately.
Any of the DeeDee Ramone count-ins works for me.
I love Slip Kid by The Who, but the count in has always confused me. I think it may be the unicorn count-in that goes past six. Someone (Pete?) counts one more after six, but he doesn’t seem to say the word ‘seven.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4xjr9v5ehk&ab_channel=theseeker23
I like the alternating band member count in on The Greatest Single of All Time: Good Lovin by the Rascals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy625sZAHN8
I also love Poly Styrene’s unhinged sounding count in on Oh Bondage Up Yours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYMObdOqcRg
This, my fellow RTH-ers, this accounting of count ins, is the type of thing that RTH is made for: spreading knowledge (I was unfamiliar with the Poly Styrene entry) and correcting ignorance (I’ve only heard the song 5,000 times but i never got it that the Good Lovin’ count in was not one voice)
I don’t suppose Kraftwerk’s ‘Numbers’ would, er, count?
Don’t you know that you can count it out and in.
Al, I’m just assuming that about the Rascals but that’s what it sounds like to me.
“Taxman.” Right??!!!! Am I missing something here?!!!
Yes.
EPG, what makes this day different from all the rest?
The Beatles are serial counters. They count in I Saw Her Standing There, Taxman, Sgt Pepper reprise, and open Yer Blues with a laconic 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4 are even the first lyrics of All Together Now.