Listening

Guide 7-2_8c.

Bo Diddley as recorded by Bo Diddley (1955)

Features:
Even beat subdivisions are maintained by the maracas.

There is no stress on the backbeat other than the fact that the second and fourth
beats are played as part of the basic Bo Diddley beat that is followed throughout the
recording.

Along with this basic beat there are other beat patterns that, at times, create an
almost polyrhythmic effect. Most of the variants make changes in the second beat of
the four-beat pattern, maintaining the stress on beat one, the second half of beat
three, and on beat four.

After the sections with vocals, the repetitions of instrumental bars are colored by
rhythmic strums on the guitar stopped by a bottleneck on the seventh, the fifth, and
then the seventh frets.

Tempo:
The tempo is approximately 104 beats per minute, with four beats in each bar.

Form:
The recording begins with four bars of instrumental introduction that establish the
beat pattern that will repeat throughout the rest of the song.

The form is based on a series or chain of two-bar phrases, at least in the sections
that have vocals. In those sections the first bar of the phrase is sung and the second
repeats the instrumental pattern established in the introduction. The sections that
begin with the vocal melody used just after the introduction vary in length; the first
is seventeen bars, the second is twenty-four bars, and the third is nineteen bars.
There seems to be no set pattern to the number of bars the instrumental rhythm
pattern is repeated.

Lyrics:
The mythical Bo Diddley goes to great expense and effort to seduce his "pretty baby"
from buying her a diamond ring to trying black magic, but the ultimate result is that
she won't go for it.