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The drummer of Kings of Leon takes various rhythms in the Knocked Up song.

He beats short and sharp blows and, in my mind, it's that who gives its signature to this song, especially in its second part.

But I am intrigued by the rhythm the drummer takes from 4' to 5'20:
What is he beating? Does he beat one per four measures? Less?
Or is it only intuition?

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  • I agree: those figures really make the song. It would be hard to explain in words. Do you read music? I mean, drum notation?
    – Old Brixtonian
    Nov 6 at 15:11
  • @OldBrixtonian No, I don't. And I don't have a score of the song. But I was wondering about the rhythm used because I wasn't just understanding it, while it was good, however. I was wondering how it was able to fit.
    – Marc Le Bihan
    Nov 6 at 15:49
  • KoL have always been good at that 'throw you' structure. The very next track on that album, Charmer, puts the snare on the 1, but because every crash is on the 4, it can become a struggle to keep up ;)
    – Tetsujin
    Nov 10 at 12:19

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This is a 4/4, but what makes it distinctive is that it's actually subdivided into 32nds which are very fast beats. You can't really even hear all the subdivisions unless you slow down the recording.

That underlying rhythm keeps going in the section you're talking about, but there are other, louder drum hits over it. Those are not all on the same beat, but most of them are on the second eighth note of the bar, which is a very funky, disorienting place to put a strong beat.

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