“St. Jimmy” Song Tempo = 148 BPM, Punk pattern
It’s the fastest and punkiest song in the show and even though Billie Joe made his broadway debut for a surprise show as this character it’s not really one of my favorites (“My name’s St. Jimmy and you better not wear it out” – really?), so I’ve let it go unrehearsed for a while until yesterday when, after a play-through with a nice guitar-less backing track I asked myself “how fast can I do this?” The Broadway version is a bit faster than the Green Day album version. It’s one of those songs that gets played faster live in concert, and I wonder if that had anything to do with setting the higher tempo in this book.
Just for fun I tried to see how fast I could do it (sitting down in a controlled environment): playing the main rhythm figure with my drum machine a couple times first at song tempo (148) and then going up by tens and playing through each until I reached 180 and had to give up. 180 BPM is my limit. Even just with clicks I couldn’t get it.
Maybe after a couple pots of coffee I’ll have enough spaziness to get to 180 but let’s just agree to keep it where it is at a comfy vivacissimo.
