The Who · My Generation

I Can’t Explain

I Can’t Explain is in A major at 137.6 beats per minute.

Tempo

138 BPM · Allegromedian of 285 analyses · 137.4–139 across the middle eight tenths

Key: A major3 sharps · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 54%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 285people who ran the extractor
One beat: 436milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 440Hz · 0 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 3.07dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.944Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.164Essentia's danceability, 0–3

Source: AcousticBrainz, dump of 2022-06-23 (CC0) · MusicBrainz core data, 2026-09-17 (CC0) · how each number is measured. Measured up to 23.06.2022 — AcousticBrainz stopped collecting in 2022, so nothing released after that date is here.

What the numbers say

285 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. A bare majority of them — 54% — put it in A major, a key signature of 3 sharps. The tempo printed above is the median of the 285 readings; 99% of them land within 2% of it, and the middle eight tenths of them run from 137.4 to 139 BPM.

At 137.6 BPM one beat lasts 436 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 109 ms and a dotted eighth 327 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 68.8 BPM, counted twice as fast 275.2. A score would mark that Allegro, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 440 Hz, which is 0 cents above concert A at 440 Hz — close enough to standard that a tuner would not argue. That is a fact about this transfer of the music, not about how it was played.

The dynamic complexity of the recording measures 3.07 dB: that is how far the level wanders from its own average, so a small number means a loud, flat master and a large one means a recording that still breathes. Its average loudness is 0.944 on Essentia's 0-to-1 scale, which is not decibels and is not comparable to a streaming service's number.

10 other recordings here are in A major; the ones listed below are the closest in tempo.

Beats per bar are not in this dataset. AcousticBrainz's analysis reports a tempo, a key and a loudness, and no time signature at all, so this page does not print one — a 4/4 here would be a guess dressed as a measurement.

Keys that fit with A major

Each of these differs from A major by at most one accidental, or shares its tonic. That is the whole of what a mixing wheel encodes; here the relations are named instead of numbered.

Delay times at 138 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	1744.2	0.57
Half note	2	872.1	1.15
Dotted quarter	1.5	654.1	1.53
Quarter note (one beat)	1	436	2.29
Quarter triplet	0.667	290.7	3.44
Dotted eighth	0.75	327	3.06
Eighth note	0.5	218	4.59
Eighth triplet	0.333	145.3	6.88
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	163.5	6.12
Sixteenth note	0.25	109	9.17
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	72.7	13.76
Thirty-second note	0.125	54.5	18.35

Half time 68.8 BPM · double time 275.2 BPM. Every row is one beat (436 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

The same title by somebody else

I Can’t ExplainDavid BowieF major108BPM

Matched on the title alone, so this list can hold a different song that happens to share a name. Nothing here claims one is a cover of the other.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in A major, ordered by how near their tempo is to 138 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in A major All songs at 138 BPM A major at 130–139 BPM The Who

MusicBrainz collapses 154 recording ids into this one. Recording id f7b8fdcf-d049-4b8f-aede-14e233950df2.