Continuing the discussion from Billy Joel's Piano Man:
copying a relevant sentence as context for this thread here:
joe cocker’s “with a little help from my friends”, also comes to mind [being 3/4 time signature],
as opposed to the beatle’s version which was 4/4
are there other, well known covers in a different time signature you can think of?
Postmodern Jukebox often changes the time signature of the songs they cover.
I heard a “Take 4” variant on “Take 5” which was quite disconcerting. I wish I could recall who did it.
Well, here’s someone else who had the same idea! (It was someone else though)
The theme from the Mission: Impossible TV series was in 5/4, but they changed it to 4/4 for the movies.
There’s a version of The Nutcracker called The Hard Nut that does “The Walz of the Flowers” in 4/4 time
“A Lover’s Concerto” uses the melody of Bach’s Minuet in G, but with the time signature changed from 3/4 to 4/4.
Dreams That I’ll Never See
The Allman Brothers’ version is a bluesy 6/8 time, and the Molly Hatchett version is a rockin’ 4/4.
?!?? The original was in 3/4 time. I never saw the movie but just went to YouTube for it and it’s 3/4 time for the movie version too.
I’ll defer to NPR on this one:
Lalo Schifrin’s music for Mission Impossible is among the most celebrated themes in TV history, and one of the most appealing things about it, whether you’re aware of it or not, is that it’s in 5/4 time. Written for that iconic television series in the 1960’s, the piece contains five beats to the measure, instead of the more typical three or four. (Count and you’ll see — 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5.)
I agree that it’s in 5/4 time, but the movie version (for the ones that I saw) were also in 5/4 from what I remember. Maybe they had a 4/4 version when using the theme outside of the beginning and end?
A friend and I used to play Take 5 mashed up with Love is Blue and These Eyes all in 5/4. Works surprisingly well.
This claims to contain all Mission Impossible movie themes. All are in 5/4. I confess I only listened to the first few bars of each.
I’m wrong, you’re right. It’s actually a syncopated 10 —
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10
… which you’d write as 5/4 time.
God knows what time sig John Williams was in for third season Lost in Space theme, but the movie version was straight four (at least the main melody line was).
TV version is 4/4 as well. There are some upbeats that make it sound like an eighth note was added, then subtracted, evening out the whole passage. Musicians sometimes like to mess with people.
If you actually listened to the movie theme song, I apologize profusely — no one deserves that. 
I get the feeling you’re punishing yourself for liking Lost in Space. The movie score won’t win any Grammies, but it serves its purpose. It’s fun, schlocky, and engaging.
I might not understand time signatures. Does this fit?
Original:
Cover:
Exactly right. This 5/4 pattern where the underlined notes are emphasized is sometimes called the 5/4 clave. It’s also used in Take 5 and a bunch of other things like the 5/4 songs in Jesus Christ Superstar. Hard for a lot of musicians to play in 5/4 without it.
That’s how songs like Love is Blue or These Eyes are translated in to 5/4. Take the four beats of the 4/4 song and map 1 onto your underlined 1, map 2 onto your underlined 4 (or “and of 2” as I’d call it), map 3 onto 7 and map 4 onto 9.
The 4 emphasized notes make it easy to count the 5/4 as four only the first two beats of each bar are longer than the second two.
They both sound like 4/4 to me.
Like I said…