In poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

, an anacrusis ( "pushing back") is the lead-in syllable

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...

s, collectively, that precede the first full measure.

In music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, it is the note or sequence of notes which precedes the first downbeat in a bar

Bar (music)

In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...

. In the latter sense an anacrusis is often called a pickup, pickup note, or pickup measure, referring to the syncopation

Syncopation

In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...

. A piece of music beginning with an anacrusis will often end before the last beat of the last bar, in order to keep the number of bars in the entire piece at a whole number. The plural of anacrusis is anacruses.

In the song "Happy Birthday to You

Happy Birthday to You

"Happy Birthday to You", also known more simply as "Happy Birthday", is a song that is traditionally sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person's birth...

", the anacrusis forms the Happy and the accent is on Birthday.

In The Star Spangled Banner, the word Oh in the first line is an anacrusis in both the music and the anapestic meter

Meter (poetry)

In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...

 of the poem:

x	/	x	x	/	x	x	/	x	x	/
Oh,	say,	can	you	see,	by	the	dawn's	ear	ly	light. . .

In The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' "Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine (song)

"Yellow Submarine" is a 1966 song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney , with lead vocals by Ringo Starr. It was included on the Revolver album and issued as a single, coupled with "Eleanor Rigby". The single went to number 1 on every major British chart, remained at number 1 for four weeks...

", "In the" is the anacrusis, while "town" falls on the downbeat.