Entertainment For Lively Minds
"Cars" by Gary Numan
Posted by Blue Sky on 26 April 2010 - 10:33am.
I was listening to this today and was somewhat taken aback.
Not by the fact that I was listening to it but this:
The track has a running time of 3.48 minutes.
The vocals are done and dusted at 1.28 minutes.
This leaves a 2.20 minute instrumental to finish the track.
This was a big hit.
Very strange I think.
Any other examples of long intros/outros that were big hits?
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The Dame´s Sound And Vision
Running time 3.05 minutes.
Singing starts at 1.28, not counting some aaaah and ooooh.
I don´t know how many times I´ve heard Cars, but I never realised what a strange structure it has. Thanks, Mr Sky.
Layla
Clocks in at 7.04, but an instrumental after the first couple of minutes.
Eric Clapton isn't really my kind of thing, but Layla is undeniably ace.
Hazel O'Connor
Will You - had a lovely saxophone solo that lasted for about half the track. The track was 4 mins 46 secs long with the instrumental ending from 2 mins 24 onwards. I think the solo was released as a seperate single as well...
Apparently...
Apparently the saxophone player on that track had to give up the instrument after losing several fingers in a sawing accident.
The dreadful Hotel California
Whiny vocals followed by overlong, meandering guitar
Timmy Thomas
Vague memories of his early seventies single "Why can't we live together" going on forever before the vocals came in...
"Intro and Outro"
by The Bonzo's was one long intro...
Gary Numan - Complex
Yip, the follow up to "Cars" is also very strange. Listening to it again now, it sounds even weirder than it did then. You'd have thought very much a non-single yet reached the heady heights of number 6 in 1979.
3:12 minutes long.
No vocals until 1:28 minutes (have we stumbled onto something with this 1:28 point?!)
No chorus, with the "hook" being a violin solo.
Numan
Cars and Complex are both from The Pleasure Principle album... None of the ten songs on this album has a chorus.
Pulp - This is Hardcore
Jarvis doesn't appear until 1 min 30, by which time most people expecting another hummable tune from the Common People hitmakers will have fled in horror. Underrated song in my opinion.
That's a great video.
I'd forgotten that James Corden played drums for Pulp.
One of my favourite songs by Pulp
One of my all time favourite intros. Thanks for posting!
"Say Hello, Wave Goodbye"
by Soft Cell: Marc Almond starts the vocals, wait for it, at 3:38 - which will take some beating, methinks. There's a goodly number of records have been and gone in this time!
Dire Straits' On Every Street
Vocal kicks in immediately, but there's a (rather lovely to be fair) lengthy coda (2:50 - 5:02) that is not only vocal-free but also a distinct musical departure from the rest of the track.