Entertainment For Lively Minds
Songs That Are, Quite Simply, Not Long Enough
Posted by fedoraboy on 7 February 2011 - 10:13pm.
Do you think Gilmour should have squeezed out a third solo for Comfortably Numb? Maybe Dylan should have given Desolation Row a few more verses. Personally, I'd be happy if this songs just had another 30 seconds on the end. The 'rocking out' just isn't long enough...
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Nope, can't think of any...
Less is more.
Absolutely, completely agreed.
Always leave them wanting more. If you give them more, you've blown it.
I've often thought
that I want to hear Steely Dan's Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me) go on forever. It's just getting going as it fades out. There's a glorious guitar riff in the fade. But then, as someone has mentioned before on these august pages, the best songs are always those which make you lift the needle and drop it back at the start.
More dan!
I could go another verse of Through With Buzz. Love that song. Not sure if Barrytown is long enough either.
More dan!
I could go another verse of Through With Buzz. Love that song. Not sure if Barrytown is long enough either.
Yet more Dan:
another minute or two of the horn section workout at the end of 'Caves of Altamira' wouldn't go amiss either.
My Manics And I
Two off Everything Must Go. I always want the solos on the outros of Enola/Alone and No Surface All Feeling to go on for much longer.
And All Around The World by Oasis could stand another bar or two. *flicks tongue nonchalantly from cheek-based hidey puch*
Eyebrow Junior
Tried the same trick on his underwhelming comeback single. It might have worked as a 90 second blast but it was stretched some several notches past tedious.
Always thought
this faded out too early just as Peter Green's heart-stopping solo was getting started.
Of course, 35 years later we would get the wonderful, complete 6 min version as a bonus CD track.
the rapid fade
Robert Plant must have been trying to emulate that on Band of Joy because 'You Can't Buy My Love' fades out just as you feel the guitar player might be about to stretch out.
Funeral Pyre
I could listen to that outro for another couple of minutes
Monday
the full version of Monday on the deluxe Sound Affects is a revelation - why didn't they keep the long outro?, vinyl space s'pose
If I recall..
The "outro" of Funeral Pyre was the basis of the successful court case brought by Buckler & Foxton for song writing credits - which were always credited to "words & music - Paul Weller"
I think it was eventually settled for a sum of £50k split between the pair of them and the parting of such a sum so rankles with PW that he still refers to Rick Buckler as "that drummer"
The whole song is
a rhythm section master class. I reckon £50k is a bargain and as much as I love Weller if you're right he takes no credit from the story. Fuck it, listen to the storm Foxton and Buckler whip up on this, not sure about "that singer" though ;o)
Yes - A Venture
... purely because Steve Howe starts to shred at the end, and it just fades away. I want to hear more!
Outdoor Miner - Wire
Over and out in under three minutes (and that was the extended version with the lovely piano solo). Still, there's always the rewind button.
And it still finds the time for...
Rock's only reference to an egg timer.
The Smiths
had a fair few songs that I wish weren't over so quickly, for example:
Girlfriend in a coma
William, it was really nothing
Please, please, please let me get what I want
Although in practise there is nothing one could add to any of the above songs that wouldn't in some way detract from the overall experience. They are perfectly formed pop miniatures.
Lloyd & The Commotions - Forest Fire
I'm not one for guitar solos that go on for longer than a few bars to be honest, but the solo that runs out the end of this song I could stand for another 10 minutes at least; it's the lovely bursts of melodic feedback and all that tremelo arm stuff. I love a bit of whammy bar action in the morning.
That Arctic Monkeys Track..
Is still my favourite, it was the first track of theirs I heard, downloaded off the bands on message boards. Some of the lines in that track are pure genius. Such venom and humour.
Another track that should've gone on longer - The Wonder Stuff, Size Of A Cow - seems to end very abruptly.
On a similar note though, this Travis song only gets going towards the end and then stops - I wish they'd started it off like that, and scraped the wishy washy early two thirds!
That Live 'Freebird' That Always Used To Be On The Whistle Test?
With the Squiddly-Diddley guitar solo that went on for fcuking ever. What a heap of shite.
I know otherwise sane people who think that's great.
I was at a comedy club last
I was at a comedy club last week and there had been a much larger than normally tolerable gap between acts. As the opening notes of 'Freebird' drifted out of the PA, an ocean sized grown enveloped the room as everyone realised an even longer wait was ahead of us.
That'll be this one then...
Knebworth 76.
I wish Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing"
went on for a lot, lot longer than it does. Possibly my favourite bit of guitaring. Ever.
Let there be light
"Spiders (Kidsmoke)"
by Wilco.
Van Morrison's "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights"
(off "Veedon Fleece") is woefully short at 2:37. I wouldn't say no to another 7 or 8 minutes of prime vintage-Van-era brilliance.
Simon & Garfunkel
'Song For The Asking'.
Dennis's 'Little Bird' by The Beach Boys.
Another Girl Another Planet
Always thought it should be longer
More solo
More verses
Another solo?
The I realised - the greatness about this song, and others, is its not long enough. That's what makes it so great
Nay, nay and thrice nay
It is the perfect pop single - the best one ever, it is the perfect length, more would be just plain wrong, less would be just plain wrong, it is perfect, perfect I tell you!
And I heartily agree
it is PERFECT - no more is needed
It's dubious...
... that any track should ever be longer than it actually is, but I have always wanted Little Feat's "Long Distance Love" to go on past just 2'41". There have been times when I wanted it never to end.
nice sentiment
but you can't improve on perfection. Ditto Little Wing, although the live version on 'Hendrix in The West' is, possibly, better than the original.
The Cure - Just Like Heaven
Just a another little solo at the end or something?
Then again it's pretty much a perfect pop song, so I shouldn't complain.
Another Van
In The Garden from No Guru, No Method, No Teacher. Should be another Summertime In England length epic.
And pretty far removed from that, The Power Of Independent Trucking by Big Black from the lovely Songs About F'king album. 1:27 mins is way, way, way too short.
Augustus Pablo's King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown. Perfect in every way apart from a 2:32 mins running time.
After days of thought...
... I have come up with one whole song I want to be longer!
Red Hot Mama by Funkadelic.
The end of this song is a bloody fantastic Eddie Hazel, funky as fuck solo, which gets better and better and better and fades out right at the best bit. It has me shrieking for more every time...
Can you take me back where I come from
Can you take me back?
Neil Young
"Till the morning comes" from "After The Goldrush". Lovely little tune, too little
Saturday Night
by Whigfield.
/ coat etc...
To counter my own argument
I'd like to add that four favourites of my yoof exist in massively inferior, longer versions:
New Year's Day by U2
April Skies by Jesus And Mary Chain
Common People by Pulp
all with an unnecessary extra verse
and
Fools Gold by Stone Roses
everytime they played it in full in 'the indie disco' I died a little inside.