TheAgitator.com
Songs Over Seven Minutes Long
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007Rolling Stone puts together its list of 50 favorites.
A few of mine not on the RS list:
“Desolation Row,” “Idiot Wind,” “Standing in the Doorway,” and “Highlands” by Bob Dylan. “Captain,” by Grand Funk Railroad. “Your Side of My World,” by Joe Henry. “Thin Blue Frame,” by Josh Ritter. “Thunderstorm,” by Matthew Sweet. “November Rain” and “Civil War,” by Guns ‘n’ Roses. “Kashmir,” by Led Zeppelin. “Travelin’ Man/Beautiful Loser,” by Bob Seger. “Sweet Pain” and “Alone,” by Blues Traveler. “Oh, Sweet Nuthin’,” by Velvet Underground. “Truth Serum,” by Smog. “Right on for the Darkness,” by Curtis Mayfield. “Living for the City,” by Stevie Wonder. “Captain Badass,” Songs-Ohia. “This Is Just a Modern Rock Song,” Belle & Sebastian. “Rotten Apple,” Alice in Chains.
Phaedra, Tangerine Dream
A Sailor’s Life, Fairport Convention
My work here is done
What a shock – no Rush on RS’s list. Too bad none on yours either Radley.
I’ll nominate La Villa Strangiato, Natural Science, Xanadu, and The Camera Eye. Take your pick.
How did Peter Frampton’s ‘Do You Feel Like I Do’ get left out?
That’s a better list than I would’ve expected from Rolling Stone. And since you got things started, I’ll throw out three of my favorites: “Rock Lobster” by the B-52′s (surprised Rolling Stone left that one out, actually), “Dr. Bernice” by Cracker, and “Buenos Tardes Amigos” by Ween.
Crap. Thought it was over 6 minutes, not 7 minutes. Never mind that last post, Radley.
Dire Straits, “Telegraph Road” — obviously.
“Alice’s Restaurant” – 18min, 20sec.
No Tool? Lord knows they have plenty of songs that qualify.
Also,
Spiritualized- Cop Shoot Cop.
Drive by Truckers- Angels and Fuselage.
Happy to see the inclusion of Sigur Ros.
Fun to read, and more fun to pick apart their choices. :)
As a huge Pink Floyd fan I was thrilled to see them appear in the list, but geez with a band that has so many 7+ minute long songs they could’ve done better than “Sheep”.
I’m surprised they included “Cortez the Killer” from Neil Young instead of “Like a Hurricane,” “Down by the River,” or “Cowgirl in the Sand.” I like “Cortez the Killer,” but it’s certainly not the best or most interesting of those four.
“Only in Dreams” by Weezer is my favorite song of all time. I’m glad to see RS had it on there, even if they blew the review of Pinkerton.
Twilight Zone – Golden Earring
Traffic: “Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys”.
Jean Michel Jarre: Oxygene or Equinoxe, the whole damn albums. Fantastic.
“Hey Jude”: the most overrated song of all time, though.
Good calls on “Telegraph Road” and “Low Spark”.
Who has balls enough to nominate a Meat Loaf song besides me? ;)
Paradise by the Dashboard Light and I’ll Do Anything for Love.
I’m displaying my age with that one, Steven.
You know what? Take the last fifteen seconds of that song and play it for anyone you see, and ask them to identify the instrument making that sound. I bet you’ll go all day long before anyone knows.
It’s a really remarkable sonic mutation.
RS did okay.. it was nice to see ‘Cortez The Killer’ ‘Willie The Pimp’ and ‘Oh Comely’ make it.. putting Can on was a no brainer as they are most capable of being interesting for long periods, but (no offense to ‘Bel Air’) I would have chosen a different song: ‘Mother Sky’ ‘Halleluhwah’ ‘Paperhouse’ or, if you want to stick to Future Days, ‘Spray’
‘Pigs’ should have made it over ‘Sheep’, and ‘Cross The Breeze’ over ‘The Sprawl’.. silly
‘Heroin’ is a duh, but crowds out a possible dark horse run by ‘Sister Ray’
totally inexcusably missing:
Talk Talk ‘Taphead’
Slint ‘Washer’ + ‘Good Morning Captain’
Boredoms ‘Super Going’
Scott Walker ‘Patriot (A Single)’
Stooges ‘Dirt’
Iggy ‘Dum Dum Boys’
Panda Bear ‘Bros’
Animal Collective ‘Banshee Beat’
Van Morrison ‘Madame George’
PiL ‘Poptones’
p.s.
‘Frankie Teardrop’ sucks.. but ‘Free Bird’ super sucks
Dave Matthews Band has a ton, especially their livestuff, that should be added, but if they picked one, it would have to be ‘Barender’
Idiot Wind is the best takedown song ever. I want to see a list of the top 50 ex-girlfriend songs.
“How Soon Is Now” by the Smiths isn’t quite long enough but I’m sure a DJ has remixed it on some compilation with a 1/2 hr set. Ok, not the same genre you all are talking of but who doesn’t know those sounds. Heck, it’s so pleasantly mind numbing you could loop it for hours. I totally agree with Framptons “Feel Like I Do”, it’s a staple for those times when you drag out the box of music we haven’t heard in a while.
“How to Destroy Angels” – Coil
“Sie” – Einstuerzende Neubauten
“Song for America,” the title track from Kansas’ second album (1974), would be very high on my list.
Man, no Phish? Their shortest song is longer than 7 minutes.
Radley, more of the new professionalism…
http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/12/the_barney_fife_police_academy
Totally agree with so many of you. Pink Floyd is my drug of choice and I could name 10 better than the magnificent Sheep, but Twilight Zone, Telegraph Road, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, and so many of these others would have been great additions. I saw Green Day once in concert in Columbus, OH, at a show in which they opened with a cover of Sweet Home Alabama then wigged on the acid they apparently took and bolted out the fire exit. Show over. Somewhat talented maybe but nothing they’ve done should be on this list. Glad some creepy dude outside gave me and my friend the tickets for free.
And 3 Days was, at 10:21 (at least the version I had), my favorite time-waster as a DJ at WEGL-FM in the very early 90′s.
Thanks for the comments again Radley!
Where is Magic Bus by The Who, fer crissakes?
I wonder why Rolling Stone only had one song per artist…as an earlier poster wrote, there could have been several other Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin tunes added at the expense of others.
Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick”
And while WGFA is a great Who song, they practicaly invented the “long” song when they released “A Quick One” on their second album.
Ten Years After- Woodchoppers’ Ball
Jimi Hendrix- Machine Gun
Frank Zappa- Punky’s Whips
Another vote for ‘Magic Bus’.
‘Cowboy Movie’ David Crosby
‘Time Has Come Today’ The Chambers Brothers
‘Intro/Sweet Jane’ Velvet Underground (Rock’n'Roll Animal)
‘When the Spell Is Broken’ Richard Thompson (Not quite 7 minutes. 6:52 on the Watching the Dark compilation.)
‘Do You Feel Like I Do’ and ‘Rock Lobster’ haven’t aged well. Both are instant channel changers when I hear them on the radio.
‘Ball and Chain’ Big Brother and the Holding Company
Good to see Blues traveler made Radley’s list at least.
It’s wierd to not see any Dead songs on there. Terrapin would be my choice.
If Torn Between Two Lovers, Mary MacGregor was over 7 minutes long, it would have made this list for sure.
Hmm… Of course there’s no objective way to do this (unless you want to go by popularity), but here are my favorites:
Any Godspeed You! Black Emperor song
Any Jim Hall tune that meets the length requirement
Amon Tobin’s Sordid and The Clean Up
The Protomen’s The Sons of Fate
Stereolab’s Refractions in the Plastic Pulse
Autechre’s remix of Refractions in the Plastic Pulse
Autechre’s Cap.IV
Explosions in the Sky’s Magic Hours
Mogwai’s Ratts of the Capital
Boards of Canada’s Happy Cycling
Brad Mehldau’s cover of Paranoid Android
Chick Corea/Return to Forever’s Sometime Ago/La Fiesta
Hendrix/A Band of Gypsys’s Machine Gun and Who Knows?
Swans – The Sound. It’s 13 minutes of heaven.
I used to listen to at least ten of those songs over and over and over. “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” “When the Levee Breaks,” “Layla,” “Heroin,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “The End,” “Only in Dreams,” “Hey Jude,” etc. I had no idea how much the seven-minute song has meant to me over the years. Alas, who has the time anymore?
SHAME ON ROLLING STONE for leaving out:
Catherine Wheel: “Black Metallic”
Bruce Springsteen: “Rosalita,” “Incident on 57th Street,” “New York City Serenade”
Bob Marley: “No Woman, No Cry”
Stevie Wonder: “Living for the City”
Bob Dylan: “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” “Visions of Johanna,” “Idiot Wind”
Boston: “Foreplay/Long Time”
Don McLean: “American Pie”
Jackson Browne: “The Load-Out/Stay”
There are some others that I also would’ve overlooked, but Rolling Stone has more time to research this stuff and therefore should not be excused for passing over these brilliant gems:
The La’s: “Looking Glass”
Peter Gabriel: “Come Talk to Me”
Joni Mitchell: “The Sire of Sorrow”
Sade: “No Ordinary Love”
David Gray: “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”
Dave Matthews Band: “Proudest Monkey”
Chris Blake: “Harbor” (it probably just missed the cut, right?)
Pink Floyd is my favourite! Thank you.