Some songs are way longer than they need to be. My nominations are:
Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way
Eagles - Take it to the Limit (great song, but if they say “Take it to the limit, one more time” one more time I’m gonna shoot the speakers.)
Eric Clapton’s “Layla.” It’s got a whole other song appended to the end. It’s a nice piano instrumental, but what’s it doing there?
Stairway to Heaven.
In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.
Closer To Home. It’s nice that you’re getting closer to your home, but could you please just get there already?
Dire Straits “Money For Nothing”
Steely Dan “Hey Nineteen”
Both of those songs take about five minutes to fade out, or so it seems.
Kind of obvious:
FREEBIRD!
Hey Jude was what immediately came to mind.
It took me way to long to find this, but:
“Ain’t no Sunshine” by Bill Withers. I love the rest of it, but I think we can all do without the scintillating insight of
“And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know”
I thought of one song that doesn’t go on long enough: Alice’s Restaurant. That song is a minimum of 17 minutes, I’ve heard it go on for as long as 27 minutes, and I could listen to it if it went on for an hour, it’s that funny.
This list will automatically be invalidated if someone says it goes on too long.
Representing bliss?
I’m surprised that an Eagles song has already been nominated, and it’s NOT Hotel California.
Any song on the soundtrack to Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains The Same. Also, all Pink Floyd’s post-Barrett songs, regardless of length, just because they suck so much.
Let me also add the entire discographies of jackass prog bands like Yes, Jethro Tull, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I pity anyone who was a teenager in the early-mid 70s.
By going on so long, The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” really pisses away all the momentum that it had built up. The kazoo-ish singing is the last straw.
I know Sonic Youth loves its feedback, but their song “Mote” is a nifty little song with about four minutes of garbage tacked onto the end. Thank God for readily available music editing software that lets me cleave the track in twain!
They have another song?
What, nobody thinks “MacArthur Park” and “American Pie” go on too long?
In the olden days, late night deejays used these when they needed a bathroom break (or some other excuse not to be in front of the microphone for an extended period, if you catch my drift).
Sweet Child of Mine by Guns and Roses just pisses away what limited good vibes it cranks out in the begining by wandering off into some matubatory corner for, what seems like, ever.
You can’t throw out entire discographies – that’s just a lame way to say you don’t like them to begin with. While Tull, Yes, and ELP had a larger helping of too much of a mediocre thing than most, they also have some true gems in their catalog.
I mean I could say The Spin Doctors only wrote one song (that’s the way it sounded to me) that just changed tempos slightly. So, by that definition their entire discography went on too long. I liked “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” but they seemed to perform it over and over again, making it seem too long. That however doesn’t belong here – this belongs in a “Spin Doctors Suck” thread somewhere.
If you think 70’s progressive rock sucked, start a thread and you will find a following – without the drugs it is kind of boring now. But some of it is still good – even without the drugs.
Man that was a weird rant – sorry, I’ll just go back to bed.
Oasis - Do you know what I mean
Led Zeppelin - You Shook Me
Stone Roses - I Am the Resurrection
I think you must not have actually listened to Jethro Tull albums other than Thick As A Brick. Many of their albums consisted of fairly concise songs. They even had a few AM radio hits.
Here is the track listing from one of their most popular albums, Aqualung (1971):
1 Aqualung 6:31
2 Cross-Eyed Mary 4:09
3 Cheap Day Return 1:23
4 Mother Goose 3:52
5 Wond’ring Aloud 1:56
6 Up To Me 3:18
7 My God 7:10
8 Hymn 43 3:18
9 Slipstream 1:13
10 Locomotive Breath 4:25
11 Wind-Up 5:42
I’d add Rare Earth’s cover of Get Ready. The parts of the song that actually have anything to do with the actual SONG are great, but does it really need a five-minute drum solo?
I run to change the station any time this comes on. I loathe it. If I’m stuck with it, I yell out “Somebody hit Bill Withers. He’s stuck!” at the “I know” part. But kids these days don’t get it.