45s: Was There a 3:05 rule, and Who Broke It?

[Doug_Bowe]

Remember AM radio back then.
Top of the hour 5 minute news
Quarter hour weather check
Half hour headlines
Quarter hour sports update
(all sponsored)
PLUS
18 minutes of commercials!

The “three minute limit” was necessary so that you might actually get to play two in a row twice an hour.

The first over the top song I ran up against was “El Paso” by Marty Robbins. The 45 was hung on a nail in the control room. When you heard the song on the air you knew the DJ was in the bathroom.

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

*Originally posted by Cartooniverse *
**“Round-About” by YES is longer than 3:05, as is " I’ve Seen All Good People/Your Move" by YES. Both songs got play when first released 30-odd years ago. **

Yeah, but if you were hearing them on Top 40 radio, you were hearing the single edits, which were 3:27 and 2:54, respectively.

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

*Originally posted by Doug Bowe *
**The first over the top song I ran up against was “El Paso” by Marty Robbins. The 45 was hung on a nail in the control room. When you heard the song on the air you knew the DJ was in the bathroom. **

I remember a local DJ being interviewed by an equally local music paper…he was asked what he did if he had to take a bathroom break, and he replied “Play Layla!”

[NDP]

The first over the top song I ran up against was “El Paso” by Marty Robbins. The 45 was hung on a nail in the control room. When you heard the song on the air you knew the DJ was in the bathroom.

Damn! I was going to mention Marty Robbins’ El Paso in 1959–before Dylan and the Beatles–as being the first hit single that broke the “three minute rule.”

My recollection, fuzzy as it may be after lo these many decades, is that “Freebird” by Lynrd Skynrd was also truncated, since it’s a fairly long song.

“Round-About” by YES is longer than 3:05, as is " I’ve Seen All Good People/Your Move" by YES. Both songs got play when first released 30-odd years ago.

I remember a local DJ being interviewed by an equally local music paper…he was asked what he did if he had to take a bathroom break, and he replied “Play Layla!”

Layla? Hey Jude? Like a Rolling Stone? Round-About? All mere quickies when compared with
this Issac Hayes single released in 1969. (Although I doubt few AM stations played the full-length version.)

[Hometownboy]

While not as impressive as the Hayes single above, the hit-the-john song at our station was the deeply satisfying 17:05 of Iron Butterfly’s Inna-Gadda-da-Vita.

Seems to me there was a shorter edit (7 or 8 minutes?) but we’d never puppy out like that.

[Mudshark]

There was a “single version” of *Inna Gadda da Vida that was about three minutes long. I think they released it as a “bonus track” on an Iron Butterfly cd.

[Kaitlyn]

So why do they still shorten songs for airplay? There are two versions of Mike and the Mechanics’ Living Years. By far the more common version I’ve heard played on the radio leaves out the second verse. What benefit does the radio station get from saving the 30-40 seconds that the longer version would take?

Likewise, most of the time I hear only three verses of “American Pie”, the short version of “Blinded by the Light”, and “Hotel California” is usually faded out with more than a minute to go in the song. The radio version of Don Henly’s “The Heart of the Matter” omits the bridge between the verse and chorus (which begins “I"m Learning to live without you now”, and subtly alters the song’s message) that is on the album version. I assume this is for time, as Henly would be unlikely to have written and recorded it in its original form if he didn’t prefer it that way.

I’m not talking about morning shows, some of which seem to be willing to do away with music altogether, but all of the time. I’ll often hear the short versions even in the middle of the night when there’s no dj and all you get is music and prerecorded station id’s (which I consider the perfect format–no news, no weather, no inane chatter, just music/commercials/station id), though the longer versions are more likely to show up after midnight.

Is the record companies that like these shorter versions and release them this way, or do the radio stations put pressure on the record labels to produce shorter versions for air play? Or is this a consumer-driven idea in which the stations and labels have discovered people want shorter songs so that they can get more of them in a given time period, not realizing that more songs isn’t more music?

[Muldoon_s_Squishiness]

*Originally posted by Number Six *
**So why do they still shorten songs for airplay? There are two versions of Mike and the Mechanics’ Living Years. By far the more common version I’ve heard played on the radio leaves out the second verse. What benefit does the radio station get from saving the 30-40 seconds that the longer version would take?

Likewise, most of the time I hear only three verses of “American Pie”, the short version of “Blinded by the Light”, and “Hotel California” is usually faded out with more than a minute to go in the song. The radio version of Don Henly’s “The Heart of the Matter” omits the bridge between the verse and chorus (which begins “I"m Learning to live without you now”, and subtly alters the song’s message) that is on the album version. I assume this is for time, as Henly would be unlikely to have written and recorded it in its original form if he didn’t prefer it that way.

I’m not talking about morning shows, some of which seem to be willing to do away with music altogether, but all of the time. I’ll often hear the short versions even in the middle of the night when there’s no dj and all you get is music and prerecorded station id’s (which I consider the perfect format–no news, no weather, no inane chatter, just music/commercials/station id), though the longer versions are more likely to show up after midnight.

Is the record companies that like these shorter versions and release them this way, or do the radio stations put pressure on the record labels to produce shorter versions for air play? Or is this a consumer-driven idea in which the stations and labels have discovered people want shorter songs so that they can get more of them in a given time period, not realizing that more songs isn’t more music? **

What you are talking about is the difference between the single version and the album version. The single version will often drop a chorus or a verse and maybe even a guitar or instrumental solo. It’s actually a way for the artists (and the record company)to make more money, as very devoted fans will often buy both the single of a song and the album that the song is on, thus ensuring that they have all possible versions.

Incidentally, Hey Jude by The Beatles is officially the longest song to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, clocking in at 7:08.

American Pie by Don McLean is longer, lasting 8:38, but on the single release the song was divided into two parts, American Pie part 1 and American Pie part 2 each occupying one side of a single. American Pie did not become one of the rare Double A-Side singles, something that both Elvis and The Beatles achieved.