# Other examples of Abbey Road-style song medleys in rock **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 16, 2006, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644 "2006-11-16T05:58:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/21 "2006-11-16T15:51:47Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] Oh, and just to make things interesting, I’ll also include single-track songs, like _Suite: Judy Blue Eyes_ or _Scenes From An Italian Restaurant_ [/QUOTE] Moody Blues’ “Question” might have enough changes to qualify? ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/22 "2006-11-16T16:00:23Z")
[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow] I submit “Marie’s The Name (Of His Latest Flame)/Rusholme Ruffians” by The Smiths (appears on the Rank album). [/QUOTE] From the same album there’s also “Rubber Ring/What She Said.” Nice! ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/23 "2006-11-16T16:27:09Z")
There’s a lovely Devil With a Blue Dress/Good Golly, Miss Molly/Great Balls of Fire that the classic rock station plays. Don’t know for sure who does it, but it’s live. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/24 "2006-11-16T16:43:21Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] There’s a lovely Devil With a Blue Dress/Good Golly, Miss Molly/Great Balls of Fire that the classic rock station plays. Don’t know for sure who does it, but it’s live. [/QUOTE] I should look this up, but I believe that is Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. … Given the OP’s loose parameters, I can nominate a few more medleys. Or at least singles containing distinct movemtents. – The Sweet’s “Love is Like Oxygen” from _Level Headed_ – INXS’s “Need You Tonight/Mediate” from _Kick_ – Rush’s seven-part “2112” from _2112_ weighs in at over 20 minutes ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/25 "2006-11-16T16:58:45Z")
[QUOTE=bordelond] – Rush’s seven-part “2112” from _2112_ weighs in at over 20 minutes [/QUOTE] Someone’s going to jump on me for skipping “Necromancer” or “Fountain of Lamneth” or Rush’s other medleys. They’ve done quite a few. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/26 "2006-11-16T17:10:19Z")
Easily the _Abbey Road_iest album I know is (the wonderful, and sadly out of print) [Motor Cycle](http://www.amazon.com/Motor-Cycle-Daniel-Amos/dp/B0006806G4/sr=1-8/qid=1163695709/ref=sr_1_8/002-4977424-6220818?ie=UTF8&s=music), by legendary alternative Christian rock band Daniel Amos. I’d describe it as “This is what _Abbey Road_ would have sounded like if the Beatles had been reading [Frederick Buechner](http://www.wheaton.edu/learnres/ARCSC/collects/sc05/bio.htm)” The album has _Abbey Road_’s Side 1/Side 2 structure and, stylistically (and to some extent lyrically), sounds very, very much like late-period Beatles, though without being a ripoff or pastiche. Their much earlier album, _Shotgun Angel_, also has _Abbey Road_’s structure, with Side 2 being a musically gorgeous, dramatic, but perhaps somewhat theologically off-putting medley based on the Biblical book of Revelation. Electric Light Orchestra’s album _El Dorado_ has some of the same medley-like musical structure and flow as _Abbey Road_, as do some of the Moody Blues’s albums. > [@](#): > > Oh, and just to make things interesting, I’ll also include single-track songs, like Suite: Judy Blue Eyes or Scenes From An Italian Restaurant (or for a more recent example, California One/Youth And Beauty Brigade by The Decemberists) that are made up of several songs that flow into each other. Some that spring to mind are Brian Wilson’s “Rio Grande Suite” (from his self-titled solo album) Paul McCartney’s own “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” and, to some extent, “Band On the Run” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” The Kinks’ “Shangri-La” [QUOTE=Tanbarkie] They Might Be Giants’ “Fingertips” is the medley to end all medleys. [/QUOTE] I consider that more of an anti-medley. Those “songs” aren’t designed to flow into one another but to jump around wildly. “Fingertips” was written to take advantage of CD players’ Random Play feature. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/27 "2006-11-16T17:16:10Z")
Wait a minute – where would Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” fit in all this? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/28 "2006-11-16T17:39:36Z")
[QUOTE=Biffy the Elephant Shrew] Not an answer–_Soft Parade_ predated _Abbey Road_ by a couple of months. [/QUOTE] Yep, you’re right. Always thought it was the other way around. Admittedly, the Doors probably patterned the song after “The End” and “When the Music’s Over” from their earlier albums, so they didn’t need the Beatles as influences. You might add “Who Do You Love” from Quicksilver’s second album, _Happy Trails_ to the list. It’s one long song, but broken into a half-dozen components: “Who Do You Love Part 1” – 3:32 “When Do You Love” – 5:15 “Where Do You Love” – 6:07 “How Do You Love” – 2:45 “Which Do You Love” – 4:38 “Who Do You Love Part 2” – 3:05 An even better example is Neil Young’s “Country Girl” from CSNY’s _Deja Vu_, containing three parts: “Whiskey Boot Hill,” “Down, Down, Down,” and “Country Girl (I Think You’re Pretty).” ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/29 "2006-11-16T17:55:59Z")
**After Bathing at Baxter’s** by Jefferson Airplane - all of the songs on the record were organized into “song suites”, basically songs w/ thematic & musical similarities. The final song(s) are fused together as one - “Won’t You Try / Saturday Afternoon.” Also **Blows Against the Empire** credited to “Paul Kantner & Jefferson Starship”, all the songs on side 2 meld together to form an extended story about hippies who hijack a spaceship and fly off to an outer space utopia (I guess Kantner never saw that “Star Trek” episode w/ the space hippies). Then there’s the Grateful Dead’s “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad / Not Fade Away” medley. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/30 "2006-11-16T17:55:59Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] There’s a lovely Devil With a Blue Dress/Good Golly, Miss Molly/Great Balls of Fire that the classic rock station plays. Don’t know for sure who does it, but it’s live. [/QUOTE] Springsteen does “Detroit Medley”: Devil with a Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly/CC Rider. And I think of We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions as a two-parter, since everyone plays it that way. Imagine my consternation when the college station here played just We Will Rock You. I guess they were trying to be alternative. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/31 "2006-11-16T18:08:37Z")
[QUOTE=Albert Rose] Lou Reed’s [Street Hassle](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/lou+reed/street+hassle_20085288.html) is a pretty sad trio of songs, beginning with the sweet gigolo tale _Waltzing Matilda_, leading into a possibly unrelated post-overdose bit of nastiness (_Street Hassle_), and finally ending with the Bruce Springsteen-assisted _Slip Away_, which seems to be about how badly Matilda (or Lou himself?) misses a guy who robbed her blind. The three-part song cycle is on his album **Street Hassle** , which I recommend to any Velvet Underground fans out there. [/QUOTE] On the live album **More Miles Than Money** , Alejandro Escovedo works the _Waltzing Matilda_ segment of this song into a medley with his own _Gravity_ and _Falling Down Again_. The Allman Brothers _B.B. King Medley_ includes _Sweet Little Angel_, _It’s My Own Fault_, and _How Blue Can You Get?_. ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/32 "2006-11-16T18:10:04Z")
[QUOTE=Maus Magill] The A-sides of Queen’s first 5 albums (_Queen, Queen 2, Sheer Heart Attack, A Night at the Opera_, and _A Day at the Races_) were medleys. Two, _Sheer Heart Attack_ and _A Night at the Opera_, pulled it off nicely. The rest sounded a little forced. [/QUOTE] Not to mention a Queen single song medley entry, a little tune called “Bohemian Rhapsody.” How about Weird Al’s polka medley sendups of popular music: [Angry White Boy Polka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poodle_Hat) [Polkarama!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Outta_Lynwood) [Polka Power!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_with_Scissors_%28album%29) [The Alternative Polka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Hair_Day) [Polka Your Eyes Out](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_the_Deep_End) [The Hot Rocks Polka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHF_-_Original_Motion_Picture_Soundtrack_and_Other_Stuff) (all Rolling Stones songs) [Polka Party!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polka_Party%21) [Hooked on Polkas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dare_to_Be_Stupid) [Polkas on 45](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Weird_Al%22_Yankovic_in_3-D) Of course it’s debatable whether you want to classify Weird Al as “rock.” ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/33 "2006-11-16T18:19:24Z")
**NOFX** has a 19 minute song called _The Decline_ which sounds like a bunch of mini songs pieced together. Its a pretty remarkable effort considering the genre, and some of the parts are really really good. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/34 "2006-11-16T18:32:25Z")
The Moody Blues did other medleys – “In Search of the Lost Chord” and “On the Threshold of a Dream” (especially the first side) run songs together. Procol Harum’s “In Held 'Twas I” is a suite of six songs taking up one side of the original LP: “Glimpses Of Nirvana,” “'Twas Teatime At The Circus,” “In The Autumn Of My Madness,” “Look To Your Soul,” and “Grand Finale.” If we’re talking two-song segues, there’s Lyle Lovett’s What Do You Do?/The Glory of Love," Led Zeppelin’s “Black Mountain Slide/Communications Breakdown,” and Santana’s “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” (most people don’t realize it’s two songs). ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/35 "2006-11-16T18:34:01Z")
[QUOTE=bordelond] I should look this up, but I believe that is Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. [/QUOTE] Hm. Looks like it’s Bruce’s medley of Mitch’s songs I hear. (Or possibly a medley Mitch did. The ‘Detroit Wheels’ seems to match my memory of what my radio streamed across the display.) On the other hand, I discovered Mitch did a medley called Jenny Take it! of C. C. Ryder and Jenny, Jenny. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/36 "2006-11-16T18:51:19Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Procol Harum’s “In Held 'Twas I” is a suite of six songs taking up one side of the original LP: “Glimpses Of Nirvana,” “'Twas Teatime At The Circus,” “In The Autumn Of My Madness,” “Look To Your Soul,” and “Grand Finale.” [/QUOTE] Note that the title of the song (actually five words, “In Held 'Twas In I”) suggests dividing up the sections slightly differently from the official subtitles: **In** the darkness of the night… **Held** close by that which some despise… **'Twas** teatime at the circus… **In** the autumn of my madness… **I** know if I’d been wiser… ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/37 "2006-11-16T18:55:57Z")
I just thought of another one - “Horses” by Patti Smith, a long mult-part song suite that includes a bit of “Land of 1000 Dances” which (IIRC) was a hit by some mid-60s proto-punk band. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644/38 "2006-11-16T19:16:40Z")
If the mini-operas _A Quick One While He’s Away_ and _Wire and Glass_ qualify, then so should the full-blown _Tommy_ and _Quadrophenia_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-examples-of-abbey-road-style-song-medleys-in-rock/380644.md?page=1)