I’m not talking about Partner Songs. That’s where you sing A, then you sing B, then you sing A and B at the same time and the two work as one.
I’m talking about music where there were clearly two songs or ideas that were put together in the same song. I know the Beatles did a lot of this kind of hard editing of track against track on The White Album, but I’m not even referring to that.
This is the kind of stuff I mean:
Aquarius/Joy To The World by Three Dog Night. Two songs, discrete and stand-alone but smacked together at high speed to make one song.
Your Move/All Good People by Yes. Same idea.
Are there others out there? Including Beatles songs, of course.
What makes a songwriter pick two songs to smack together? Is there a proper name for this kind of editing? I mean, I cannot call it songwriting because it is really two songs that were crafted and in both songs cited, they “feel” as though they were crafted independently then put together. The Three Dog Night song feels very disjointed. The Yes song does start with " I’ve seen all good people" but then moves into Your Move, then does All Good People.
You mean single songs that have two contrasting portions, such as “Layla” (Eric Clapton) or “A Day In the Life” (Beatles), or do you mean two distinct songs that are often played together, such as “We Will Rock You”/“We Are the Champions” (Queen)?
Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand
sounds like two tunes glued together. Works well though Black Waves/Bad Vibrations - The Arcade Fire
seem to have been two songs that sounded similar so they glued them together. Works well too, they compliment each other. Teenage Riot - Sonic Youth
The first few minutes of the song sound like a different song, maybe it’s just a long winded intro.
For a whole suite, there’s Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon from Chicago II, which consists of: “Make Me Smile”, “So Much to Say, So Much to Give”, “Anxiety’s Moment”, “West Virginia Fantasies”, “Colour My World”, “To Be Free”, and “Now More Than Ever”. It’s sometimes played in its entirety, especially on satellite radio.
That’s REALLY weird. I owned that LP- and yet on my iTunes it is titled under Three Dog Night. Hmph. You are entirely correct. That is the song I was thinking of. Can’t figure out how that happened.
I’m thinking of songs with seriously contrasting portions.
Are you talking about the kind of song discussed in this thread?
In addition to “A Day In the Life,” I seem to recall that the Beatles’ “Baby You’re a Rich Man” was originally two separate songs that got stitched together.
So was the Moody Blues song “Question.”
Several of McCartney’s post-Beatles songs consist of contrasting sections, including “Band on the Run” and “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” (which had a thread devoted to it).
Other “suite” or “contrasting sections” songs include “Shangri-La” by the Kinks and “Rio Grande” by Brian Wilson.
“Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” by Billie Joel. Joel has indicated that he wrote two songs, neither of which was long enough, but decided to jam them together.
Lyle’s Lovett’s “What Do You Do/The Glory of Love.”
John Entwhistle’s “I Believe in Everything” quotes from “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” at the end.
“Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” by Pink Floyd are three songs linked by the sound of Alan making breakfast.
There’s also “Brain Damage/Eclipse” by Pink Floyd, which is really a single song.
Also Joel’s “The Stranger” - the soft haunting whistling part at the beginning and end was apparently a fragment of melody that Joel had in his head for quite a while. He couldn’t figure out what do do with it, so he bracketed “The Stranger” with it.