Some quick ones my wife and I came up with over dinner:
Welcome To The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance
Bitchin’ Camaro by the Dead Milkmen
Last Dance by Donna Summer
Supper’s Ready by Genesis
A Quick One by The Who
“Roam” by the B52s starts with this horrible Enya-style chanting, but then it suddenly becomes a respectable song.
Well, Stairway to Heaven fits the bill, no?
Especially the versions that start on piano and not keyboards.
Someone mentioned Donna Summer which reminds me of her duet with Barbara Streisand.
“Crazy on You” has an intro not similar to the rest of the song…but perhaps ‘intro’ songs shouldn’t count since others have posted much stronger candidates and there are tons of songs with intros.
A couple Jethro Tull albums come to mind. “Thick As A Brick” and “A Passion Play” are technically one long song, with many changes. My personal favorite of which is “The Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles” in the middle of “Passion Play”. Some parts of “Thick” had been pulled out of the whole for air play. Ian Anderson called it the middle bit of the brick when played in concert.
Foreplay/Long Time, Boston
Then there’s “Pepper” and “Hobo Humpin Slobo Babe” each of which sound like two songs smashed together.
Finally thought of a legitimate one. Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend”
But that’s two separate songs, “Funeral For a Friend” and “Love Lies Bleeding”.
I guess I don’t really get the OP; why does “Bohemian Rhapsody” work? It goes back to the slow “nothing really matters” part at the end, and so does “A Day in the Life”, which was also cited. I would have thought you were looking more for a song that starts as a ballad and ends up as a rocker, like any number of gospel tunes. Am I misunderstanding?
“Bohemian Rhapsody” is arguably in true rhapsodic form, that is:
The intro and coda, while superficially similar in tempo, are different in mood and instrumentation. Each of the sections are quite distinct from each other:
[ol]
[li]Intro - Close four-part harmony with minimal or no instrumentation[/li][li]Ballad - lead vocals backed mainly by piano[/li][li]Guitar solo - guess what this is[/li][li]Opera - everything[/li][li]Hard rock - everything with electric guitars[/li][li]Coda - recalls all elements of the song: slow tempo, a little chorus (“oh yeah”), a little guitar, a little ballad (“nothing really matters”), a little piano.[/li][/ol]
This is a challenging question. Two I can think of:
“The Wheel and the Maypole,” XTC (which actually did begin as two separate songs)
“You Never Give Me Your Money,” the Beatles
I’d thought of offering “Beginnings” by Chicago and “Dry the Rain” by the Beta Band, but those are really just songs with extended codas.
Lots in prog rock, but an early example is Oh well by Fleetwood Mac.
“Scenes from an Italian restaurant” by Billy Joel
Rolling Stones, “Can’t you hear Me Knockin’”
The Doors, “L.A. Woman”
“Crown of Creation” - Jefferson Airplane
“Bluebird” - Buffalo Springfield
“Matty Groves” - Fairport Convention
'Me & Bobby McGee" (Janis Joplin) kind of, sort of fits, although it’s a gradual, progressive change. It starts out low-key, melancholy but picks up steam with each verse until the end it’s pretty rocking and rolling.
Possibly a stronger example is “Soft Parade” by the Doors.
So, let me see if I get this straight: Stop listening as soon as the song gets really good?