Go ahead and cite Hey Jude if you must, but I kind of enjoy the seemingly endless repetition of the chorus. It’s fun to sing along to.
I’m going to start with Pink Floyd’s Time.
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.
What a great way to end a song called “Time,” right? Except the song isn’t over, and he does have something more to say. There’s a whole other verse, that has little or nothing to do with the rest of the song. It would have been a much better song without it. Bugs me every time.
What other songs keep going past an obvious stopping point?
That’s exactly where “Time” ends. It then segues into “Breathe (Repirse).” Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album, meant to be listened to as a single piece of music. In that context, it works. But unfortunately, the two are lumped together into a single track as far as indexing goes on the album. And on the radio, they just play the whole thing - even if it was properly split up, they probably would still play it all, as it would be jarring to cut it off right at the end of “Time.”
In the spirit of Hey Jude, I offer GFR’s I’m Your Captain. I swear the “I’m getting closer to my home” section is longer than the rest of the song. Yes it’s supposed to be evocative of endlessly sailing in a lifeboat, but I don’t need to actually experience it in real time to get the point.
Similarly, Zep’s Kashmir, which sounds like the aural equivalent of crossing the Sahara on a camel. No thanks, I’ll fly. And I’ll skip the song, thanks.
Is there a category for songs that won’t start? The intro portion Johnny Cougar’s I need a Lover just goes on far too long. Like, “is the song going to start now?” Nope. “How about now?” Not yet! “NOW??” Nope.
When I was a young lad, I was very sick and trying to sleep in the top bunk of my bunk bed. My room had the record player in the house, and someone had recently bought this record. Everyone liked the song, so they came in and played it over and over. I was too sick to tell them to leave and they didn’t notice that I was in the top bunk, so I heard that song about 25 times in one day. Not a good day, and not just because I was sick.
Goin’ Home by The Rolling Stones. If it had faded out around the 4 minute mark, it would have worked. Bu they kept the tape rolling as it drags on for over 11 minutes of a not-particularly inspired jam session.
Blood, Sweat & Tears’ *Spinning Wheel *is a fine three-minute song, but then there’s a fourth minute of some nonsense with what sounds like a children’s recorder that devolves into discordant garbage by the end. Even one of the band members can be heard saying, “That wasn’t too good.”
I’ve always said that when I’m the Emporer of Everything, rock ‘n’ roll is in for some changes (I’m deciding if the rules are retroactive to Hey Jude…).
**Rule the First: Thou shalt not cover a song unless the new version is **a)**different and **b)**better than the original.
**
Weezer will be serving free dinners to the homeless for the dearth of imagination that is their Africa.
Rule the Second: A chorus may be repeated twice; thrice shall it be permitted in special cases.
Four or more? See the guys from Weezer for your spatula. Grand Funk will be scrubbing the pots and pans.
Pink Floyd’s “Absolutely Curtains” from Obscured by Clouds would be a whole lot more listenable if they had faded it out right here. Instead, it surpasses “Seamus” in consistency of skip-this-track intervention.
Eric Clapton managed to tack on a few seconds of twaddle to several otherwise great songs. Like “Motherless Children” – the drum crap at at the end: - YouTube
Passenger is good for writing two and a half minutes of song and then two more minutes of repeating the last two lines (or chorus) over and over and over and over. Even allowing for a couple repeats, you could probably shave 90sec off every one of their songs and not lose anything.
