Which songs are definitely too short?

Cafe Society
1

I have bluetooth connection problems with my laptop, so I’m listening to an old CD for a change, the sampler “Ultimate Experience” with, you guessed it, the best songs from the Jimi Hendrix Experience. “Little Wing” comes up, and that’s a song I could listen to for hours, but after about two minutes, there’s a brutal fade out, just when you think that Jimi is just warming up for the GREAT guitar solo. More than 30 years later, Stevie Ray Vaughan made up for it a bit with his long instrumental cover, which sounds like everything that we expected to follow after that fade out.

I’ve often read complaints here about songs being too long, but too short songs rarely come up. What’s yours?

2

I always think “Love is Alive” by Gary Wright could go on a bit longer, although at 3 minutes 24 seconds, I guess it’s not unusually short.

3

The Immigrant Song is only 2:26

4

The titular song on Cat Steven’s Tea for the Tillerman is less than a minute long. Part of me thinks it’s too short and part of me thinks it’s just fine the way it is.

5

Ramones songs.

6

No, that’s just alright. I don’t expect a guitar solo on a Ramones song.

7

Black Betty by Ram Jam clocks in at 2:24.

8

But the album version is much longer:

(though in this case, I prefer the single)

9

I never knew of that version.

10

“Ban the Game”, by Men Without Hats, from the Rhythm of Youth album. 48 seconds

The 2010 “re-mastered” version of the album has a longer version, at 3 minutes, 49 seconds. But it’s not as good. It replaces good piano with bad synthesizer, and the lyrics get monotonous after a while.

11

Aquarius definitively needs at least a second verse to lyrically replace Let the Sun Shine extension

12

Gary Moore’s Parisienne Walkways is a nine minute song, but the lyrics are few, leaving me wanting to hear more of the story.

13

I’ve seen Rush four times, each in a different state which is another story altogether. Anyway, there was one show where they stretched the instrumental section of “Closer to the Heart” out to what IIRC was about 10 minutes. That was great.

(One of those “men who hold high places” wasn’t a man, but I digress.)

14

Napalm Death’s “You Suffer” is both stupidly short and kind of catches their entire vibe. They even made an official video for it. It’s 3 seconds long.

15

Echoes by Pink Floyd is just finding its groove when it fades out. A shame. :wink:

16

I’d say Jim Croce’s “Photographs and Memories”. Not that it has too short a run time, more that it just seems unfinished. It just stops, rather than ends.

17

Oh, I just thought of another one, Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”. It’s not the runtime, it runs over five minutes, but there’s just one verse and one chorus. I find this song achingly beautiful, and I wish It had at least one more verse.

18

(a) - excellent choice

(b) - this is exactly how I feel about Chameleon by Cockney Rebel (which is even shorter).

j

19

Into The Mystic

20

Now I think of it, High Fidelity by Elvis Costello fits the bill. Just as you think it’s about to veer off somewhere else musically interesting, it fades out. Where’s the rest of it, then?

j