Is there a market for longwinded songs?

[eeglug]

 

(And thank heavens there's only one "Hurricane." Of course, it's really a work of agitprop -- a protest song of a sort - SNIP - written in the late 70s, a period few would associate with Dylan's best work.)

 

 

You and I really do not see eye to eye on many things! LOL. You don't like the White Album, which is probably my favorite album of all. But back to Dylan, I agree that Hurricane is a bit agitprop and is somewhat lesser for it...but the groove of the song is great IMO and it holds my attention throughout. It comes from what many believe is a very good period in his career - the Blood On The Tracks/Desire/Rolling Thunder Revue/Hard Rain period of the mid 70s - not late 70s as you say. Some prefer this era over his mid-60s peak and I am one of them.

 

Hurricane is followed on Desire by another great long song, Isis, which has one of the best lyrics written by anyone anytime IMO. Musically it's a little monotonous but his vocal performance and the lyrics keep me from hitting the skip button.

[OAFCORE]

just ask yourself this: "am I beating this into the ground?"

 

If the answer is yes, then the song is too long...if no, then you have done a good job.....

 

IMHO it's always good to keep the listener wanting more. Not TOO much more, just enough that they will want to listen to it again....you don't want them saying "that was great, but I'm glad it's over"

[Barber Surgeon]

IMO, you can't pander to an audience unless your whole intent is to make money entertaining people. As an artist, the only requirement to fulfill is that it expresses exactly what it needs to. I realize that wasn't your question however, so I'll try to give a real answer.

 

I don't know how musically intricate your songs are, but as another poster said, it's easier to listen to long songs that actually have something going on. There is very much a living progressive movement in music today. It's not uncommon for an albums to max out in eight tracks or fewer. Progressive music spans all genres too. Another good thing is that progressive fans know what they like, so all they need to do is hear you if they're going to like you.

 

If your music isn't constantly evolving, even slowly (i.e. post rock bands like Mogwai), then you may have trouble. I, for one, am not interested in lyrics, so a song with three chord progressions and eight verses would get old fast to me. There are probably a lot of indie artists out there who challenge this though.

 

Bottom line: If you're creating art, just do what feels right. You won't get the same satisfaction another way.

[Matximus]

Sorry, but there are only two good long songs: "Free Bird" and "Hey Jude." And they kick ass.

 

Every other song written before or after that that is 7 minutes long is, by its nature, a crappy song. It's just a rule. Long songs blow. I didn't write the rule so don't get annoyed with me.

 

And "Like a Rolling Stone" came dangerously close to sucking at 6 minutes in length...

[oldnewbie]

[rsadasiv]

You and I really do not see eye to eye on many things! LOL. You don't like the White Album, which is probably my favorite album of all. But back to Dylan, I agree that Hurricane is a bit agitprop and is somewhat lesser for it...but the groove of the song is great IMO and it holds my attention throughout. It comes from what many believe is a very good period in his career - the Blood On The Tracks/Desire/Rolling Thunder Revue/Hard Rain period of the mid 70s - not late 70s as you say. Some prefer this era over his mid-60s peak and I am one of them. Hurricane is followed on Desire by another great long song, Isis, which has one of the best lyrics written by anyone anytime IMO. Musically it's a little monotonous but his vocal performance and the lyrics keep me from hitting the skip button.

 

Blood on the Tracks + Desire is my favorite Dylan period and as far as I'm concerned Hurricane is the greatest social justice song ever written. I do love Blonde On Blonde + Highway 61 + Royal Albert Hall, but the mid 70's Dylan is tops fo rme.

 

It's interesting hearing you say this, because I've actually internalized an "eeglug" critical voice that comes out when I'm writing and says to me "is this going to be one of those long, wordy tracks that I can't really follow?"

[eeglug]

It is true that a long wordy track can potentially lose me. I'm not hard-wired to seek out the words of a song. I'm not much for reading good fiction - I wish I was more inclined that way. So I tend to get bored if nothing's happening musically. For me to respond, there has to be more than the words. Mid 70s Dylan is an ideal balance where everything adds to the whole - music, lyrics, passionate delivery, good backup band.

 

I'm not against someone wanting good literate lyrical content and skilled and compelling storytelling in songs. What I am against is the view that music is only good when the lyrical content is of that kind. All art forms span a range from being purely representational of human life to being abstracted/fragmented/deconstructed into strange and unfamiliar forms. I think lyric writing is a valid venue for that too. This is not, however, an excuse to be arbitrary and annoying and stupid in lyrics.

[ido1957]

I can dig a long song if there is lots of variety to keep my interest. Classical contemporary is good for that. A good story is helpful too, although once you know the story, there is less desire to re-read it.

[Taylor Davis]

I, as a matter of RULE, cut verses from long covers.

I did "like a rolling stone" and i cut two verses, the song stod on it's own with just the remaining verses, however i added a verse of my own for playing out live and to make the song more MINE. .

I cut verses on the song AMERICAN PIE. it's still great with the cut verses. the familiar ones are there and the message is delivered.

as a rule I stand on the two minute ditty. and i only extend to three or more minutes for live versions. I grew up on the entire side of album songs(YES, URIAH HEEP, RUSH2112)

I tried the six minute songs for my own reasons and I've found that one can say and do everything needed in under two minutes.

it's like the flavor of CHOCOLATE: one or two of those little hearshey kisses are great but a whole bagful makes me pukey.

so a two-minute taste of a song seems to me to leave me wantin more while being satisfied sonic-ly.

I found that a six or seven minute song is largely repetitive and just does'nt satisfy my senses.

I've become the KING of the two minute ditty and if need be; then I can stretch it oot longer by repeating chorus or verse or extended leads and runs.

my fave song stretchers are lead runs(two or more) bass runs and keyboard vistas.

dylans songs are ready-made to be cut. as "American Pie" is as well.

ive found the song is still served well and everybody gets the idea from the cut versions.

I tend to stretch songs live more so than recorded versions.

many times i'll have a live version and a studio version, although I've recorded the live version as well.

for me the two minute ditty is the king, queen and prince all at once.

I'm the duke.

pleased to meet cha'!

ahahaha!

thanks for lettin me share!:wave:

[Liam Nixon]

One way to cut down a song in length (I do this sometimes) is to cut out the space between sung lines. A lot of bands have too much space between lyrics (like Against Me! or Napalm Death, if you like that stuff). I don't know, it just depends on what kind of music you write.

 

That being said, a lot of the "songs" I write and listen to are upwards of ten-fifteen minutes long with no vocals or drums; just crazy noise. Then again, I like Merzbow and Boris, so...

 

I don't know, I listen to boring music, I guess.

[oldnewbie]

I appreciate the responses to this thread. It seems like the opinions on songwriting are as diverse as the songwriters that posted.

 

As far as my own songwriting is concerned I think the word for the day is compromise. I am going to strive to find a middle-ground between writing songs that are perceived by others as being too long and songs I feel are too short.

 

After all, I am writing for myself first and an audience second. My songs are as therapeutic (for me) as they are long. If I didn't have this affliction, who knows how I would keep from pulling my hair out.

[blue2blue]

You and I really do not see eye to eye on many things! LOL. You don't like the White Album, which is probably my favorite album of all. But back to Dylan, I agree that Hurricane is a bit agitprop and is somewhat lesser for it...but the groove of the song is great IMO and it holds my attention throughout. It comes from what many believe is a very good period in his career - the Blood On The Tracks/Desire/Rolling Thunder Revue/Hard Rain period of the mid 70s - not late 70s as you say. Some prefer this era over his mid-60s peak and I am one of them. Hurricane is followed on Desire by another great long song, Isis, which has one of the best lyrics written by anyone anytime IMO. Musically it's a little monotonous but his vocal performance and the lyrics keep me from hitting the skip button.

 

Ah... you're right. 1975. Funny, I looked up the Hurricane Carter story when I was writing that, too (I couldn't remember if he ever got sprung again [yes but not until after being convicted a second time when prosecutors shot down witnesses after defense team notes showed that there had been discussions of using bribes to coerce favorable testimony for the defense].)

 

 

You're also right that we (and I'll include Ram with you, too for good company ) don't really see eye to eye on Dylan. Reasonable minds may disagree on matters of art and taste.

 

I much prefer his 60s work. You could go farther and say I barely have any use at all for his later work. I do have a soft spot for "Idiot Wind." But having just read through it again to refresh my memory, I have to say I find it kind of, well, really awful. It's another tiresome and pointless narrative song filled with sophomorically iconic characters -- sort of like a bad Dylan parody -- like so many of his efforts from that period. Not as groaningly awful as "Tangled Up in Blue" but pretty annoying -- make that kind of depressing and disheartening (for me as a big fan of his work through JWH). I guess I must just sort of like the refrain -- which is kind of wasted on the song, seems to me.

[eeglug]

I'm glad we've settled that. I can now scratch you off my list of people I desperately need to please. :D:D:D

 

That still leaves Ram, who is one tough customer.

[rsadasiv]

I do try to take other people's opinions into account, but I've been operating on a take-it-or-leave-it basis with the rest of the world for quite a while now.

[Arkthemaniac]

Rush is popular, therefore long songs have popularity,

 

Be prepared to be called Progressive and never be let into any awards ceremony, though.

[blue2blue]

 

Rush is popular, therefore long songs have popularity, Be prepared to be called Progressive and never be let into any awards ceremony, though.

 

Rush is popular in the sense that there is no past and there is no future, there is only the eternal now. Like Jefferson Airplane is popular.

[eeglug]

 

The tough cookie is ChickenMonkey.

 

 

I was going to mention him. He's not around here as often as he used to be. I remember a review or two where he pointed out some flaw and recommended a complete rewrite of the song. Some poor souls out there will need years of therapy to get over that brutal hazing. LOL

[blue2blue]

It's too bad because I, personally, like a good, rigorous critical work out. I don't always act on everything that's brought up -- because I tend to trust my intuition -- when my intuition is willing to stake out a position.

 

And, for me, that's where critiquing becomes valuable. Between my intuition and the outside world, I can usually come up with a good course of action.

[eeglug]

It depends on how the reviewer delivers the goods and what kind of person the artist is. I had a drawing teacher who was more brutal than CM and I was blasted by him a couple of times. We're talking about in-class reviews where a student is critiqued in view of everyone else - a potentially humbling and/or humiliating experience. In talking to fellow students I found some liked and needed his no-holds-barred-tough-love and some were absolutely traumatized. (I started out as the latter and edged towards the former.)

 

I too want honest opinions in a critique. I tend to be obstinate about things that I've given a good deal of thought to already. It's more helpful when something I've completely missed is pointed out.

 

Apologies to oldnewbie for derailing this thread.

[oldnewbie]

It depends on how the reviewer delivers the goods and what kind of person the artist is. I had a drawing teacher who was more brutal than CM and I was blasted by him a couple of times. We're talking about in-class reviews where a student is critiqued in view of everyone else - a potentially humbling and/or humiliating experience. In talking to fellow students I found some liked and needed his no-holds-barred-tough-love and some were absolutely traumatized. (I started out as the latter and edged towards the former.) I too want honest opinions in a critique. I tend to be obstinate about things that I've given a good deal of thought to already. It's more helpful when something I've completely missed is pointed out. Apologies to oldnewbie for derailing this thread.

 

No apologies necessary I'm glad this thread sparked some discussion.

 

As for the critiquing, I'm one of those people who's pretty sensitive. I don't know why, I guess I'm pretty self-critical the way it is. (I'm like the painter who won't show his work to anyone till it's done.) That's one of the reasons I posted this thread instead of posting songs. I knew if I posted songs the first complaint would prolly be, "it's too long." So I figured what the Hell, I'll just post a thread about long songs.

[rsadasiv]

Don't worry, I've posted several 5+ minute narrative type songs here.

 

and BTW, I'm just a golden ray of sunshine.

[Heckxx]

I only read the OP, but here's my two cents.

 

I've found that there is a real art to making great songs short, and yet epic. Some of the best song's I've listened to travel though many phases and almost feel like watching a storyline of a movie, and yet these songs are 4 minutes long. They are just packed with details and cues, and they don't waste one second trying to relay one musical idea to the next. So actually, the music I used to write tended to be 4-6 minutes long, and now I constantly try to make my songs as short as possible, while still displaying all of the ideas I have for the song.

 

But sometimes long songs are great to listen to. Dream Theater has a 20 minute song, its amazing. Mars Volta has a 30 minute song, and it even drags out at places, but I don't mind at all when I'm listening to it. Meshuggah made an entire album one long song, although I admit I don't really like or get their style.

 

So really, in the music realm, anythings possible

[LeonardScaper]

I was reviewing some older material today and came across this tune (5+ mins.).

 

I offer it up here because thus is a tune that was never really intended as a 'real song' so I wasn't very concerned out its length. Then it ended up getting some attention.

 

I sampled the kids playing guitar hero on a Saturday afternoon and went ahead and put some tracks down around the samples. As it happened, I ended up taking things in some quirky directions......and it seemed to work.

 

 

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6311650

[rsadasiv]

 

I was reviewing some older material today and came across this tune (5+ mins.). I offer it up here because thus is a tune that was never really intended as a 'real song' so I wasn't very concerned out its length. Then it ended up getting some attention. I sampled the kids playing guitar hero on a Saturday afternoon and went ahead and put some tracks down around the samples. As it happened, I ended up taking things in some quirky directions......and it seemed to work. http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6311650

 

 

This is awesome.

[blue2blue]

I was reviewing some older material today and came across this tune (5+ mins.). I offer it up here because thus is a tune that was never really intended as a 'real song' so I wasn't very concerned out its length. Then it ended up getting some attention. I sampled the kids playing guitar hero on a Saturday afternoon and went ahead and put some tracks down around the samples. As it happened, I ended up taking things in some quirky directions......and it seemed to work. http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6311650

 

Yeah, that one sounds great. I heard it a while back while I was listening to your page. Well... I heard most of it. I'll be honest, I remember hitting the skip (as a consequence, that time I didn't hear the outtro).

 

But I really liked the first 3-1/2 minutes.