I’ve been thoroughly enjoying @Boneshaker’s LONG SONGS thread. So many different musical genres. So many different ways of thinking about music. So many inspiring musicians.

It’s certainly inspired me.

I’ve decided to start this companion thread in praise of short pieces of music. This is absolutely not a competition with those musicians and composers who enjoy spreading their wings. It’s a celebration of those for whom brevity is the soul of wit.

I’m hoping for a similar variety of different decades and genres,

To kick things off, I should, of course, mention that in the early days of the gramophone record, songs had to be fairly short for technical reasons. Here are the five shortest songs to become US Number One hits

‘Stay’ – Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs (1:37) ‘What Do You Want’ – Adam Faith (1:38) ‘Teddy Bear’ – Elvis Presley (1:46) ‘From Me To You’ – The Beatles (1:56) ‘The Letter’ – The Box Tops (1:55)

Hopefully that’s got you thinking.

Here are a selection of my favourite short songs. Some are enjoyable snippets, some are fully fledged songs despite their length. I take my hat off to Ron Sexsmith, His beautiful » Continue Reading.