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 Maybe this Xmas has become a real Xmas chestnut here in Sweden. And quite rightly so.
I am very deliberately not going to define how short your suggestions should be. That’s up to you-
Here are a few favourite shorties
Tom Jobim – A Felicidade
Bonzo Dog Band – Karma Sutra
Eddie Cochrane – Cut across Shorty
Soft Machine – Why am i so short?
Neil Young – Until the morning comes
The Beatles – She came in through the bathroom window.
Todd Rundgren- Never never land
Zappa and the Mothers of Invention What’s the ugliest part of your body
Take your clothes off when you dance
The Divine Comedy My Lovely horse . from Father Ted
Wire 12XU
Melt Banana – The Hive
Blur .Song 2 –
Ramones – Judy is a punk-
Ron Sexsmith – Maybe this Xmas
The Liverpool Scene . Batpoem
Loudon Wainwright 11 – Dead Skunk
OVER TO YOU.
In the words of Eddie Cochrane….C’mon everybody
This clip is magnificent….
Where did they find these teenagers? Being a teen in 50s America was hard work..
Fast forward to Billie Piper. This song probably landed her the gig in the Tardis.
It’s getting late but I can’t go to bed without mentioning Freddie and the Dreamers….
29 seconds … I Like Short Songs
When I did Hospital Radio, It’s Not Unusual by Tom Jones was a handy go-to platter to buy a bit of time if things had gone a bit awry – or you just needed to fill a couple of minutes.
Otherwise, Territorial Pissings by Niravana is great fun. “Just because you’re paranoid – it doesn’t mean they’re not after you” is part of the lyric. A extended unreleased version also has “you don’t have to mad to work here…but it helps!”.
And before someone else mentions it, there is the Commercial Album made by The Residents where every one of the 40 songs is exactly 1’03” long. Great idea only let down by the fact that each song is completely unmemorable tosh.
One decidedly not for the radio. Sadly.
Alberto y los Trios Paranoias with Kill:
Cliiiiff! (1:56)
Chuuuuck! (1.42)
You don’t get much shorter than this:
(Napalm Death: You Suffer)
I always think it’s lazy to fade out at the chorus.
I always used to think, when performers miming on TOTP, RSG etc ended up looking like a bunch of tits as the music disappeared, why didn’t they think about that in the studio and come up with a proper ending?
Great producer Tom Dowd used to insist bands write a proper ending otherwise the song wasn’t finished.
When they had the Northern Soul prom a few years back, the musical director said he had to write about 30 endings, because nearly every track they did faded out.
I got one of those Avid label releases a couple of years ago – Gene Vincent, five original albums on two CDs, all with the running times next to them.
Imagine my consternation when one song clocked in at 3 minutes, 1 second. Most perturbed.
Communication Breakdown – 2’26” of high energy. There’s a school of thought that ver Zep never bettered it…
It’s not all punk, you know.
What a gem @thecheshirecat. An amusing short story told in a mere 48 seconds.
Sometimes it’s punk AND folk
Sensational.
Nice bit of alternative lyricing in your head.
I may have posted this before – another two minutes and change of swinging energy…
That is stupendous @fitterstoke. A real adrenalin kick.
May I take your order please?
Mentioned in the OP – and genuinely one of my favourite NY songs
Canada’s Ron Sexsmith ought to be far better known. @DuCo01 and I have both been great fans since the beginning.
This gem of Xmas pop perfection has become a standard here in Sweden.
Let’s have another tune from Ron….
Is this short enough? Ballad of spiro agnew
This is even shorter. Ballad of richard nixon
Very droll, Hubert,
2.05 and it has bits of magic (that ascending riff!) from the incomparable Robert Quine
I can’t see the vid – but you’ve mentioned Quine: so can I ask what is was, please?
Love comes in spurts. First time I saw him he was with The Voidoids.
Ta!
I’m stretching the envelope a little with this Gallic gem from Francoise. Wonderful lyrics.
My heart of flint ignites quickly
Your pyrex heart resists the fire
If It’s going that way
One more in the same style!
Not stretching the envelope, if shortness is the only criterion, shurely…
This is amazing
1:56 of Yakety Yak..
Buzzcocks have a clutch around the 2 minute mark, this one clocks in at 1:51
The whole year in just two minutes.
Pop royalty:
Tom Waits’ love song to his wife Kathleen Bremman.
One minute thirty-four seconds.
From the incomparable “Swordfishtrombones” album, of course.
She’s my only true love
She’s all that I think of, look here
In my wallet
That’s her
She grew up on a farm there
There’s a place on my arm where I’ve written
Her name next to mine
You see I just
Can’t live without her
And I’m her only boy
And she grew up outside McHenry
In Johnsburg, Illinois
I knew she was born in Ireland in Cork. I didn’t realise she had grown up in the USA.
Wonderful song @Duco01.
We’ve had a lot of rock and pop tunes but not any jazz, classical or world music tracks yet. Are these all genres which just don’t do short tracks?
Here’s Ella to start putting that right.
From the COLE PORTER Songbook
And from Irving Berlin
From the sublime to the fast and bulbous..I suddenly remembered the Captain.
I was gonna suggest this from CB, but I wont now 🙂
Eno – the opposite of his ambient longform pieces…
I think The Leeds Boy will be shocked and stunned to find out that the Mahavishnu released a 2″09 single in 1975 – not edited from a longer LP version, not faded out: actually a composition of 2″09. Albeit in 7/4.
Big Pete Deuchar with his classic 1963 version of John D Loudfermilk’s ‘Google Eye’ – a mere 2″13:
I googled and discovered that you are Big Pete’s biographer.
https://ukjazznews.com/colin-harper-northumbrian-blues-the-lost-world-of-big-pete-deuchar/
The reviewer was impressed….Harper’s research is so formidable as to leave one gasping at times.
Hats off to you @Colin-H
Thank you, Fatz.
If I may point toward this –
It Won’t Be Long and it wasn’t, nor will it be long before the thread crashes
Femme Fatale
Thirteen – Big Star
See My Friends – Kinks
2 mins each approx.
Good point, @allium-sativum.
To prevent a crash, I’m now going to start a SHORT SONGS VOLUME 2 and keep my fingers crossed that you all have a few more superlative shorties to share.
Very short and sweet.
Quite a collection of short (less than two minutes) Tom Lehrer songs:
Too many to post all the clips for.
The Hunting Song – 1m18s
The Old Dope Peddler – 1m26s
I Hold Your Hand In Mine – 1m27s
Silent E – 1m31s
That’s Mathematics – 1m31s
Be Prepared – 1m32s
Oedipus Rex – 1m39s
A Christmas Carol – 1m42s
Wernher Von Braun – 1m46s
Send The Marines – 1m46s
She’s My Girl – 1m48s
When You Are Old And Gray – 1m52s
I Wanna Go Back To Dixie – 1m53s
The Weiner Schnitzel Waltz – 1m55s
Who’s Next? – 1m59s
What a fabulous list @mike-h. The short songs playlist will be a doozy.
It’s a real joy to start revising these some of these songwriters from back in the day.
The Lemonheads – Bit Part (1.49)
Ramones – 1:31
Oooh, looks like we’re back on this thread again.
(…I’m not…)
A hamper in hand is worth two threads out in the bush.
Sam Brown comes in at 39 seconds.