The Long Song (Consecutive Longest UK Number Ones And More)

[Updated June 2021]

'The long song' used to be a feature on Simon Mayo's Radio 2 show where he played the tracks that don't get a lot of airplay, at least not in their entirety. Well, I was curious as to what were the longest tracks by my favourite recording artists. It's the kind of thing you occupy your mind with during a coronavirus lockdown and it also combines two of my favourite interests, music and statistics, so what's not to like? Now, all lengths are taken from the particular versions of the CDs / downloads that I have, so no bickering please. Let's start, as any music-based discussion should, with the Beatles.

1) Helter Skelter (White Album Super Deluxe)* 12.54
2) Revolution 1 (White Album Super Deluxe)* 10.29
3) Revolution 9 8.22
4) I Want You (She's So Heavy) 7.47
5) Hey Jude 7.08
6) It's All Too Much 6.28
7) What's The New Mary Jane (Anthology version)* 6.12
8) You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) (Anthology version)* 5.43
9) A Day In The Life 5.34
10) Within You Without You 5.05
11) While My Guitar Gently Weeps 4.45
12) I Am The Walrus 4.37
13) Helter Skelter 4.30
14) Free As A Bird* 4.26
15) Come Together 4.21

The asterisks indicate tracks/versions released after the Beatles career had ended, and apart from the first two I haven't included other White Album 'outtake' tracks, a number of which would feature in the lower half of the list. There are a number of curiosities still in the vault too, such as Carnival Of Light, a sound collage pre-dating Revolution 9, which is said to run in excess of 14 minutes. There is also the legendary 28-minute version of Helter Skelter. When asked why only 12 minutes were released the response was that the track becomes rather boring after a while, which is fair enough I guess. Whilst the Beatles weren't particularly renowned for 'longuns,' Hey Jude held the record for the longest British UK number one single from 1968 until 1997, but more about that later. Also worth seeking out online is the unreleased long version of Flying, which runs in excess of 9 minutes and sees the Beatles dabbling in the genre which later became known as ambient music. OK, onto Pink Floyd.

1) Atom Heart Mother 23.44
2) Echoes 23.35
3) Soundscape (Pulse secret track) 21.49
4) Dogs 17.04
5) Interstellar Overdrive (London 1966/1967) 16.43
6) Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-4) 13.31
7) Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast 13.00
8) Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 5-9) 12.23
9) A Saucerful Of Secrets 12.00
10) Nick's Boogie (London 1966/1967) 11.50
11) Pigs (Thee Different Ones) 11.22
12) Sheep 11.24
13) Interstellar Overdrive 9.41
14) Sorrow 8.47
15) High Hopes 8.22

I haven't included tracks from live albums, which means the four 'longuns' from the live disc of Ummagumma are excluded for example. The 'soundscape' is a bit of a shoo-in to be honest, and interestingly the band chose to break up a few of their epics like Sysyphus and The Narrow Way into different parts. Now, Bob Dylan is a particularly interesting example as I seem to recall him once being asked 'Why are your songs so long?' and replying something along the lines of 'I can't believe you have the nerve to ask me that!'

1) Murder Most Foul 16.54
2) Highlands 16.32
3) Tempest 13.55
4) Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands 11.22
5) Desolation Row 11.21
6) Joey 11.05
7) Brownsville Girl 11.03

8) Key West Philosopher 9.34
9) Tin Angel 9.05
10) Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts 8.54
11) Ain't Talkin 8.48
12) Hurricane 8.32
13) Ballad In Plain D 8.17
14) Idiot Wind 7.50
15) Standing In The Doorway 7.43
= Spirit On The Water 7.43

Again live tracks have been omitted and I did look up the lengths of numbers 4 and 5 on Wikipedia as they are so close. Next, I thought it would be interesting to look at consecutive longest number ones in the UK since the charts began in 1952. Again, the times are from the versions I have.

1) Here In My Heart (Al Martino) 3.14 (1952)
2) You Belong To Me (Jo Stafford) 3.15 (1953)
3) Secret Love (Doris Day) 3.44 (1954)
4) Mary's Boychild (Harry Belafonte) 4.25 (1957)
5) House Of The Rising Sun (The Animals) 4.32 (1964)
6) Those Were The Days (Mary Hopkin) 5.10 (1968)
7) Hey Jude (The Beatles) 7.11 (1968)
8) D'You Know What I Mean (Oasis) 7.22 (1997)
9) All Around The World (Oasis) 9.38 (1998)

For the last three I've googled the official single lengths as people can get awfully worked up about these things! Surprisingly Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, often regarded as the number one hit that broke the mould when it came to length, was five seconds short of 6 minutes, so it was still a good way off of breaking the Beatles' length-record at the time of its release in 1975. Winnifred Atwell's 'Let's Have Another Party' was number one in 1955 and ran to 5.54 but this was across both sides of the vinyl single so I view it more as a double A-side.

Not only is it interesting that the last two on the list were both by Oasis, but also that the preceding two were both written by Paul McCartney. 'All Around The World' also seems to be heavily influenced by 'Hey Jude' with its 'na na na' refrain. I doubt that anybody is going to break the record now, and to be honest I can't take more than a couple of minutes of most modern songs anyway, but that's just personal taste. 

And just for info, the longest record to stall at number two in the UK was Laurie Anderson's 'Oh Superman' in 1981 which gobbled up 8 minutes and 21 seconds. She was number one to Lou Reed however as she later became his wife. Lou himself had pushed the boundaries back in 1968 by putting the cacophonous 17-minute track, 'Sister Ray,' on the Velvet Underground's second album.

Don McClean's 'American Pie,' which is often regarded as the longest 'number two hit' runs to 8.33 but like Winnifred Atwell's disc, the track was split across the two sides of the vinyl '45.'

Another track often cited as an epic is Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven.' However, it was never released as a UK single and it is actually ninth in the Led Zep length rankings which are topped by 'In My Time Of Dying.' Meanwhile, the longest track I have in my collection is Mike Oldfield's 'Amarok' which runs for an entire hour and fills an entire album. As far as I am aware, Richard Branson wanted him to produce a commercial sequel to Tubular Bells so Mr Oldfield presented Virgin with this beguiling track instead. Quite frankly, given Mr Branson's brass neck of late, my sympathies lie firmly with Mike. After that we get a few half-hour tracks by the king of improvisation, Miles Davis, and then we're into the realm of Pink Floyd, etc. Another couple of eighteen-minuters I like are Cat Stevens' 'Foreigner Suite' and Arlo Guthrie's 'Alice's Restaurant' which is more of a story than a song!

Oh, and finally, if you insist, here are the longest tracks by Adam Colton & Teresa Colton. Let's face it, this is what you came here for after all!

1) Silicon Symphony (Parts 1-3) 11.36

2) Silicon Symphony (Parts 4-6) 11.24

3) The Lighthouse Trail 6.58
4) Arizona Sunrise 6.55
5) The Travelling Kind 5.34
6) Spanish Nights 5.26
7) Push Button One 5.22
8) The Other Side Of Town 5.18
9) Rainbow Moon 5.11
10) Train To Nowhere 5.04

Ok, we are a mother and son act from Kent. Look us up on your favourite online music channel if curious or find us on Amazon. We also did a cover of Billy Joel's 'Piano Man' which surprised us by running to 6.43. The Silicon Symphony is actually a story in six parts - an abridged form of my novel The Nightshade Project. The album, 'Silicon Country,' which contains both of these tracks will be out early in 2021.

It's taken a good hour to write this so that's another lockdown afternoon successfully filled. And I didn't even get round to Hotel California or Telegraph Road.

STOP PRESS: The musical musings and humour continue in '2021: A Musical Odyssey' - now available in digital and paperback formats.

Desert Island Discs - Singles [Adam's Music Reviews #3]

I recently learned that we refer to a collection of songs as an album because when music was only really available on 78 rpm vinyl records you could only get a few minutes of music on each side of the disc, so when it came to issuing Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite a series of records was required and these were stored in sleeves which could be turned like the pages of a photograph album. The term had been used before, but ultimately this is probably why it caught on.

Well, I've done a couple of blogs on my top ten favourite albums before, but listeners to BBC Radio 4 will of course know that guests on Desert Island Discs are asked to choose individual songs rather than albums, which in many ways is a tougher challenge. On a camping trip with two friends of mine we decided to each treat the others to our personal top five songs courtesy of an iPod docking station which is now as essential as food and beer on such trips. It is probably not so surprising that the top two of my similar aged friend were identical to mine. It was either reaffirmation or proof of a lack of imagination for both of us. Either way, I make no apologies for the rock leanings of my choices. Whilst I appreciate many kinds of music, I guess certain criteria like a rhapsodic nature and a searing guitar solo will generally nail it for me.

10) Kings of Leon – Slow Night So Long (2004) This was the first Kings of Leon song I ever heard, a little behind the times in 2007, while sitting on a railway station with a personal CD player. Having pretty much given up on modern music I wasn't expecting much, but by the time I got to the full on 'whatever it is' at the end of the first verse with its stubbornly unusual drum rhythm I knew this band were something different. The track contains a hidden tune at the end which shows the Kings in a much more laid back frame of mind. All these years later the band are a regular soundtrack to the aforementioned camping trips and I can even understand Caleb Followill's vocals.

9) Oasis – Masterplan (1995) Originally just a B side to the Wonderwall single, I would declare this to be a far superior song that gets only a fraction of the airplay. Noel Gallagher handles the vocal of this ballad which begins in a minor key expressing confusion and alternates with a major key chorus stating 'All we know is that we don't know.' The backwards guitar solo is no doubt a nod to their Liverpudlian heroes, as is the reference to Ringo Starr's 'Octopus's Garden' recited in a slightly silly voice at the end.

8) Dire Straits – Private Investigations (1982) I first heard this brooding classic on the Radio 1 top 40 chart run-down when I was seven years old. Mark Knopfler's lyrics and vocal delivery are slightly menacing sounding with some succulent Spanish style guitar runs. Once the words 'private investigations' are uttered half way through, the mysterious ambience is unleashed for several more tense minutes.

7) The Beatles – While my Guitar Gently Weeps (1968) George Harrison's finest song in my opinion, although I cannot claim to having heard all of his solo work. This White Album track includes Eric Clapton as a guest for the weeping guitar solo to augment George's lyrics expressing the frustration that any thinking person will have about humanity's behaviour. This seems to be a message that is more urgent than ever today, yet I have a sneaking suspicion that George was channelling his frustration about his bandmates at this time as much as anything.

6) Queen – The Show Must Go On (1991) It is surprising that the lyrics were as much Brian May's creation as Freddie Mercury's at a time when he was literally staring death in the face. Here Freddie gives the 'life is all a show' theme all he can muster, perhaps knowing that it is virtually his final chance, while Brian May whips off one of his most evocative solos. It doesn't get much more dramatic.

5) Lynyrd Skynyrd – Free Bird (1973) The guitar hero's favourite. This nine-minute track begins as a ballad with some gentle slide guitar with lyrics about a wish to keep moving on. Upon reaching the conclusion of being unable to change, the duelling guitar solos illustrate the metaphor of the bird breaking free. The whole band then go full tilt for almost six minutes of frenetic soloing. Each time you think it can't get any more intense the string-bends move up the fretboard a little further.

4) The Beatles – A Day in the Life (1967) I remember listening to this as a teenager on a Walkman in my grandparents' bedroom and thinking 'This is scary sounding. I'm never taking drugs!' This, the closing track to Sgt Pepper sees John Lennon pitying those whose lives he views as dull and unenlightened before an orchestral riot leads to McCartney's jaunty bridge, a little like the hurricane taking Dorothy to the Land of Oz. Lennon's lugubriousness has the final say before the orchestral chaos leads to one of the longest notes in rock music, hammered out on five pianos simultaneously if I remember rightly. Even the Beatles couldn't really top this for ingenuity.

3) Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody (1975) A superbly crafted classic that never grows stale. The first time I heard this was on the bus going to school. I thought 'What a depressing song!' How things change. Bo Rhap opens with feelings of regret gradually building into a whirlpool of despair with Brian May's solo leading into the operatic middle section which perhaps represents madness taking over or even fear of hell. Then the rocking finale breaks out as if to say that the music is even bigger than all of that. Yet, Freddie Mercury's melancholic vocal has the final word, before the gong at the end seals his character's fate.

2) Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb (1979) A rare writing collaboration between David Gilmour and Roger Waters. The verse and chorus are a vocal duel between Waters trying to coax the central character out of his apathy and Gilmour declaring that all is fine in his fantasy world. The first guitar solo sets the tone before Dave Gilmour lets rip properly for the dramatic conclusion. Nick Mason's cymbals hammer out the devastation just for good measure at the end. The track fades just a bit too early in my opinion, but maybe it's best to leave us wanting more.

1) Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven (1971) So good that I even walked down the aisle to the opening strains of this song. This begins in a quiet folky style and gradually picks up the pace and volume. John Bonham picks up his drumsticks about half way through and eventually Jimmy Page's guitar solo takes it into another dimension. Then, just when you think there's no way they are going to top that, Robert Plant gives it the full power vocal treatment as a crescendo. The lyrics are ambiguous enough that you can make it about anything you want. For me it seems to be about making choices in life, so it seemed perfectly fitting as a wedding song.

And here are a few tracks that nearly made the top ten:

The Animals - House of the Rising Sun (1964) An impassioned lament for a wasted life. A much older song recorded by Woody Guthrie among others, which appeared with this tune on Bob Dylan's debut album before the Animals took it to number one.

Procol Harum – A Whiter Shade of Pale (1967) A gibberish classic (which the Beatles might have even topped with I Am The Walrus), and the instrumental B side, Repent Walpurgis, is just as good.

Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street (1978) Irascibly, I include this one for the impassioned guitar solo which grabs you every time, rather than the much loved saxophone part.

Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter (1969) This moody sounding track opens the Let it Bleed album and only narrowly pips You Can't Always Get What You Want for me, which is the track that closes it.

The Kinks - Waterloo Sunset (1967) Ray Davies' wistful song is evocative of gazing out over the Thames. This was one of the first songs I took proper notice of when aged about five, playing taped 'hand me down' records with a friend who lived across the road from me.

If you want a second Pink Floyd choice I'd go for The Great Gig in the Sky. If you want a second Led Zeppelin choice I'd go for Since I've Been Loving You. For Oasis try Champagne Supernova. For Kings of Leon maybe Arizona. For the Beatles just buy all their albums and listen to the whole lot! The photograph is of course where it all began in Liverpool's legendary Cavern Club.

And finally, just for sheer musicality a couple of proggy ones: Try Mockingbird by Barclay James Harvest for two of the most surprising orchestral chords in a rock song (after a superb build up) and then try 'Starless' from King Crimson's 'Red' album. If you don't appreciate this one during the middle building up section then we're definitely singing from different hymn sheets!

STOP PRESS: The musical musings and humour continue in '2021: A Musical Odyssey' - now available in digital and paperback formats.

Desert Island Albums - 2018 [Adam's Music Reviews #2]

A few years ago I wrote a kind of 'Desert Island Discs' for this blog, listing ten of my all time favourite albums. As I was recently nominated on Facebook to do exactly this, I thought I'd post an updated list. I say updated; as you'll see the centre of gravity seems to be about 1971! The first three albums and descriptions are the same as in my 2013 list, being perennial favourites, whilst those further down the list are works that I've come to appreciate more since I last blogged about this. In keeping with the BBC Radio 4 'Desert Island Discs' tradition, I have made sure one classical album is included, replacing Beethoven's 3rd Symphony (from last time) with a bit of Gershwin. The musical musings and humour continue in '2021: A Musical Odyssey' - now available in digital and paperback formats.

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). 'Money' is about the only song on this album which receives regular airplay (usually edited because of the rude word), but the album spent 6 consecutive years on the UK album chart. All human life is explained in the lyrics. 'Time' is particularly apt. If I had to pick a second PF album it would be a tough choice between 'The Wall' and the totally bonkers 'Ummagumma'.
[High point for me: the segue from Time into Breathe (Reprise)]

The Beatles – White Album (1968). The sequel to Magical Mystery Tour (which in turn followed Sgt Pepper). On this album, the Beatles did whatever they felt like with no constraints towards commercialism. Styles vary from folk to Charleston to country and western to heavy metal, and 'Revolution 9' simulates the effect of waking up during a series of bizarre dreams, before Ringo lulls us back to sleep with 'Good Night'.
[High point for me: the segue from '...Bungalow Bill' into 'While my Guitar Gently Weeps' (George's finest)]

Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home (1965). Lyrically I think this is Dylan's masterpiece. You've got 'Mr Tambourine Man' and 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', but for me the highlight is the verbal deluge of 'It's alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding'. This album is half folk and half rock – both sides of Mr Zimmerman's oeuvre. For a second Dylan choice, 1996's 'Time Out of Mind' comes close, but so do about ten others!

Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers (1971). The Stones emerged from their brief dabble with psychedelia with what I regard to be their three finest albums; Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed and this one. Opening with Brown Sugar, which amazingly still gets radio airplay in these more politically correct times, the classics keep on coming. Wild Horses heralded further 70s ballads, but it is the extended jam of 'Can You Hear Me Knocking?' which really highlights the band's musicality. The final four tracks show that even at their most decadent, the Stones could be amazingly mellow. The album's conclusion, 'Moonlight Mile,' is a little-known classic that deserves regular airplay. Great for sitting round a campfire!

Led Zeppelin III – (1970). Whilst 'IV' had the all-time classic (Stairway to Heaven) and the world's most sampled drumbeat (When the Levee Breaks), 'III' is an album of two halves. The first half opens with the archetypal Zeppelin of Immigrant Song and includes the 7-minute blues epic 'Since I've been Loving You' as well as 'Out on the Tiles' (similar to 'Good Times, Bad Times' from the first album), but it is the relaxed folky second half that surprises, particularly Tangerine and That's The Way. Great for sitting round a camp-... oh I've done that one!

David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). In younger days, I was a bigger fan of this album's predecessor, Hunky Dory, for it's eclecticism and Rick Wakeman's piano playing. However, for pure escapism, 'Ziggy' is a masterpiece. The first three tracks run together like a trilogy, as do the final three. The filling is equally good. Bowie starts out theatrically with Five Years and Mick Ronson's soaring guitar solos excel throughout. It's a bold statement, but this album provides a rare glimpse of something beyond the mundane.

Travis – Good Feeling (1997). I saw Travis perform as a warm-up band before they were famous and dismissed them as 'Oasis wannabes.' I was wrong. 'The Man Who...' gets all the plaudits, but this was the group's raw debut. Like so many on this list, it's an album of two halves. 'All I Want to do is Rock' is a simple, yet rousing opener and 'Tied to the Nineties' sums up how we may have felt at the time about what now seems to have been a 'classic' decade. The love songs come thick and fast at the end. Travis have never seemed so impassioned since, although once they unplugged the guitars and found a formula, they would achieve stardom.

The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies (1971). The Kinks' 'Arthur' album of 1969 has never been far from my CD player, but just a couple of years later came this little-known classic. The songs are something of a catalogue of disorders, dealing with alcoholism, anorexia and anxiety (and that's just the 'A's), but the subjects are always dealt with humorously, and Ray Davies even recommends a good old fashioned cure for all – 'have a cup of tea!' A folky feel pervades and sadly the pub that appears on the album cover is now in a state of disrepair. The opening track sums it up; it starts quietly, when the drums kick in they never sounded better and then it builds to Ray's deranged shout of 'I'm a 20th century man but I don't wanna be here.' Brilliant!

Photo: Myself outside the Archway Tavern which features on the album cover.

John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band (1970). Before we got the 'John as a saint' persona (which he never courted), we had this – a raging diatribe against all society's norms. This would have been something as a shock for those who remember the Beatles as lovable clowns from their early years. Working Class Hero is a classic, although I would advise a '12' certificate if you have kids. 'Look at Me' is a very nice introspective acoustic track, and in case anybody was hoping for a continuation of the Beatles career, John laments 'The dream is over' on the penultimate track. After some activism, John would settle into family life before his tragic demise, and comparing the relaxed feel of his final songs with this album is like comparing chalk and cheese.

George Gershwin – Piano Concerto in F / Rhapsody in Blue / An American in Paris (1924-1928). The version I have features Daniel Blumenthal on piano and may have even been the first classical album I appreciated. 'Piano concerto in F' always returns fatalistically to the same dramatic orchestral chord, with variations that include the bluesy second movement and a high-speed summary of all that went before (the third movement). An American in Paris includes the orchestrated sound of car horns before mellowing into its more famous romantic theme, and Rhapsody in Blue has an opening that is perhaps second only to 'Beethoven's fifth' when it comes to fame, but entertains with around twenty minutes of piano dominated themes.