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.

Thoughts (and Humour) on the Lockdown

I type this particular blog post while thinking of Jane Austen writing while holed up in her garret room! Who else misses the good old days when a lock in just meant a late night at the pub? This cornoavirus curfew is certainly the biggest disruption to everyday life that I've ever experienced, but I guess those who have been through the Second World War have experienced much worse. Now we know that working from home is actually an option for large numbers of people I wonder if it will begin to become the norm generally. Less travelling (particularly flying) is what the planet desperately needs, and just as coronavirus fears seemed like a storm in a teacup in January but very real now, climate change fears that seem over-dramatic now could be lifestyle changing for everyone's children and grandchildren. And nobody is even talking about what the world will be like a few generations later.

Anyway, the time off work has given me a chance for a bit of creativity and I recently released a book called 'Codename: Narcissus' on Amazon which can also be downloaded on iBooks, etc. I've had a go at writing a novel this time and the premise of the book is that different people view life in different ways. The central character cannot understand why his selfish outlook is considered undesirable, believing life to be a Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' situation. How many times have we heard that excuse for selfishness - remember the bankers? As you might expect there's a bit of surrealism in there but hopefully you'll find the story entertaining.

Apart from writing I've been keeping myself occupied with music. If you'll excuse a little bit of cheeky humour I've thought up a 'lockdown top ten.'

Ghost town – The Specials
Living on my own – Freddie Mercury
Isolation – John Lennon
It's the end of the world as we know it – R.E.M.
I want to break free – Queen
Strange days – The Doors
Climbing up the walls – Radiohead
Doom and gloom – Rolling Stones
Where have all the good times gone – The Kinks
My Corona – The Knack (sorry, bad pun!)

These are strictly 'tongue in cheek' and of course as we all know that we just have to stay in to save lives, but humour is how we get through things, isn't it? If you fancy trying out some 'easy listening,' there are now three albums worth of acoustic songs penned by myself and my mother on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, etc. You can check them out for free by searching for 'Adam Colton and Teresa Colton.' I don't normally plug external sites but I highly recommend the Distrokid site to any unsigned musicians wanting to get their music out there.

I must admit, I still like to buy good old fashioned CDs and upload them to my iPod. I'm probably being a bit of a Luddite, but I do prefer to have something physical to show for my money. On the one one hand this could be viewed as wasting resources, but buying second hand is just using an item that has already been made, and I wonder what the comparative electricity usage is for playing an album from a CD or iPod with streaming it each time. Well, we've lots of time to ponder such ethical questions now!

Even the idea of listening to albums is perhaps a little dated now as many people just stream individual songs. It is interesting how the term 'album' came about by the way. Although the term had been used for sets of classical music before, it was when technology progressed to 78 rpm records that the name really stuck. You could only get about three minutes of music on each side of the disc (hence the standard length for popular songs), so when it came to releasing Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite in 1909, the discs were put in a book of paper sleeves resembling a photograph album, thus the term took off from there.