Stretching out the tune ... What are your favourite long songs?
Photograph: Russell McPhedran
Thanks for your enthusiastic responses to my call for short songs. An astonishing range of suggestions, including many that I'd never heard before. Thanks especially to Fortean, who introduced me to Melt Banana and brilliantly described the 10-second track Screw, Loose as "like being hit in the face with a fluorescent pink spade". Which it is.
One thing. If you choose to download Goon Gumpas, you'll notice it's listed as 2:02 by iTunes. I was working from the version I own, which is 1:58. Official track lengths vary. For that reason, while compiling the playlist, I didn't disregard any song that missed the two-minute mark by less than three seconds. Just so as you know.
No apologies for the predictability of this week's topic. If short songs proved so rewarding, then what about long songs? In the paper I've set 10 minutes as the lower limit but on reflection I think nine is more reasonable. A lot of good songs fall within those 60 seconds. So that's NINE minutes. The idea is to find tracks that exploit that space to the fullest rather than those that outstay their welcome. A good week for dance music, krautrock, afrobeat, funk, prog-rock and jazz. Not so great for punk. Remixes and live versions qualify.
Looking over past playlists, I notice we've already had the following candidates: By The Time I Get To Phoenix (Isaac Hayes), My Favourite Things (John Coltrane), Zombie (Fela Kuti), Dance to the Medley (Sly & the Family Stone) and Papa Was a Rollin' Stone (The Temptations). I look forward to seeing what you come up with. If your collection doesn't feature many long songs, don't worry - next week's theme will be easier.
Deadline for recommendations is Monday 1pm. The archive of previous columns is accessible here, and you can also see an A-Z of every single song that has appeared in the weekly playlists.
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