Thursday, 6 October 2011
Insanely long songs
Is there a small group on songs on you iPod you have frankly never listened to, purely due to the fact that they are over "normal song length" (in my mind over 6 minutes)? Songs by artists like Led Zeppelin that seem to mostly be taken up by beautiful yet lengthly guitar and drum solos, and Vaccines and Yuck who seem to feel the need to include a 7 minute long song with few lyrics and seemingly no tune at the end of their albums, are common examples of songs with the main purpose seemingly being for the guitarist to demonstrate their supreme skill. However there are some ridiculously long songs that are special in the way they can well over 7 minutes be listened to all the way through, mainly because they have lyrics that compell you, the same way a good book does, to keep listening. Stairway to Heaven is an example of beautiful and engaging poetry within a song, but frankly the best person at this is Bob Dylan. Desolation Row is over 10 minutes long, and doesn't follow any particularly catchy riff or contain any real bridges or solos. It just contains poetry that could easily be read from paper, poetry that is, in a nutshell, fascinating. There is no other way to describe it. Dylan's unique voice combined with a relatively happy guitar part weaves a surreal and twisted image of society and life in 1960s America, using figures from history, fiction, and some made up all together. I could type an essay on this song, and every other lengthly Bob Dylan composition (Hurricane is just a great story, it's worth every minute), so just listen to it. All of it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment