My Top Ten Longest Songs

As today is the longest day of the year, I thought I'd try something different. Rather than my favourite songs on any particular subject, these are simply the longest tracks in my music player. I've discounted any that were lengthy due to a huge block of silence before a "hidden" track at the end of an album. Each of these really are as long as they say they are...


10. The Hours - See The Light

14 minutes, 17 seconds.

Title track from the second (and last?) Hours album, the full LP version clocks in at just under quarter of an hour. A much shorter version was released as a single, remixed by Calvin Harris (i.e. not as good) and featuring Sienna Miller going bonkers in the video.

9. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Babe, I'm On Fire

14 minutes, 46 seconds.

Everyone says it, from the horse and the pig to the judge in his wig, the blind referee and unlucky amputee to the giant killer bee landing on my knee... and so on and so on and so on...

See also the majestic O'Malley's Bar which clocks in at a mighty 14 minutes 28 seconds and remains one of my all-time favourite Nick Cave recordings.

8. Spiritualized - Cop Shoot Cop...

16 minutes, 12 seconds.

From an album that originally came sealed in a huge, CD-shaped blister pack that you had to pop open / tear the foil before you could play the record. The track is listed as being 17 minutes 13 seconds long but it actually ends at 16' 12" before a minute's silence. Which is nice.

7. Joni Mitchell - Paprika Plains

16 minutes, 19 seconds.

Side 2 of the album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Mitchell apparently improvised the piano on the initial recording of this epic before adding orchestral flourishes to the finished mix. It's the sort of record you have to turn the lights down and listen to from start to finish... the sort of record our attention-span deficit way of listening to music these days means we'll rarely see the like of again.

6. George Gershwin - An American In Paris / Rhapsody In Blue

16 minutes, 34 seconds.

I left out the classical music from this countdown (yes, there is some in my collection!) as it would have unfairly dominated. I couldn't exclude Gershwin however, that wonderful bridge between classical and pop. There are various versions of An American In Paris (many full orchestra versions are over 18 minutes) but I stuck with the Gershwin Plays Gershwin version I own, though the one on youtube isn't quite up to mine.

Even better is Rhapsody In Blue at 14 minutes, 24 seconds... sheer bliss!

5. Neil Young - Ordinary People 

18 minutes, 12 seconds.

From the album Chrome Dreams II, which also features the 14 minute, 33 second No Hidden Path, which would have squeezed its way onto this chart had I not restricted myself to one long song per artist.

4. Love - Revelation

19 minutes, 4 seconds.

The whole of Side 2 of Love's second album is this one track. Originally named John Lee Hooker, it's pretty much Arthur Lee and mates jamming in the studio till the tape runs out, though the title suggests it has something in common with our Number One song too.

3. Sonic Youth - The Diamond Sea

19 minutes, 36 seconds.

From the album Washing Machine. A five and a half minute single edit was released also (along with a 26 minute "alternative ending" version that would have put this at Number One, except I don't own that version). A pretty cool song, though the last ten minutes is largely piano and feedback, so all in all I'll stick with the single.

2. Paddy McAloon - I Trawl The Megahertz

22 minutes, 6 seconds.

I'm a huge Prefab Sprout fan, so when I first heard Paddy's solo album, I was slightly disappointed. It's very different from the Sprout, but I guess that's the point. Paddy only actually sings on one song and the title track features a story poem narrated by Yvonne Connors. It's a haunting listen, made all the more poignant when you realise it reflects McAloon's worsening eye condition and the lonely nights he spent with only voices on the radio for company.

1. Genesis - Supper's Ready 

22 minutes, 54 seconds.

Originally from the album Foxtrot, though my copy comes from the 3-disc Platinum Collection. To be honest, I've only listened to this all the way through a couple of times. It's interesting in places, but perhaps a little bit too prog even for me. Gabriel described it as, "a personal journey that ends up walking through [The Book of Revelation]". Amusingly though, it all begins with him walking across his sitting room and turning off the telly...



Of course, it's not the length that matters, it's what you do with it.

What's your longest song?