How I love them long songs...

[poltr1]

allisona had a recent post about a local radio station's "cage match", comparing different songs, and which one was better. Usually, the top two songs in such competition are Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird". Frankly, I think both songs are overrated, and overplayed.

The rock station I used to listen to when I was growing up -- Buffalo's 97 Rock, formerly known as Q-FM-97 -- used to play whole album sides. It was great to hear the latest album by a favorite band, or something new that I haven't heard before. Only a few stations do that now, in this age of hyper-demographics and a strong ratings-driven aversion to risk-taking.

Of course, one of the first casualties of such a sanitized and pared-down playlist are the so-called "long songs". As Billy Joel once sang, "If you're gonna have a hit, ya gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05." What makes a long song? My criteria is that a song is long if it is 6 minutes or longer. About the only exceptions to that rule I hear regularly are "American Pie" by Don McLean, and "Light My Fire" by the Doors. Long songs were staples on the college radio scene -- a DJ can put one on, run out to the bathroom or have a smoke, and come back without anyone knowing they were gone. Many of them are well-orchestrated suites, where one part segues into another.

Here are some of my favorite long songs, which probably receive very little airplay, if any:

"Grendel" by Marillion
"Supper's Ready" by Genesis
"Awaken" by Yes (listen to this one right before or at sunrise)
"Green Grass and High Tides" by the Outlaws (blows "Freebird" away!)
"Song of Scheherazade" by Renaissance
"Singring and the Glass Guitar" by Utopia
"Pirates" by Emerson Lake & Palmer
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterly
"Tarkus" by Emerson Lake & Palmer
"The Gates of Delerium" by Yes
"Close to the Edge" by Yes
"Magnum Opus" by Kansas
"i" by Patrick Moraz
"Journey to the Centre of the Earth" by Rck Wakeman & the London Symphony Orchestra
"Tangram Set 1" by Tangerine Dream
"In The Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson

What are your favorite long songs?