Alice Beats The Butterfly
As the subject has morphed from ridiculously obvious to redundant to repetitious to interminably long songs, let me just state for the record:
In their originally released versions, Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" (18+ minutes) was longer than Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (17+ minutes), man.
(I'm trying to revitalize the unnecessarily excessive use of the word "man", man.)
In their originally released versions, Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" (18+ minutes) was longer than Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (17+ minutes), man.
(I'm trying to revitalize the unnecessarily excessive use of the word "man", man.)
posted by haahnster at 3:42 PM
9 Comments:
Man ... that's groovy, man. And, man, I was, like, alive and all when those records came out, man.
What 'bout "Nights in White Satin"? That seemed to go on forever!
Beth: Thanks for supporting my new cause, man.
Mat: Now, we've opened up the "over-indulgent live versions" can of worms. Many were guilty of this phenomenon in the '70s. But, you've nailed the worst offenders straight away: Led Zeppelin. Every song was filled with drum solos or playing a guitar with a violin bow!
Glassmeow: The worst part about that song (and it sucked in general) was the 'poetry' reading at the end. Horrible drivel. I even remember something like "senior citizens wish they were young." U-G-L-Y!!!
Yes, but you weren't doing the drugs we were! Oops did I say that!
Inna Godda Davida Baby, don't you know that I love you!!!!
I kinda miss those movements.
I like "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (originally meant to be "In The Garden Of Eden", but the singer was too wasted to enunciate, or so the legend goes).
But, they could've trimmed about 5 minutes off the drum solo. Most of it was just a flooding bass drum anyway.
Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum
Bumbum-ba-bum
Bumbum-ba-bum
Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum
Bumbum-ba-bum
Biddy-biddy-bum-bum
Bum--bum
Biddy-biddy-bum-bum
Bum--bum
Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum
I have a fave singer (of whom very few in the US have heard) called Fish. No, not Phish. They were multiple people. "Fish" is just the stage name of this guy who used to front a UK band from the 80s called Marillion. Marillion were defined as "progressive rock" and got HUGE airplay in the UK and Europe. So much so that they played LiveAid and sold out Wembley Arena on their own. Even toured with Queen. Anyway, my rambling aside, they had an early song, "Grendel" which clocks in at 19 minutes. Depending on the live versions, it can be a mite longer or shorter. If you're interested, I can find you a link to listen to it. It's wild. God knows what drugs Fish was on when he wrote it. Needless to say, it doesn't make his playlists these days.
Link....yes! Gimme gimme gimme.
I'd be interested to hear it, certainly.
Thanks!
OK, if we're going down that road then we must consider my favorite long song. Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick". It was one song that took up the entire album.
When I was 13, I snuck out of my window, hitchhiked 120 miles to see Tull and then, luckily, ran into some guys I knew and caught a ride home. In bed by 3am and the parents none the wiser. They played the entire song in concert. It was great.
I also caught the Stones in '76 when they played a great version of Gimme Shelter for 30 minutes.
So the long songs can be good as long as the mental facilities are "relaxed".
Okay, here's the link:
http://www.marillion.com/music/albums/bsides.htm
Click on "Grendel" to hear a Real Player clip. If you want to search around Fish's site for more contemporary music, you can hear stuff from his latest release here:
http://www.the-company.com/dafoccd.htm
Check out "Moving Targets" and "Numbers" as two excellent songs.
If you are even more interested, I'll be glad to make you a CD. I love converting people. :) Send me an email, and let me know what you think!
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