How long is a "long" song?
 

Okay, this a silly, useless topic, but I'm curious about how other people view song lengths.

I'm sure it depends on what type of music you listen to. With alot of the music I've listened to throughout my life (from art-rock to metal to ambient/electronic), twenty minute songs are not at all unusual. I've even got a few CDs consisting of single 60-minute tracks. If all you listen to is Top 40, then maybe you consider anything over four minutes to be lengthy.

Anyway, my answer is eight minutes. I don't even begin to think of a song as long unless it's over 8:00. (Anything under 4:30 or so seems short to me, while the 4:30 to 8:00 range feels "average".)

Over 7.

For me, anything that is over 6 minutes gets into pretty long.

The majority of bands do not understand enough about musical composition to build a strong enough structure for a song longer than 4-5 minutes. It's pretty pathetic, but it is true that there are very few technically proficient bands.

That said, I've been a fan of Dream Theater and Yes (which often make 20 minute songs or longer). Also, I enjoy listening to Godspeed! and Devil Doll who both write songs that can be 60-70 minutes.

It seems to me that the longer a band has been around, the longer their songs get. Also, the worse. It's almost as if they forget what their music is all about to begin with.

An overly long song is anything by Limp Bisquick.

Any over 5:59.

First off, I love the beatles, but . . .
 

The Long and Winding Road is what I consider a long song. It has little to do with length, but quality. CCR does a long version of I Heard it Through the Grapevine that does not seem nearly so long as this shorter Beatles song or that much longer than the real version of this song.

Any GnR song that was over five minutes was too long, and every Collective Soul song on the radio, if indeed they are different songes, is too long.

I'd say over 5:30 minutes makes me think "hey, that's a long song".

Depends on what kind of music you're talking about.

If I'm listening to punk, 3:30 is a long song.

If I'm listening to pop music, 5:00 or more is a long song.

If I'm listening to jazz or jamband music, 15:00 or more is a long song.

totally depends on the music.
most of the stuff i listen to times in at about 10:00+.....
so anything over that is pretty long.

...and then there are things like dream theater that clock in at 42 minutes, and it seems short.

:)

Anything over 8 or 9 minutes

Tusk by Fleetwood Mack

Ha! You call that long? For me long is 20 minutes+ (such as 2112 by Rush and Echoes by Pink Floyd. The original not the shortened version that appears on the new Greatest Hits disc)

Depends on what era the band in question started off in: for instance, there are many bands that started off in the late 60s/early 70s that wrote material reaching 10-20 minutes or more in length (Led Zep, Floyd, Rush, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, etc). Such material is not for those with attention span issues :p Judging a song by it's length is pure silliness - the content is what matters. God help us if the only material deemed worth listening to be limited to 3-4 minutes

to me a song gets long not by length, but by being overly repetitive. Yet I love techno......... Strange dichotomy,,,,,,,,

Generally, anything 6 minutes or longer for me. Of course, I'm talking about pop/rock stuff. Jazz could be longer, sure.

On the other hand, there are "long" songs (by the definition above) that I don't think are long at all, just because they're so great. It's like movies -- bad 90-minute movies can seem twice as long as 3-hour masterpieces instead of the other way around.

So, on average, you like lots of songs that reach the 15:00 mark?? That's pretty strange, sir! ;)

Yeah, there's something about electronic music that's just more mesmerizing and hypnotic to me. Once it gets a good groove or synthline going, it can explore a theme for 10 minutes and I won't get bored. But with more traditional rock music, if a guitar riff went on for that amount of time I'd be like "what the hell is this?"

I'd say 8 minutes

I also think anything under 4 minutes is way to short

Toad,
I wouldn't say that most songs I like average 15 minutes, but I really don't think a song that 6-8 minutes is very long. Since Rush is my favorite band, and they have alot of songs in the 8 minutes or more category, I don't think a song is that long until is hits about 20 minutes. It's definately an aquired taste but it's really cool to be 20 minutes into a cd and only finishing up the first song :)

I agree with the 8 minute folks. Bohemian Rhapsody, Stairway to Heaven, and American Pie are all 8 minutes and some odd seconds I believe.

Now, what is a REALLY long song? Try Peter Frampton's Do You Feel Like I Do? My word, I can change the station and completely forget about it being on, listen to a couple tunes on another station, and then turn it back to here Peter still going strong.

I am excluding classical music, as it can often last upwards of an hour for a single track.

It completely depends on the type of music - One of my favorite songs is Atom Heart Mother, by Pink Floyd it is 23 minutes long I think. If its big important music then the length doesn't matter

then there is John Cage's 4:33. THats a "short" song that is very long. I prefer long songs to short ones typically because the longer ones typically have more meaning

To me, anything over 15:00 is long. For example:

The End (live in New York) - The Doors
Blues at Sunrise - Albert King
Most blues songs

:lol: The second concert I ever took my girlfriend to was this one:

Phish - 11/28/97
1: The Wedge, Foam, Simple, TMWSIY-> Avenu Malkenu-> TMWSIY, The Sloth, Ginseng Sullivan, I Saw It Again, Horn, Water in the Sky, David Bowie

2: Runaway Jim*-> Strange Design-> Harry Hood#, Prince Caspian, Suzy Greenberg

E: Buffalo Bill**-> Moby Dick^-> Fire

I know most people don't recognize the songs but the first song of the second set (Runaway Jim) lasted somewhere around an hour. By the end of the show I kind of figured I would never be able to drag her to a Phish show again (the night before had been her first Phish concert) but luckily it had the opposite affect.

Anything much past 5 minutes is long for me.... not too long by any means, but longer than what I usually listen to.

Most songs I listen to are about 3 - 3 1/2 minutes. Guess I have a short attention span :)