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There’s enough stuff in Sugarloaf‘s “Green-Eyed Lady” that I should like that song, at least in the way enjoy dumb, early-’70s songs like “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You,” a later Sugarloaf song I had COMPLETELY forgotten about until stumbling across this introductory video. The song straddles some late-’60s jazzy pop arrangements, like a Zombies song, and it has tightly arranged, highly memorable instrumental parts, the kind of parts a musician is likely to try to play during downtime at rehearsals or recording sessions. Even the cheesy parts of the song – and there are many – should bring a smile to my face. However, I don’t like “Green-Eyed Lady” in the slightest. I hate it. I hate it almost as much as I hate the hit songs by Blood, Sweat & Tears. It goes on way too long!
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Saying a 3 minute, 43-second song is too long may have some of you thinking I’m in need of an ADHD screening tool, but that song feels like it’s 12 minutes long, in a bad way. I think it’s the fact that, following the fairly cool (for AM radio) instrumental break, at the 2:30 mark, the song goes nowhere new. Then it fades out around 3:13 with yet another hint at a solo. Couldn’t someone have written a coda coming out of the instrumental section in the middle and then gotten the song the hell over at the 3:00-minute mark?
There are thousands of songs we can’t stand for hundreds of reasons, but I’d like to discuss songs that comes in at under 4 minutes, in styles you normally like, yet you hate because they somehow manage to overstay their welcome. Bonus props for those of you who can pinpoint the moment at which you wish the song would end.
Another song I heard today that gave me the same thought was Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime.” Although the song clocks in at 2:29, I would love it if they found a way to gracefully bow out as the piano solo hits, around 1:35. By 1:45, as the solo wraps up, I’ve had enough. When the singing comes back in I want to burn the master tapes of that song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc9wIzi96_E
Hello Goodbye is not my favorite Beatle song, but it has a perfectly good ending at 2:50. Then they tack on that Hawaiaan bs for 45 seconds for no good reason.
Also Nirvana’s All Apologies last til 3:50, but they run out of song shortly after the 2:00 mark.
Great call on “Hello, Goodbye,” BigSteve. I cannot stand an otherwise perfectly decent Beatles tune because of that teeth-grating outchorus.
I thought I’d be able to come up with a ton of these, but every time I check to see how long the song is, it’s way over four minutes. Like Kashmir, it’s like eight minutes! I don’t think I can sit through a third of it. Or Rocky Mountain Way, it’s over five minutes (no wonder it seems too long). I’m sure if I thought those weren’t possibly any longer than four minutes, A Quick One While He’s Away must be a whole album side.
But then I remembered an Hollies song from their Greatest Hits album – Pay You Back With Interest. That one gets me itching to get up and change the song right after the second verse and refrain. Probably because it seems like they had an idea for the beginning of a song, and they just did it over and over for three minutes until it they all got bored. I don’t know how it got on that greatest hits album, because other than that, I like it pretty much.
That’s a good one, 2K!
This tune is under four minutes, but I always felt that past the intro, it sounded like it was one really long fade-out. Like the intro is the song and all the rocking should have been reserved…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryYVzcLoe6A
Maybe another discussion? Fade-out freakouts?
TB
Yo, she gave me the finger! I’d only heard that song once or twice before. Now I’m bugged that I can’t figure out what late-’60s/early-’70s song it reminds me of, a song that’s also an excuse to drag out a good intro. Damm you, RTH!
Great subject, so great, in fact, that I feel bad at not being able to come up with a list of such songs even though I know many, many times I will be listening to oldies radio or compilations and find myself thinking “wow, is this song never going to end?” after about 90 seconds.
I had never made the connection that the artistes of Green Eyed Lady were the same as those of Don’t Call Us. Funny, sort of.
One the other hand, I think the fade-out portion of Hello, Goodbye is the best part of it, and I am rather a big fan of the Hollies’ Pay You Back with Interest (though I have no idea why it is on the Greatest Hits lp either).
Matthew Sweet has a bunch of these.
It’s jus’ due to time. “Green Eyed Lady” has simply overstayed it’s welcome.