Who's in the mood for some more of the longest songs you're ever likely to hear? Yeah? Well tough, cos I am! Heh heh! Yes, it's time to venture once again into the world of epics.
And we start off this time with Arena, and their longest (so far as I know) track, coming in at 19 mins 47 seconds, this is “Moviedrome”.
Genesis' longest song is of course “Supper's ready”, but I prefer to go for something a little more recent. This is from their last album with Phil Collins, 1991's “We can't dance”, and with a fairly respectable length of 10:09 it certainly has an epic theme. This is “Driving the last spike.”
Something from Virgin Steele now, from their latest album which is entitled “The black light Bacchanalia” (don't ask me!) it's a track called “To crown them with halos”, and it runs for 11:16.
Bah! I hear you snort! Epics?? These are not epics! Where are the
really long songs you promised us, Trollheart? Eh? Tell us that! Well, if you insist... Let's go right back to 1971, to an album by prog rock legends Van der Graaf Generator, called “Pawn hearts”. This track took up the whole of side two (come on, it
was the seventies, and only the beginning of those!) and it's split into ten parts, which all go to make up “A plague of lighthouse keepers”. And it comes in at 23:04. Long enough for ya?
Look, I really wanted to feature a Supertramp classic here, I did. But they seem to be as scarce on YT as an honest banker, so at some point I will upload and use one, but for now let me take the opportunity to shoehorn in one of my favourite bands no-one knows and give them another plug. This is Ten, with the title track from their album “The Robe”, a good candidate at 9:07.