“It does not require many words to speak the truth.”
- Chief Joseph/Nez Perce
I read or heard somewhere recently, that the perfect length for a song is three minutes and thirty seconds. The reason being, that's long enough to say something and imprint the song, but not long enough that the listener gets bored. I guess that seems reasonable. I know that the average length of popular songs has varied over the years. In the 90s the average was 4:14. Now, with the rise of streaming platforms, shorter songs are preferred, with many top tunes coming in well under three 3:00. Why? Artists on streaming services get credit for a hit on a song after thirty seconds. The thinking goes, getting to the hook of a song as soon as possible could prevent it from getting skipped over. Culturally, it's part and parcel of our ever-shortening attention span.
A good song is a good song, long or short, I don't care, but, when I think of short songs, The Ramones come immediately to mind. Most of their stuff is two-minutes or less. Just blastin' through. It got me to wondering about short songs, though, two minutes, say. What are some good ones? Do you have any you feel should be celebrated?
I have a few below that are tasty. You'll recognize most of the artists, I think: Dylan, Journey, Soul Asylum, The Box Tops, the Beatles. Pinegrove might be an outlier. I love those kids. I can't believe they've been around 15 years now. Also, The Raconteurs with Jack White are here too.