(A Merman I Should Turn to Be)" (from Electric Ladyland), "Bold as Love" (from Axis: Bold As Love), "Hear My Train A'Coming", "Machine Gun", "Country Blues". Jimi Hendrix: "Third Stone from the Sun" ( Are You Experienced), "Voodoo Chile", "1983.4 is over a half-hour long, and longer versions do exist (such as the 41-minute version performed at the Cleveland Convention Center). The version on the aforementioned Dick's Picks Vol. "Dark Star" in particular gets expanded a lot in live performances.It was commonplace for the band to string several songs together into an epic jam that lasted an hour or more, particularly in its final set. Note that the three longest songs are a continuous suite of music, meaning that they played for 90 minutes without stopping. Look at the tracklist for Dick's Pick's Volume 4. Most of their songs get vastly expanded from their studio versions live with lots of improv it’s probably a large part of why they were so famous as a live act, alongside their instrumental skill, their absolutely gigantic repertoire, and their habit of never playing songs the same way twice. Anthem of the Sun also has several notable examples. From their studio records, "Terrapin Station Part 1" (16:23) is probably their longest cut, with “Weather Report Suite” (12:41) and the opening and closing suites of Blues for Allah (“Help on the Way/Slipknot!/Franklin’s Tower”, 11:50, and “Blues for Allah/Sand Castles & Glass Camels/Unusual Occurrences in the Desert”, 12:33) not far behind (these are sometimes divided up into separate tracks, though). The Grateful Dead: Their entire catalog.Also, this trope only applies to songs 6 minutes or more, anything less is too short to qualify. The trope doesn't apply to compositions either, as any work involving an orchestra can be expected to last from ten minutes up to several hours with very little "rocking," although it certainly may be epic. Please don't add a short song here because it's awesome (we have Awesome Music for that) or delete a long one because it's not awesome.
Many of those songs have a Subdued Section for everyone's sake.Īnd for clarity's sake: This is a trope about long songs. Only studio versions are included since live examples would bloat the list to hell.
Put Epic Rocking in a Rhythm Game and you have an instant Marathon Level.Ī Super-Trope to "Epic Jamming", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and Limited Lyrics Song. Because of this, bands often have a hard time thinking about where to place the longest song(s) when it comes to the final album order before the release goes gold the usual place for the longest song is usually the last track in the album, before an outro (if there is one) and the hidden tracks. Done poorly, they just ramble, cause yawning, and suffer chronic Ending Fatigue. Songs featuring this trope also often feature Uncommon Time, since changing time signatures helps maintain the listener's attention in a longer composition, and modulation (which is the same thing, but for key signatures).ĭone right, they maintain the listener's attention and sound really cool, sometimes downright awesome. When there are lyrics, expect an Epic Instrumental Opener to precede them and Big Rock Ending to succeed them. Lyrics can appear in these songs, but they're often sparse and the song is mostly instrumental.
note There are exceptions, however The Velvet Underground was notorious for building epic-length songs on as little as a single chord. This trope is the polar opposite of Three Chords and the Truth: Instead of a short song with lyrics and catchy beat that anybody can play, these bands focus on deliberately complex songs where playing is a matter of superior technical skill and everything else is secondary to the instrumental showmanship and considerations of the sound itself, even lyrics. Also quite common in many forms of Electronic Music, particularly in the realm of Ambient, Trance, and Techno, as well as most forms of Heavy Metal music (seriously, in the metal genre - apart from thrash, groove, and grindcore - long tracks are easily more the rule than the exception). More common in the '60s psychedelic/acid rock era and in the '70s Progressive Rock period. Epic Rocking is the phenomenon where bands release really long songs that either seem to twist and change gears a million times before ending, or just manage to sustain themselves for their prolonged duration.
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