LONG SONG TITLES: SILLY OR NECESSARY?
‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ from the 1964 Disney film ‘Mary Poppins’ may sound stupid, but it’s a word found in the dictionary
No matter how wordy a song’s title is, in the end it’s all about the music
Songs with long titles — are they necessary? Do they serve a purpose?
Music scholars and critics say it’s a songwriter’s poetic license, while others find it silly.
Let’s look at some songs with really long titles.
“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins sounds stupid, but it’s a word found in the dictionary.
“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” is a track from Chicago Transit Authority, the 1967 debut album by the band of the same name before it was shortened to Chicago.
Stevie Wonder wrote and recorded hits with such titles as “Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer” and “Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You).”
Incidentally, Wonder authored “’Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers,” a song that guitar great Jeff Beck often covered as an instrumental, whose lyrics Wonder wrote for his then wife, Syreeta Wright.
Lana Del Rey had a song called “Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have — but I Have It.” She originally titled it as “Sylvia Plath,” in honor of the American poet whom she mentions in the lyrics.
For a time, Panic! at the Disco had a penchant for song titles like “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” and “Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have
Without Taking Her Clothes Off.”
Fall Out Boy’s wit showed in songs such as “I’m Like a Lawyer with the Way I’m Always Trying to Get You Off (Me & You)” and “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light ’Em Up).”
Older acts
Older acts have done it decades prior. Pink Floyd’s 1969 double album Ummagumma had a track called “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave Grooving with a Pict.”
In 1966, the Rolling Stones recorded a single, “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?”
A year earlier, Herman’s Hermits recorded a version of “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter.”
In the 1978, Bruce Cockburn recorded the album Further Adventures of, which contained the track “Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand.”
The title was later adapted by Primitive Love Gods, whose front man Chris O’Connor was said to be having a hard time naming his song. He ended up calling it “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand,” which became the band’s debut single and was included in the soundtrack of the 1996 film The Cable Guy.
R.E.M. is not far behind the long song titles list. One of the most memorable tracks on its 1987 album Document was “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Another ’80s song that came to mind was Timbuk 3’s “The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades).”
Pearl Jam songs usually had one-word titles. But an exception was “Elderly Woman Standing Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” from the band’s 1993 album Vs.
What possibly takes the cake is Fiona Apple’s ridiculously titled album, When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right.
Apple said it was actually a poem she wrote in response to unfavorable feedback from readers over the negative implication of a Spin
magazine cover story on her.
The album, released in 1999, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album and held the record for the longest song title at 444 characters.
Until it was broken in 2008 by Chumbawamba’s — take a deep breath — The Boy Bands Have Won, and All the Copyists and the Tribute Bands and the TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture to Be Shaped by Mimicry, Whether from Lack of Ideas or from Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try to Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother’s Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don’t Just Regurgitate Creative History, or Hold Art and Music and Literature as Fixed, Untouchable and Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try to ‘Guard’ Any Particular Form of Music Are, Like the Copyists and Manufactured Bands, Doing It the Worst Disservice, Because the Only Thing That You Can Do to Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It’s Over, Then It’s Done, and the Boy Bands Have Won.
No matter how wordy a song’s title is, in the end it’s all about the music. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.