10 Amazing Tracks That Are Longer Than 8 Minutes

7. Don McLean €“ "American Pie"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ecvBaqHBk Perhaps the ultimate sing-along song, Don McLean's infectious 1972 hit is a perfect example of a long song that even pop listeners could appreciate. The vibrant chorus helped take the tune to the top of the charts, but it's the mythologising of the verse lyrics that have kept listeners coming back to it for decades. Clocking in at 8:32, "American Pie" recounts the tragic plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson (more well known as the Big Bopper), but does so in poetic lyrics rife with metaphors and other tenants of figurative language. In fact, McLean coined the term "The Day the Music Died" with this song €“ one of the many cultural contributions that continues to resonate today. Where some songs use extra length to break into extended instrumental jams, "American Pie" uses its epic scope to expand upon lyrical themes and form a winding poem that is worthy of collegiate study. There are entire websites devoted to breaking down the lyrics of this song and interpreting the many characters and events discussed or mentioned therein. Everyone from Elvis Presley to Bob Dylan to the Beatles to Janis Joplin gets coyly referenced, and they all are folded into a song that €“ while it reputes itself to be about one day €“ explores the entire rock and roll landscape of the 1950s and 60s. It's an ambitious tune, no doubt, and the fact that McLean packs it all so effortless into the form of an instantly memorable pop song is impressive to say the least. McLean had a few other well known songs, but nothing ever compared to "American Pie," and there's a reason McLean generally plays this song two or three times in any given concert. After all, lines like "I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride" or "And in the streets the children screamed, the lovers cried, and the poets dreamed" still sound as timeless today as they ever have.