Ten songs within songs – just when you think you’ve got a handle on how a track is going to progress, it suddenly goes a bit weird…
Wings – Live & Let Die
Wing’s linguistically confused classic (“In this world in which we live in”?!) is the perfect example of covering all bases, ‘just in case’. The gentle, dreamy opening bars giving way to power chords and organised chaos.
Queen – Breakthru
Doesn’t just sound like two songs in one – it actually is. The opening a cappella segment was originally going to be a song in its own right, “A New Day” written by Freddie Mercury. Abandoned at a early stage, the remnants of it were added to Roger’s song, as a counterbalancing intro.
Guns n’ Roses – Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
No, not Bob Dylan’s version but Axl and co’s reworking. Do you know why Bob didn’t include a preposterous reggae interlude? I think you do…
The Beatles – I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
At first a fairly standard lullaby, then, almost mirroring the turmoil in the band at the time, a white-noise littered metal beast. The song achieved its strange dynamic as a result of two recording sessions a few months apart. The mixing of the track was the last time the band were in the studio together.
Derek and the Dominos – Layla
A song so literally segmented that it is not uncommon to hear them played as two entirely different tracks on the radio. The more familiar vocal and guitar element, written by Eric Clapton, gives way to an entirely more swooning piano coda written either by band member Jim Gordon, or his then girlfriend Rita Coolidge, depending on your loyalties. Jim is still in prison for murdering his mother in 1983.
Lorde – Green Light
Not so much two songs in one as two anthems in one – a torch song essentially giving with to a euphoric post-disco freakout
5th Dimension – Aquarius
A bit of a cheat this one as quite clearly there are two separate songs here – Age of Aquarius and Let the Sunshine in -however, the latter always seems to catch the casual listener unaware. In fact, both tracks were recorded in entirely different cities – Los Angeles and Las Vegas
Ben Howard – End of the Affair
You can afford to be adventurous in an eight minute track and this is a perfect example. Ben’s skeletal, dew-speckled plaintive voice and acoustic mantra gives way to an electronic hailstorm around the four minute mark. By the time the track ends, it bears little resemblance to the one you were about to drop off to.
Lucy Rose – Lines
Like Ben’s track, an innocuous, breathy shadow of a song kicks its shoes off early doors to reveal a multi-layered event
Childish Gambino -This is America
You can’t move for people having an opinion on this, but away from the visuals, there’s an interesting track (perhaps not single material in any sense, but there’s marketing for you!) Start like 90’s omnipresent collective Arrested Development and ends like…well, modern America.
