Pop songs are like a D.J. set crammed into three minutes.
My favorite period is when we lived in the land of the three-minute song. The Motown thing - I thought they were genius in knowing that's as much as a listener can take.
Interestingly, songs used to be short, then they became longer, and now they're getting shorter.
Think back to the early rock n' roll records, and the average record length in the '50s - and well into the '60s - was two and a half minutes. It's very hard to put that much songwriting into two and a half minutes.
It does make sense to put on some songs that are relatively short, because radio usually only plays songs that are less than 4 or 5 minutes.
I've had songs that were spread out over a number of years, and I've written some in ten minutes, and everything in between.
Some songs go super-quick; some take a really long time.
I'm very opinionated about movie musicals when they're adapted from live shows. You'll sit still for a three-minute song in a theater. But in movies, a glance from someone's eyes will tell you the whole story in a few seconds.
I'm never gonna be a Carlos Santana - an instrumentalist. I just like songs. It's three minutes of something that can be very powerful.
My favorite albums are really short.
I don't have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.
I remember people telling me that at 5 1/2 minutes long, 'Lightning Crashes' would never be a hit song.
I don't have to play the song all the way to the very end - I use it while it's good and while it's cool and while it's exciting, and then I get out.
I mean, Beatles songs were two and a half minutes long, and they're fantastic.
Bob Dylan did the first really long record - Like A Rolling Stone - I think it was four minutes.
When the song is part of the action and working as dialogue, even two minutes is way too long.
I'm definitely trying to make longer songs, but if it's short and good, I'm not going to do anything about it.
It's sometimes impossible to fit in all the music we want to fit in, in an hour and 45 minute show.
The more you push the budgets up, the more you make records cost $20, the more you make records last 4 and 5 minutes on the radio.
