The FIRST sidelong song

Well, I was going to post and say In Held 'twas in I, but you said it before me ;)
I don't see any occurrence of a side-long song before that.

Of course, one could always argue that side-long songs have been around since classical music was born :)

Return of the Son of Monster Magnet on Freak Out ('66)is the whole side, I think, although I'm not sure. It's 12 minutes.

the icon of sin wrote: Ghandi 2 wrote: Return of the Son of Monster Magnet on Freak Out ('66)is the whole side, I think, although I'm not sure. It's 12 minutes. That's of course not the normal side-filling length, but "Freak Out!" has a really strange overall time...something like 60 minutes. I don't know how Zappa did it - either he used some insane studio engineering (more so than Genesis did) or he made it a double album and missed out a side of vinyl. Which isn't like him.

^and Love's "Da Capo" album of 1967 has the 19-minute, side-long track "Revelations", although to say it's fully composed, as with "In-A-Gadda..." is a bit generous.

Edited by Certif1ed - April 28 2007 at 03:27

I have one by a band called The Seeds from 1967 called 'Up In Her Room' which is some 15 minutes in its complete form, but I'm not sure whether it was issued like this originally- there has been an edited version of it released. It was on their 2nd album 'A Web Of Sound'.

Edited by salmacis - April 28 2007 at 06:37

Raga (32:09) recorded 1964 / released 1968 Seventh Sons “Raga (4 AM at Frank’s)”

Desolation Row (11:24) 1965 Bob Dylan “Highway 61 Revisited”

Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands (11:00) 1966 Bob Dylan “Blonde on Blonde”

East-West (13:18) 1966 The Paul Butterfield Blues Band “East-West”

Going Home (11:14) 1966 The Rolling Stones “Aftermath”

The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet (12:17) 1966 Frank Zappa “Freak out!”

The End (11:35) 1967 The Doors “The Doors”

Alice’s Restaurant Massacree (18:20) 1967 Arlo Guthrie “Alice’s Restaurant”

Interstellar Overdrive (16:46) 1967? Pink Floyd “Tonite let’s all make love in London…plus”

Nick's Boogie (11:50) recorded 1967 / released 1999 Pink Floyd “Pink Floyd London 1966-1967”

Revelation (18:56) 1967 Love “Da Capo”

When The Music's Over (11:00) 1967 The Doors “Strange Days”

Viola Lee Blues (10:01) 1967 The Grateful Dead “The Grateful Dead”

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (17:05) 1967 Iron Butterfly "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida"

How Suite It Is (12:16) 1967 Jefferson Airplane “After Bathing At Baxter’s”.

The Progress Suite (25:) 1967 Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde “Of Cabbages and Kings”.

Time has come today (11:) 1967 The Chamber Brothers.

Fantasy (10:13) 1967 Fifty Foot Hose "Cauldron".

Mass In F Minor (26:?) 1967 Electric Prunes.

In held Twas in I (17:31) 1968 Procol Harum “Shine on Brightly”

River deep, Mountain high (10:12) 1968 Deep Purple “Book of Taliesyn”

In the Stable of the Sphinx (11:10) recorded 1968 / released 2004 East Of Eden ”Mercator Projected”

Ars Longa Vita Brevis suite (19.26) November 1968 The Nice “Ars Longa Vita Brevis”

What Love (Suite) (19:15) 1968 The Collectors.

Lumpy Gravy (31:39) 1968 Frank Zappa “Lumpy Gravy”.

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (?:?) 1968 The Small Faces.

Edited by earlyprog - April 28 2007 at 08:27

Sandy Bull - Blend.
22mins from Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo (1963)

Edited by Man Erg - April 28 2007 at 08:30

Rocktopus wrote: fuxi wrote: Side-long (or even album-long) suites are NOT a rock invention. Guess nobody thinks that, and its probably not the answer he's looking for, fuxi.

It's indeed not the answer I'm looking for.

As for the examples given here:

Monster Magnet (the FZ song) is more like a spontaneous freak-out in the studio (as in free-form group-improvisation) rather than a song.
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (or more likely 'In the garden of Eden' as the totally-stoned singer is probably trying to sing) feels more like a 3-4 minute song that breaks down into a jam that the band is desperately trying (unsuccesfully0 to finish.

As for conceptalbums: every rock-n-roll albums concentrating on either cars, girls or dancing/music could be seen as a conceptalbum, besides Miles Ahead (Miles with Gil Evans) was a conceptalbum or 40 minute suite intended to be in continous play rather than 2 sides,

In regard of the classical stuff: any opera is one piece of music with sme significant duration, the old JS Bach's Passions are similar in feel and construction.

However, I was actually looking for 18+ minutes songs that are thoroughly composed, well constructed non-stop pieces of music (such as: Supper's ready, plague of lighthouse keepers, In Held or less suite-like: CTTE, MDK, TAAB)

Are there any earlier examples than In Held of such type compositions in (prog)rock?

Rocktopus wrote: Brahms Alto Rhapsodie has all that you're looking for.

Well, I'm trying to find what the first  fully composed prog-epic was. So, even if it was a lousy piece of crap, it should be admired at the very least as the first attempt of such a thing, I do understand that the classical influence as its BIG STAMP all over it.

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I don't think I have been imposing more and more restrictions, as my origingal question was about the first ever fully composed prog-rock songs, which automatically rules out both free-form jams and classical music,

I wanted too know if In Held was the first song of its kind and apparently it is, obviously there have been earlier examples of longer songs, but those songs are long because of a large amount of improvisation or jamming endlessly over a drone, that wasn't what I was looking for, as Rocktopus remarked.

So I guess the answer to my question is either In Held or else What Love (Suite) by The Collectors.

Thanks everybody!!!