Long Title/Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Country: Or, a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s, consisting of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms, folk lyrics, and harmonies mostly accompanied by string instruments such as banjos, electric and acoustic guitars, steel guitars (such as pedal steels and dobros), and fiddles as well as harmonicas.

  • "It Was an Absolutely, Finger Lickin', Grits and Chicken, Country Music Love Song" by Bomshel. Shortened to just "Country Music Love Song" on the charts.
  • Similarly, "Dixie Rose Deluxe's Honky-Tonk, Feed Store, Gun Shop, Used Car, Beer, Bait, BBQ, Barber Shop, Laundromat" by Trent Willmon.
  • "Dale Darrell Waltrip Richard Petty Rusty Awesome Bill Irvin Gordon Earnhardt Smith? Johnson, Jr." by Tim Wilson.
  • "I Wish You Could Have Turned My Head (and Left My Heart Alone)" by The Oak Ridge Boys. A country music song title if ther ever was one.
  • "It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long" by The Notorious Cherry Bombs. Country music is full of cheeky song titles.
  • Technicality with Patty Loveless' "Blame It on Your Heart", which is listed on BMI as "Blame It on Your Lyin, Cheatin', Cold, Dead-Beatin', Two-Timin', Double-Dealin', Mean, Mistreatin', Lovin' Heart", but is just "Blame It on Your Heart" on the album.
  • "Three Minute Positive Not-Too-Country Up-Tempo Love Song" by Alan Jackson, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • One of alt-country band Richmond Fontaines' albums (and one track on it) is called "We used to think the freeway sounded like a river".

Electronic: Or, music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments and circuitry-based music technology.

  • Iowa breakbeat musician Stunt Rock has used this trope time and time again, generating such titles as "Richard Pryors' Face Catching On Fire As He Freebases Cocaine In The Eighties," "You Made A Really Short Song With One Sample Cause You Were Low On Material And Ideas. I Did It For This Whole Album." and "If I'm Not Sincere Enough, Please Let Me Know, And I Will Squint More."
  • Bentley Rhythm Ace once came up with Return Of The Hardcore Jumble Carbootechnodisco Roadshow (for UK-types, it's the song on that V2 advert that ripped off The Italian Job).
  • Soulwax's Most of the remixes we've made for other people over the years except for the one for Einstürzende Neubauten because we lost it and a few we didn't think sounded good enough or just didn't fit in length-wise, but including some that are hard to find because either people forgot about them or simply because they haven't been released yet, a few we really love, one we think is just ok, some we did for free, some we did for money, some for ourselves without permission and some for friends as swaps but never on time and always at our studio in Ghent seems to have been titled solely to try and best Fiona Apple's record. It worked.
  • A song by The Orb, entitled "A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Center of the Ultraworld."
  • "The Sad But True Story Of Ray Mingus, the Lumberjack of Bulk Rock City, and His Never Slacking Stribe in Exploiting the So Far Undiscovered Areas of the Intention to Bodily Intercourse From the Opposite Species of His Kind, During Intake of All the Mental Condition That Could Be Derived From Fermentation" by the Swedish group Rednex.
  • Video game remixer Norg's song "Allen O'Neal and Nario Take an Afternoon Stroll Through a Field of Poppies for a Picnic Lunch of Wine, Cheese, and Whale Face," a remix from Metal Slug.
  • Add in names of remixes and you can get some ridiculous stuff indeed, like the Pet Shop Boys' "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More (Peter Rauhoffer New York Mix)".
  • JLIAT (aka James Whitehead), obsessively fond of pristine sine-wave ambient devoid of embellishment. Not all of his CD titles, however, reflect this desire for simplicity. Most notably A Long Drone-Like Piece of Music Made With Synthesizers, Samplers and Digital Delays Which Attempts in its Minimalism to Be A Thing In Itself Without External Reference, Having an Analogue in Certain States of Consciousness Where Being is Experienced Also; another example would be When We Focus On Nothing as Opposed to The Set Or Subset Of Infinite Events with Whatever Intellect We Have in That Moment the Conscious State Becomes Aware of the Alternative to the Infinity of States Which in its Apprehension is Enlightenment. (yes, the period is included)
  • From life changing moments seem minor in pictures by C418, including the title track, "Long songs are for people who don't have time to make them short", "Lack of creativity is dangerous in Berlin", "If you don't know what to do just steal the amen break", "Kitchens are best for making sound effects" and "I will perhaps never meet you in person".
  • Bring Me the Horizon's 2019 EP Music to listen to~dance to~blaze to~pray to~feed to~sleep to~talk to~grind to~trip to~breathe to~help to~hurt to~scroll to~roll to~love to~hate to~learn Too~plot to~play to~be to~feel to~breed to~sweat to~dream to~hide to~live to~die to~GO TO.

Folk: Or, a wide variety of genres that began with and then evolved from the folk revival of the mid-20th century; all music that is called folk that is not traditional music (music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, or music performed by custom over a long period of time).

  • Sufjan Stevens is fond of long song titles in his state-themed albums.
    • Michigan had "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)", "They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For The Homeless In Muskegon)", and "Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)"
    • Illinois has so many that it's probably best to just list the longest: "The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'" The song is about two minutes long, and the title takes more than thirty seconds to scroll across the screen of an iPod.
    • From The Avalanche: Outtakes And Extras From The Illinoise Album; "The Vivian Girls Are Visited In The Night By Saint Dargarius And His Squadron Of Benevolent Butterflies".
  • Uno de mi calle me ha dicho que tiene un amigo que dice conocer a un tipo que un día fue feliz ("Someone who lives on my street has told me he has a friend who says he knows a guy who had been happy once"), a song by Joan Manuel Serrat.
  • During his first tour in 1979 after becoming a born-again Christian, Bob Dylan would introduce his newer songs by ridiculously long titles. But by the time he recorded and released those songs on the album Saved, he mercifully shortened them. For example, "Hanging On To a Solid Rock Made Before The Foundation Of The World" became simply "Solid Rock." Of course, back in 1966 he managed to release a song called "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again."
    • Before that, he had "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." On the same album (Blonde on Blonde) there's "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine."
    • Later on, there's "You'll Make Me Lonesome When You Go" (which is surprisingly almost exactly the same title length as "Stuck Inside of Mobile")
  • "Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me 11:00 on a Friday Morning to Tell Me that at 1:00 Friday Afternoon You're Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs, Hail a Cab to Go Out to the Airport to Catch a Plane to Go Skiing in the Alps for Two Weeks, Not that I Wanted to Go With You, I Wasn't Able to Leave Town, I'm Not a Very Good Skier, I Couldn't Expect You to Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You for Three Years I DON'T Like Surprises!! Subtitled: A Musical Apology" by Christine Lavin. Typically this is abbreviated as "Regretting What I Said..."
  • Shawn Phillips' "She was waiting for her mother at the station in Torino and you know I love you baby but it's getting too heavy to laugh".
  • And, for the record of longest album title, we have Chumbawamba's folk album 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. Commonly abbreviated as "The Boy Bands Have Won." 865 characters.
  • Folk musician Bert Jansch had "Come Sing Me a Happy Song to Prove We All Can Get Along the Lumpy, Bumpy, Long and Dusty Road"
  • Fairport Convention gave on of their instrumental numbers the title 'Sir B. McKenzie's Daughter's Lament for the 77th Mounted Lancer's Retreat from the Straits of Loch Knombe, in the Year of Our Lord 1727, on the Occasion of the Announcement of Her Marriage to the Laird of Kinleakie', specifically in an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records.
  • Simon and Garfunkel have "A Simple Desultory Phillippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamera'd Into Submission)".

Hip Hop: Or, a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted, developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing.

  • Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik by OutKast.
    • "A Life in the Day of Benjamin André (Incomplete)", from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
  • Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik by Freddie Gibbs, named in homage to the OutKast album above.
  • PM Dawn's albums Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry for Bringing You Here. Love, Dad - and Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience.
  • "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 - Blue Sky Revisit)" by DJ Shadow.
  • "Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter's Daughter" and "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst" by Kendrick Lamar.
  • "Operation Lifesaver AKA Mint Test" by Madvillain (MF DOOM and Madlib).
  • Volume 1: Flick Your Tongue Against Your Teeth and Describe the Present. by Bedwetter, a side-project of Travis Miller, better known as Lil Ugly Mane.
  • I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside by Earl Sweatshirt.
  • "Jesus Is the One (I Got Depression)" by Zack Fox and Kenny Beats.
  • "You Can Put It in a Zag, I'mma Put It in a Blunt" by Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa, from Mac + Devin Go to High School.
  • "The Nang, the Front, the Bush and the Shit" and "Dr. Hellno and the Praying Mantus" by El-P.
  • "The Fantabulous Rap Extravaganza" and "The News (A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Microsoft Inc.)" by Deltron 3030.
  • Most songs on Black Up by Shabazz Palaces qualify, like "An Echo From the Hosts That Profess Infinitum", "A Treatease Dedicated to the Avian Airess From North East Nubis (1000 Questions, 1 Answer)" and "Endeavors for Never (The Last Time We Spoke You Said You Were Not Here. I Saw You Though.)"
  • From Death Grips, "You Might Think He Loves You for Your Money But I Know What He Really Loves You for It's Your Brand New Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat"
    • "I Break Mirrors With My Face in the United States"
  • "I Spoke to the Devil in Miami, He Said Everything Would Be Fine" by XXXTentacion.
    • "BUY GARETTE'S CLOTHING OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU (Snippet)", featuring Craig Xen, Robb Banks and Killstation.
    • "IN THIS BITCH LIT, FREE KEKE & FREE 2 WOOP FREESTYLE"
    • "Looking for a Star (Cant Get You Out My Head)"
    • "#PROUDCATOWNER #IHATERAPPERS #IEATPUSSY"
  • "you can not put a fire out by pouring fuel in the wound" by Lil Bo Weep.
  • From Trap Metal artist PRXJEK, "Take This As You Will, This Is Just Something That Needed to Be Said", "Yes I Can Actually Rap, You Fucking Idiot (Freestyle)", "BlackEyesBlackMindBlackThoughtsBlackHeart", "I Am God's Mistake (SweetReleaseOfDeath)", "THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU RUN (YOU'RE FUCKED)", "At Night All My Doubts Gather, And I'm Just Left Feeling Empty" and "NO LONGER IS THIS A WARNING (BE SILENT WHEN THE KING IS SPEAKING Pt. 2)".
  • "ʀᴇᴍᴏᴠɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀsᴛ ᴏʙsᴛᴀᴄʟᴇs ɪɴ ʜɪs ᴀsᴄᴇɴsɪᴏɴ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ" by NxxxxxS.
  • [][][][][][][][][][][[]][][][][][[][][][][]][][]][]][][[][[[][]][]][][]][][][]]][][[]][][][][].666% by ATIVAN COREA (SoundCloud link)

Metal: Or, a genre of rock music that uses a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness.

  • Thrash Metal band Lich King has The Attack Of The Wrath Of The Sword Of The Death Of The Strike Of The Sword Of The Beast. Say that 7 times fast with a mouth full of crackers!
  • Grindcore band Agoraphobic Nosebleed has song titles that take longer to say than the song itself, especially on their album Altered States Of America. One of which being "Group Taking Acid As Considered Conspiracy Against The Government", an epic 6 second rocker.
  • Grindcore band Anal Cunt use these just for the hell of it sometimes. "I Liked Earache Better When Dig Answered The Phone", "I Made Your Kid Get AIDS So You Could Watch It Die", and so on.
  • Seth Putnam's side project, Impaled Northern Moonforest. Not only is it the world's first acoustic black metal band, but it also has song titles that fit this trope like a glove. Examples include "Gazing at the Blasphemous Moon while Perched atop a Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Forsaken Crest of the Northern Mountain" and "Awaiting the Blasphemous Abomination of the Necroyeti while Sailing on the Northernmost Fjord of Xzfgiiizmtsath." Most of the songs are less than a minute long.
  • There's a Nile song called "Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve Its Possessor Against Attacks From He Who Is In the Water."
    • Nile loves this trope: in fact, Karl Sanders has said in an interview that he does it on purpose so he can annoy his managers. The worst offender so far is "Chapter of Obeisance Before Giving Breath to the Inert One in the Presence of the Crescent Shaped Horns," though "Papyrus..." comes close.
    • There's also "In Their Darkened Shrines III: Destruction of the Temple of the Enemies of Ra" and "Libation Unto The Shades Who Lurk In The Shadows Of The Temple Of Anhur." The last one is rather ironic, since it's an interlude track, in the time it takes to say the name twice, the song's almost over.
  • British metalcore band Bring Me the Horizon's There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret. Also one of their songs is titled thus: "No Need For Introductions, I've Read About Girls Like You on the Backs of Toilet Doors." This is, funnily enough, about something that happened during one of their gigs.
  • Gamma Ray have a live DVD called "Hell Yeah!! - The Awesome Foursome (And The Finnish Keyboarder Who Didn't Want To Wear His Donald Duck Costume) Live in Montreal." .
  • Bal-Sagoth likely takes the crown on this trope. They have an album called Starfire Burning Upon the Ice-Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule, which contained no song which had less than seven words (the biggest one had twenty). And, of course, there's The Dark Liege of Chaos is Unleashed at the Ensorcelled Shrine of A'Zura Kai (The Splendour of a Thousand Swords Gleaming Beneath the Blazon of the Hyperborean Empire Part II). Go on, check Wikipedia.
  • "チューチュー ラブリー ムニムニ ムラムラ プリンプリン ボロン ヌルル レロレロ" (Chu Chu Lovely Muni Muni Mura Mura Purin Purin Boron Nurururerorero) by Maximum the Hormone.
  • The album Nespithe by death-metal group Demilich, the longest being "The Planet That Once Used to Absorb Flesh in Order to Achieve Divinity and Immortality (Suffocated to the Flesh That It Desired...)".
  • Premonition's 2007 album "Look into a crystal ball and see that its kind of like a fairy tale between the tides of time and the gates of dawn where a black dove flies from out of the woods, and a mystical wizard casts his spell over the land and a shadow hangs over the garden that never grows, and as the dust and the ashes come falling down like rain, you can still hear the sound of music, forever drifting through the winds of Eden."
  • The metal band The Black Dahlia Murder has songs like "I Worship Only What You Bleed", "What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse" and "That Which Erodes the Most Tender of Things".
  • A Finnish Goregrind band that goes by the name 55Gore's full unabridged name is as follows... *deep breath* Intracerebrally Consuming Cephalalgia Through The Cranium Macerating Debrisfucked Manure Ingested Remains Of The Mindfucked Cataplexic Wicked Mankind Whom Fistfucked The Progenies From The Deepest Depths Of The Analmaggot Raped Human Pieces Of Erotic Shitmasses Which Gave Birth To Worthless Eunuchs As Travesty For Cumstained Whorefaced Sluts Enslaved By This Stupid Society Full Of Fetal Garbages.
  • Dethklok (the sorta-fictional metal band from the animated series Metalocalypse) has 2 of them: "My Inner Child Tied and Beaten in My Trunk" and "I Tamper With the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin".
    • Wait? So they're writing songs about American Gods now?
    • There's also "Crush My Battle Opponent's Balls". It's only about 1 minute long and has no lyrics.
  • Nǽnøĉÿbbörğ VbëřřĦōlökäävsŦ, an Ambient Cosmic Extreme Funeral Drone Doom Metal band, has songs like Eternal Darkness Vortex (Part VI: The Inescapable Singularity Is Intruded Upon As The Atoms and Quarks Of The Body Are Obliterated And Require An Escape Velocity Of Infinite Exponence To Retreat) and Doom Apocalypse X, The Ultimate Fate Of The Universe (Part VIII: The Black Hole Era). Many of the songs are more than a hour long with 7 hours maximum so song title length isn't compensating anything.
  • "You Will Be Reincarnated As an Imperial Attack Spaceturtle" by Behold... the Arctopus
  • Tourniquet has several, though many are not as long as the other examples. In order: "Harlot Widow And The Virgin Bride", "Gelatinous Tubercles of Purulent Ossification", "Proprioception: The Line Knives Syndrome", and almost every song on the album Microscopic View Of A Telescopic Realm, including "The Skeezix Dilemma, Part 2: The Improbable Testimony Of The Pipsisewah"
  • Wormphlegm's "In an Excruciating Way Infested with Vermin and Violated by Executioners Who Practise Incendiarism and Desanctifying the Pious"

Pop: Or, a genre of popular music that uses basic songwriting (often the verse-chorus structure), as well as repeated choruses, melodic tunes and hooks, for generally short to medium-length songs.

  • Hello! Project has several of these, but perhaps the biggest offender is S/mileage's Asu wa DEETO na no ni, Ima Sugu Koe ga Kikitai (Even though we have a date tomorrow, I want to hear your voice right now).
  • Fiona Apple's 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 Before 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.
    • While it's not nearly as long of a title, there's also The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do.
  • "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More," "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk," and of course the medley "Where the Streets Have No Name (Can't Take My Eyes off of You" by the Pet Shop Boys
    • The sleeve notes to their Alternative compilation of B tracks mention, with regard to "I Get Excited, You Get Excited Too" that Neil Tennant used to go out of his way to make the song titles as long as possible.
  • Cobra Starship has a song titled "Prostitution is the World's Oldest Profession and I, Dear Madam, Am a Professional."
    • There's also "Pete Wentz Is the Only Reason We're Famous," "Being From Jersey Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry," "Damn You Look Good And I'm Drunk (Scandalous)," "Send My Love to the Dance Floor, I'll See You in Hell (Hey Mister DJ)," "It's Amateur Night at the Apollo Creed!," "My Moves Are White (White Hot, That Is)," "The World Has Its Shine But I Would Drop It on a Dime"...
  • English musician Joe Jackson's "You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)."
  • Prince likes doing this on the occasional B-side: "17 Days (the rain will come down, then U will have 2 choose. If U believe, look 2 the dawn and U shall never lose.)" and "Sex ('the '80s are over and the time has come 4 monogamy and trust')."
  • Hoagy Carmichael wrote a song titled "I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin' Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues."
  • My Little Airport does this as well. "Edward, Had You Ever Thought That the End of the World Would Come on 20.9.01", as well as "The OK Thing to Do on Sunday Afternoon Is to Toddle in the Zoo" are particular offenders.
  • "Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills" by Ray Stevens supposedly once held the record for the longest titled song on the Billboard Hot 100. (It took a medley of ten songs to beat it.)
    • Stevens later recorded an even longer-titled song: "Ned Nostril and His South Seas Paradise, Puts Your Blues on Ice, Cheap at Twice the Price Band (Ikky-Ikky, Ukky-Ukky)". Sadly, it wasn't a single.
  • "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me" by The Bellamy Brothers. Two for the price of one, as it's also a lame-but-funny Double Entendre.
  • In August 2009, Danish Indie-Pop band Mew released their fifth album, entitled No More Stories, Are Told Today, I'm Sorry, They Washed Away, No More Stories, The World Is Grey, I'm Tired, Let's Wash Away. The title is taken from the lyrics of a mid album track which is itself only 1 minute 48 seconds long.
  • Bjork has a song called "Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the Left, Carry My Pain on the Right)."
    • Bjork's remix compilation The Best Mixes from the Album Debut For All the People Who Don't Buy White Labels (which also falls under Exactly What It Says on the Tin)
  • Feist's "That's What I Say, It's Not What I Mean".
  • Eurythmics have "Better To Have Lost At Love (Ten Never To Have Loved At All)".
  • Stereolab have an album titled Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night.
  • The song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" by the Italian singer Adriano Celentano.
  • Of Montreal has released songs with titles like "We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafling", "Inside a Room Full of Treasures, a Black Pygmy Horse's Head Pops Up Like a Periscope", and "Upon Settling on the Frozen Island, Lecithin Presents Claude and Coquelicot With His Animal Creations for Them to Approve or Reject (The Rejected Inventions Walk Towards the Reverse Magnetizer)"
  • "A Bunch of Us Were Sitting Around a Candle in San Francisco Getting Stoned and I Hope You're There Next Time" by 1960s singer-songwriter Gordon Alexander.
  • "break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored" by Ariana Grande
  • From Was (Not Was), "Somewhere In America There's a Street Named After My Dad".

Punk: Or, a rock music genre rooted in 1960s garage rock and other forms of what is now known as "proto-punk" music, that produces short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics.

  • "Long Song Titles Aren't Cool Anymore Because the Rest of You Fuckers Are No Good at It" by Crime in Stereo.
  • The JV Allstars have a song called "Hope is a Good Thing, Maybe the Best of Things, and No Good Thing Ever Dies." The song is only 54 seconds long!
  • Dillinger Four have the longest song title that is all one word: "SELLTHEHOUSESELLTHECARSELLTHEKIDSFINDSOMEONEELSEFORGETITI'MNEVERCOMINGBACKFORGETIT"
  • "We Threw Gasoline On The Fire And Now We Have Stumps For Arms And No Eyebrows" by NOFX
  • Zebrahead has a couple: "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right, But Three Rights Make a Left", "Mike Dexter is a God, Mike Dexter is a Role Model, Mike Dexter is an Asshole", and "We're Not a Cover Band, We're a Tribute Band".
  • Post-hardore band Chiodos seems to be fond of these. Some examples include "I Didn't Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was A Wizard"; "Bulls Make Money, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered"; "We Swam from Albatross, the Day We Lost Kayley Coast"; and "The Undertaker's Thirst for Revenge Is Unquenchable (The Final Battle)".
    • AND, lest we forget, 'Is It Progression If A Cannibal Uses A Fork'?
  • Alexisonfire had their fair share of songs with long titles, but The Philosophical Significance Of Shooting My Sister In The Face: An Essay By James Secord takes the cake.
  • Half Man Half Biscuit have a few. All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit, We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune, 99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd, I Love You Because (You Look Like Jim Reeves), Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show, Tending The Wrong Grave For 23 Years, and so on.
  • The album The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire by the disappointingly short-named Mc Lusky.
  • Defunct band I Am Ghost had Pretty People Never Lie, Vampires Never Really Die
  • Mayday Parade has several relatively long titles, but the longest by far is "You Be The Anchor That Keeps My Feet On The Ground, I'll Be The Wings That Keep Your Heart In The Clouds".
  • "Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated" by Rise Against.
  • "Slim Pickens Does The Right Thing And Rides The Bomb To Hell" by The Offspring.

Rock: Or, a broad genre of popular music centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass, drums, and one or more singers.

  • Math-rock band Don Caballero uses this trope quite a bit. Some examples: "A Lot of People Tell Me I Have A Fake British Accent", "Let's Face It, Pal, You Didn't Need That Eye Surgery", and perhaps the longest of them all: "In The Absence of Strong Evidence to the Contrary, One May Step of the Way of the Charging Bull".
  • Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds
    • Also, The Highlights From Jeff Wayne's Muscial Version of The War of the Worlds.
      • And even Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds - Alive on Stage! 30th Anniversary Tour.
  • Morrissey, with The Smiths and in his solo work, has a fair number of these. The Smiths' album Strangeways, Here We Come alone contains the songs "A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours," "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me," and "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before."
    • Two of Morrissey's most popular solo tracks: "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" and "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get".
  • Meat Loaf, notably: "Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."
  • Rod Stewart and The Faces once came up with a song called "You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog For a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)."
  • "The Anaheim, Asuza and Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book Review and Timing Association" by Jan and Dean. Not as long as some, but the full title is sung, repeatedly, as part (but not all) of the song's refrain.
  • Pink Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict."
    • Man or Astro-man?'s "Many Pieces of Large, Fuzzy Mammals Gathered Together at a Rave and Schmoozing With a Brick."
  • Love's classic album Forever Changes includes songs titled "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale" and "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This."
  • Lampshaded by The Monkees with the title "Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?"
  • The Beatles' song "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey".
    • Beatallica made a style parody with this song (among two others, one being by Metallica) called "Everybody's Got a Ticket to Ride Except for Me and My Lightning".
  • Primitive Radio Gods' "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand." Abbreviated to "Phonebooth" by fans and the Billboard charts.
  • Though nowhere near some of the examples shown here, Coldplay's album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends qualifies (despite showing only "Viva La Vida" on the cover itself).
  • Pick a random Fall Out Boy song title. There's at least a 50% chance you'll come up with an example of this trope.
    • "The World's Not Waiting (for Five Tired Boys and a Broken Down Van)"
    • "It's Not a Side Effect of the Cocaine. I Am Thinking It Must Be Love"
    • "Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued"
    • "I've Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)"
    • "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me"
    • "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part to Save the Scene and Stop Going to Shows)"
    • "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me & You)"
    • "I've Got All This Ringing in My Ears and None on My Fingers"
    • At least their latest album is void of any songs exceding ten words. "Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet" was getting close.
    • "Champagne for my Real Friends, Real Pain for my Sham Friends"
    • "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me'"
    • "Of All The Gins Joints In All The World"
    • "Parker Lewis Can't Lose (But I'm Going to Give It My Best Shot)
    • "Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things To Do Today."
    • They even lampshaded this with "Thnks fr th Mmrs", which was born from a complaint that their song titles were too long.
    • "I Liked You Better Before You Became a Fucking Myspace Whore.
  • The longest title on Panic! at the Disco is "There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet." Their second album's song titles are fairly short, though.
    • There's also "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off", "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage". And from their new album Vices and Virtues, we have "Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)" and "Nearly Witches (Ever Since We Met)".
  • Explosions in the Sky's album Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever, which contains the song "With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept."
  • The songs of post-rock band Red Sparowes, including such titles as "And by Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent in Their Puddles, the Air Barren of Song as the Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, the Locusts Noisily Thanked Us and Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole." Note that this song is only 1:42 long. And instrumental.
  • The Cardiff indie rock band Los Campesinos! has a track called "This Is How You Spell, 'HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics.'" What makes this example impressive is the fact that the ridiculously long titles are actually taken from the songs (if not fully, then in part). Amusingly enough, front man Gareth Campesinos! had this to say about the first titled mentioned: "I know it's a stupidly long title, but it acts as a good test to see which people are morons, depending on whether they reference it as being 'Fall Out Boy-esque' or 'Ballboy or Ten Grand-esque'."
  • Van Morrison's "You Don't Pull No Punches But You Don't Push The River," which lasts for almost nine minutes.
  • David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"
  • Robert Fripp's "I May Not Have Had Enough of Me but I've Had Enough of You" (or the shorter title "NYCNY"—depending on whether the vocalist is Peter Hammill or Daryl Hall.)
  • The 90s surf band Man or Astro-man? (also mentioned briefly above) liked to give their songs long titles. Their longest one was "Multi-Variational Stimuli of Sub-Turgid Foci Covering Cross-Evaluative Techniques for Cognitive Analysis of Hypersignificant Graph Peaks Following Those Intersubjective Modules Having Biodegradable Seepage." Surprisingly enough, this song was not from their album called "EEVIAC: Operational index and reference guide, including other modern computational devices".
  • Relient K has a song entitled "Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care." The title is funny enough, but it's only 10 seconds long and the lyrics are "I've just wasted 10 seconds of your life."
    • The also have a song called "The Only Thing Worse than Beating a Dead Horse Is Betting on One."
  • Porcupine Tree released a song called "Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled" on their 2000 album Lightbulb Sun.
  • "You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights But You Were Staring Straight at Me" by Arctic Monkeys. People in Sheffield tend to talk a lot like that.
    • The album that song is from is called Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.
  • The Flaming Lips occasionally stray into this territory, especially on their 2006 album At War with the Mystics, which, among others, contains "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life As Blazing Shield Of Defiance And Optimism As Celestial Spear Of Action)" and Grammy Award-winning "The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight And Puts On His Werewolf Moccasins".
    • Which all pale in comparison to "What Is the Light? (An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That the Chemical [In Our Brains] by Which We Are Able to Experience the Sensation of Being in Love Is the Same Chemical That Caused the 'Big Bang' That Was the Birth of the Accelerating Universe)"
  • The Decemberists use this on their track "Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle The Thistles Undone)".
    • The musical version of The Tempest from The Crane Wife doesn't have a very long title as such... instead, it has four short ones all joined together: "The Island: Come And See / The Landlord's Daughter / You'll Not Feel The Drowning".
  • The debut album by Tyrannosaurus Rex (later much better known as T. Rex): My people were fair and had sky in their hair... But now they're content to wear stars on their brows.
  • The Japanese angura-kei band Inugami Circus-dan wins with the enka song "Ani no Yamai no Tokkouyaku wa Shishuu Tadayou Chi no Ike Jigoku no You na Jinniku Suupu no Keijijougaku", which translates as "The Metaphysics of Human Flesh Soup Like a Sea of Blood in Hell with the Putrid Smell of a Corpse Being Wafted from the Special Medicine to Cure Older Brother's Disease." It's usually known as "Jinniku soup" for short, by the way.
  • Emerson, Lake & Palmer: "When the Apple Blossoms Bloom in the Windmills of your Mind I'll Be Your Valentine".
    • Also, the album Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends... Ladies and Gentlemen
  • Spiritualized's album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.
  • "The Synthesizer is Rapidly Overtaking the Guitar as the Most Popular Instrument in the World" by Custard.
  • The Paper Chase does this a lot, but the longest title that comes to mind is "Delivered In A Firm Unyielding Way Lingering For Just A Bit Too Long To Communicate The Message 'I Own You'".
  • "Animali in calore surriscaldati con ipertermia genitale" by Fantômas. The song is a whopping forty four seconds long.
  • "Rock Anthem for the Retarded Teenage Hipster Population" by Smile.
  • Pete Townshend released a best-of CD titled Coolwalkingsmoothtalkingstraightsmokingfirestoking.
  • Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart by Manic Street Preachers.
    • By the same band, "If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next".
  • Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness by Coheed and Cambria, along with its sequel, Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World For Tomorrow.
  • Marnie Stern's album This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That.
  • Electric Six has I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being the Master - oddly all of their other albums thus far have had one or two word titles. As far as song titles go, they have the relatively modest "There's Something Very Wrong With Us, So Let's Go Out Tonight".
  • Blue Öyster Cult's album Imaginos has a song titled "The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria".
  • Brazilian band Titãs has two albums with long titles: Jesus não tem Dentes no País dos Banguelas ("Jesus has no teeth in the toothless people's country") and A Melhor Banda de Todos os Tempos da Última Semana ("The greatest band of all-time from the latest week").
  • The album A Collision by Christian group David Crowder Band features a bunch of long titles, including The Lark Ascending or (More Accurately, I'm Trying to Make You Dance), Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven (A Walk Down Stairs), and this troper's personal favorite, (Repeat/Return) or When the Seventh Angel Sounded His Trumpet, and There Were Loud Voices In Heaven, Which Said: "The Kingdom of the World Has Become the Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ, and He Will Reign Foreverandever Etc..."
    • It should be noted that that last track is eleven seconds long.
  • The first album by Happy Mondays is titled Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out).
  • Most of the songs on Radiohead's Hail to the Thief have fairly long titles due to each one being an Either or Title with parentheses instead of a conjunction, like "A Punchup at a Wedding. (No no no no no no no no.)", "The Gloaming. (Softly Open our Mouths in the Cold.)", and "Sail to the Moon. (Brush the Cobwebs out of the Sky.)". The fans usually abbreviate them to the part outside the parentheses.
  • The band Quiet Sun has a song titled "Mummy was an Asteroid, Daddy was a Small Non-Stick Kitchen Utensil".
  • Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart loved these, and had one or two on most of his albums. Some of the most notable are "I Wanna Find a Woman That'll Hold My Big Toe Till I Have to Go", "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains", "A Carrot Is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond", and "Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee".
  • Post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor's song titles vary between this and True Art Is Incomprehensible. Their long-titled albums include: All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling, Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada, and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven.
  • The only album from defunct emo pioneers Cap'n Jazz was titled Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards In The Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over. Fans simply call it Shmap'n Shmazz.
  • Pearl Jam's "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town", which stands out a bit because it's on an album that mostly has one or two word song titles. (and they stated it has such a long name because the band got fed up with one-word titles)
  • Type O Negative used to love long titles. From the Slow Deep and Hard album, we have "Unsuccesfully Coping With The Natural Beauty of Infidelity", "The Misinterpretation of Silence and its Disastrous Consequences", and "Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 x 10-8 cm-3 gm-1 sec-2". From the October Rust album we have "The Glorious Liberation of the People's Technocratic Republic of Vinnland by the Combined Forces of the United Territories of Europa".
  • The J-Rock band Buck Tick has, on their album Six/Nine, two: "Aikawarazu no "Are" no Katamari ga Nosabaru Hedo no Soko no Fukidamari" (As usual,"that thing's" package, idle at the end of a spew drift), and "Mienai Mono o Miyo to Suru Gokai Subete Gokai da"" (Misunderstanding in trying to see the invisible, everything is misunderstood).
  • The Chariot has a song titled "Someday, in the Event That Mankind Actually Figures Out What it is That This World Revolves Around, Thousands of People are Going to Be Shocked and Perplexed to Find Out it Was Not Them. Sometimes, This Includes Me." that is currently the thirteenth longest song title. (It's also a Non-Appearing Title, and almost longer than the actual lyrics.) The album name is a mouthful too, being "Everything Is Alive, Everything Is Breathing, Nothing Is Dead, and Nothing Is Bleeding".
  • Modest Mouse. Most of their albums have really long titles. From "Good News for People Who Love Bad News" to We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank to "This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About" this indie group fits this trope.
  • Snow Patrol's album "When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up" and the song "We Can Run Away Now They're All Dead And Gone".
    • "When It's All Over We Still Have To Clear Up" is a song, too. Songs for Polarbears had "One Hundred Things You Should Have Done In Bed," they've been fairly concise since then, though "Please Just Take These Photos From My Hands" and "If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It" are getting up there.
  • Bangladeshi singer-songwriter James came up with "You Can't Tell How Much Suffering (On A Face That's That's Always Smiling)". Also a Title-Only Chorus.
  • If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You by Caravan
  • Jonathan Mann's "Song a Day #264: Quantum Decoupling Transition in a One-Dimensional Feshbach-Resonant Superfluid".
  • "You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want, But You Got to Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through" by The Wildhearts
  • "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again)" by Wilco.
  • One of The Hives' early song titles was "Some People Know All Too Well How Bad Liquorice, Or Any Candy For That Matter, Can Taste When Having Laid Out In The Sun Too Long - And I Think I Just Ate Too Much."
  • Though it could be the result of extreme Engrish, Japanese post-rock band té uses extremely long and incomprehensible song and album titles. For example, "It is Supposed to be 'Ordinary' that Imagination Moves Much Faster and More Freely than Bright Light in the Darkness" and "Increasing, if Heart and Senses Agree, All Best Change is Sly in Music"
  • Post-rock band Red Sparowes has several albums where every track consists of page stretching glory. In them are such gems like "And by Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent in Their Puddles, the Air Barren of Song as the Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, the Locusts Noisily Thanked Us and Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole.", which might I add is under two minutes.
  • Lemon Demon has Fly Straight or Drop the Oar and Wreck and The Saga of You, Confused Destroyer of Planets on an album called Live from the Haunted Candle Shop. A later album had The Only House That's Not on Fire (Yet). The vocalist's former musical project had AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!! (make sure to remember exactly how it's spelled).
  • Primal Scream's single The Big Man and the Scream Team Meet the Barmy Army Uptown.[1]
  • My Chemical Romance have had their fair share, with songs such as "Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough For The Two Of Us", "You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison" and "It's Not A Fashion Statement, It's A Fucking Deathwish."
  • Amanda Palmer has a song titled "Do You Swear To Tell The Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass."
  • Japanese visual kei band D (that's not a long title, heh) has a song called "Yami Yori Kurai Doukoku No Acapella To Bara Yori Akai Jounetsu No Aria" translating to "An Acapella Lamentation Darker Than Darkness And An Aria Of Passion Redder Than The Rose"
  • The Police's "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around."
  • The Scottish singer/songwriter Malcolm Middleton debuted with an album called '5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine'. It also featured a track called 'The Loneliest Night of My Life Came Calling'.
  • Producer and singer/songwriter T Bone Burnett appears to like making long song titles. Notable examples are 'Anything I say can and will be used against you', 'I'm going on a long journey never to return' and 'The strange case of Frank Cash and the morning paper'.

Oh this death
Moment by moment
Darker and darker
Down and down
I feel your cold breath

  • Game Theory's song, "All Clockwork and No Bodily Fluid Makes Hal a Dull Metal Humbert / In Heaven Every Elephant Baby Wants to Be So Full of Sting / Paul Simon in the Park with Canticle / But You Can't Pick Your Friends / Vacuum Genesis / DEFMACROS / HOWSOMETH / INGDOTIME / SALENGTHS / OMETHINGL / ETBFOLLOW / AAFTERNOO / NGETPRESE / NTMOMENTI / FTHINGSWO / NTALWAYSB / ETHISWAYT / BCACAUSEA / BWASTEAFT / ERNOONWHE / NEQBMERET / URNFROMSH / OWLITTLEG / REENPLACE / 27", off their album, Lolita Nation, is one of the longetst song titles of all time.
  • A song by a band called Naikaku, has a song called "I found a deep dark hole and I am going to jump in ! There will be no proof of my existence in this dark abyss. No - one will find me here ! I have to compensate for being born by the redemption of my life into death. I will become a commendable entity and stop all the senseless butchery and useless cruelty I have inflicted onto other souls. Right from the start we only live in the "now". But if we even stop to think of the here and now, it has already become the past in a twinkling of a moment. In turn, the future is pushing against the now and this whole perception as we know it soon becomes the past. To try and verify the moment of "Life" is an impossible task. When trying to prove life, it becomes a past existence in which there are too many memories. All in all, in the end life and death are exactly the same. So I am going to follow my dream and dive into my chosen fate !" ...Those are not lyrics, the song is an instrumental.
  • Jethro Tull have "Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day", "One White Duck/0¹⁰=Nothing At All", "Too Old To Rock'n Roll, Too Young To Die", "From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser", "Gold Tipped Boots, Black Jacket And Tie" and "..And The Mouse Police Never Sleeps".
  • From the Star Wars Christmas album, and also released separately: "What Can You Get A Wookiee For Christmas (When He Already Owns A Comb?)"
  • Giraffes? Giraffes! have one called "...And Then She Look'd Down and Saw Miniature Houses and Miniature People and Inside the Miniature People Were Miniature Hearts Pumping Blood Through Miniature Veins (Her Mouth was Watery and Wet"
    • And another from the same album: "She Looked Up From Examining the Freckles on her Arm and Shouted "Jesus! I'm Fucking God-Damn Tired of all this Make-Up Sex!" And He Just Stared Off."
  • The Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band & Choir unsurprisingly have a few examples, such as the album ""This Is Our Punk Rock", Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing" and tracks like "Brothers! Sisters! Small Boats of Fire are Falling from the Sky" and "I Fed My Metal Bird the Wings of Other Metal Birds"
  • Anathallo has a few long song titles. "Hanasakajijii III: The Man Who Made Dead Trees Bloom". "Don't Kid Yourself, You Need a Physician". "To Gary and Marcus: The Sovereignty of God is Omnipresent". But the one that really takes the cake is, "I Thought in my Heart, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.' But that also proved to be meaningless".
  • The Soup Dragons' album This Is Our Art: Useless, Boring, Impotent, Elitist And Very Very Beautiful. Generally known by the first 4 words, though some would prefer words 5 or 6.
  • ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead is an example of a long band name. Often shortened to just Trail of Dead, though.
  • Brand New:
    • "Good To Know That If I Ever Need Attention All I Have To Do Is Die" (which is a 7 minute song on top of the title)
    • "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows"
    • "I Will Play My Game Beneath The Spin Light"
    • "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't"
    • "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot"
  • "There's Something Not as Valid When the Scenery Is a Postcard" by The Faint, from their album, Media.
  • Queens of the Stone Age have "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire", which is little more than a cool intro song.
  • Everything Else has "Religion Song (Put Away The Gun)".
  • The Spoon B-Side "It Took A Rumor To Make Me Wonder, Now I'm Convinced I'm Going Under". It's also a Non-Appearing Title, and seems to be an unlikely Shout-Out to Bonnie Raitt's "Something To Talk About".
  • "Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking From a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children" by Voltaire. Inspired by a comment from a fan about what Voltaire's music was like.
  • From R.E.M., "How the West Was Won And Where It Got Us", "Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando, and I" and "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)".
  • From U2, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own", "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car" and "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World".
  • "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing In The Shadow" by The Rolling Stones
  • From 65daysofstatic, "I Swallowed Hard, Like I Understood", "Install a Beak in the Heart that Clucks Time in Arabic", "Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here"

Other: Or, examples of long titles in music that either have not yet been sorted into their proper genre, or do not fit into any defined music genre listed on this page.

  • Les Luthiers has La bella y graciosa moza marchóse a lavar la ropa, la mojó en el arroyuelo y cantando la lavó, la mojó sobre una piedra, la colgó de un abedul.
    • Lest we forget one of their more ingenious and memorable works, the Cantata del adelantado Don Rodrigo Díaz de Carreras, de sus hazañas en tierras de Indias, de los singulares acontecimientos en que se vio envuelto, y de cómo se desenvolvió (which could be roughly translated as Cantata about the adelantado Don Rodrigo Díaz de Carreras, about his feats in the land of the Indies, about the unique events in which he got involved, and about the ways in which he untangled himself from them).
    • And every jazz tune has a long title. example: Pepper Clemens sent the messenger nevertheless the reverend left the herd.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars".
  • David Cross' Stand Up Comedy album It's Not Funny has long track titles that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the joke.
    • That's because they're intended to mock the routines of lame comedians.
  • Taku Iwasaki sure had a lot of fun making up titles for the tracks on the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Original Soundtrack. The Team Dai-Gurren rap theme's title is very, very, very long. The Japanese title is "Rappu wa Kan no Tamashii da! Muri o Tōshite Dōri o Kettobasu! Ore-tachi Dai-Guren-dan no Tēma o Mimi no Ana Kappojite Yo~ku Kikiyagare!!". The OST cut of the song adds "(Short Start Edit)" to the end (since the 60 second-ish orchestral opening is cut). This Troper's chosen translation of the title, "Rap is a Man's Soul! We Kick Reason to the Curb to Make the Impossible Possible! Open up Your Ears and Listen to Our Team Dai-Gurren Theme!!", is so long that when used as a filename, "(short start edit)" is cut off at "(short ", and the length of the title caused all sorts of weird bugs to happen to Windows Explorer until he finally cut "(short start edit)" to "(SSE)". Oh, and to make it worse, the most common English translation uses wording that makes the title at least two words longer.
  • The movie musical Royal Wedding has a song titled "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life?"
  • Two Brazilian songs: Zé Ramalho's "Mulher Nova, Bonita e Carinhosa Faz o Homem Gemer Sem Sentir Dor" ("New, young and careful women makes men groan without feeling pain") and Guanabaras' "Preciso Te Ver Urgentemente Pois Se Eu Não Te Ver Urgentemente Logo, Logo Vou Enlouquecer" ("I need to see you urgently because if I don't see you urgently soon, soon I'll get mad").
  • Lonnie Donegan, "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?"
  • A borderline example is Tom Lehrer's Lobachevsky, where the title of the song is just the character's name, but it mentions that his first original paper was on Analytical Algebraic Topology of a Locally Euclidean Metricization of an Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifold. This is a joke, of course: Riemannian geometry was developed quite a bit later after the Lobachevsky's paper had been published. According to Wikipedia, the Lobachevsky's paper was called A concise outline of the foundations of geometry - which, while not outrageous, still qualifies for this trope.
  • Experimental Post-Punk Psychadelic Industrial musician Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots and The Tear Garden does these from time to time. Notable examples are the LPD album Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves, The Tear Garden album To Be An Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide, and the solo album Down in the City of Heartbreak and Needles.
  • IOSYS has a few among their Touhou Project remixes, which only get longer as the songs are themselves remixed, but the prize goes to the Nico Nico Douga parody "[Ensou Shite Mita] Kanbu no Dekiru Oyome ni Taihen na Taiyou Kitare, Perfect Gumin-domo! [Prismriver]" ("[Singing Attempt] The Brides that Queue Up the Affected Area are Impending the Precious Sun, Perfect Ignorant Fools! [Prismriver]"), a medley of several of their most popular songs.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has two, related songs with long titles. Both are usually just called "Rap is a Man's Soul!" The full names are "Rap is a man's soul! Now Open Your Ears Wide And Listen To The Mighty Team Dai-Gurren's Theme!" Which is played in Parallel Works 1, and another song where "Team Dai-Gurren" is replaced with "Kamina." It is the remix played in the bathhouse and for Parallel Works 5.
  • This is Howlin' Wolf's new album. He doesn't like it. He didn't like his electric guitar at first either.
  • Inspired by the play Marat/Sade (see theatre section), Lalo Schifrin released an album titled The Dissection and Reconstruction of Music from the Past as Performed by the Inmates of Lalo Schifrin's Demented Ensemble as a Tribute to the Memory of the Marquis de Sade.
  • So, so many of Charles Mingus's pieces, like "All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother."
  • Speaking of jazz, (Rahsaan) Roland Kirk was known to employ this trope. Favorite example: "The Ragman and the Junkman Ran from the Businessman They Laughed and He Cried."
  • Some indie bands take it past long song titles by having long band names, such as "Somebody Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin."
  • Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays' As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, both a song and an album from 1980.
  • Arizonian industrial group The Strand's third album is titled Destroyers of That Which is Destroyed and Rulers of That Which is Not Destroyed!
  • Harold Barlow is probably best remembered (if he's remembered at all anymore) for "I've Got Tears in My Ears from Lyin' on My Back in My Bed While I Cry Over You"
  • The Swedish 18th century songwriter Carl Michael Bellman has some rather long titles, although it can sometimes be argued that what is written above the actual body of the song is not so much a title as a description or dedication — for example Fredmans epistel n:o 21. Varutinnan han 1:o avmålar natten med dess nöjen, 2:o tycks liksom för ögonen ställa ett slags aequlibrium emellan vinets och kärlekens styrka, men omsider ljusligen uppenbarar övervikten (Fredman's epistle number 21, in which he primo depicts the night with its pleasures, secundo appears to visualise a kind of æquilibrium of the respective strengths of wine and women, before the domination is eventually clearly revealed). However in the case of Fredmans sång n:o 54: Om handlingarna rörande Bacchi konkurs 8. Rådsturättens voteringsprotokoll och slutliga utslag i konkurstvisten emellan Bacchus och dess borgenärer (Fredman's song number 54, on the documentation of Bacchus's bankruptcy 8: Voting protocol and final verdict of the county court in the case of Bacchus vs. its creditors) it is clear that this really is the title.
  • Everything Goes Cold has a couple: "I've Sold Your Organs on the Black Market to Finance the Purchase of a Used Minivan" and "I Will Harness the Powers of Darkness to Destroy You". Both songs have remixes, adding respectively "I Don't Want Those Organs If There's Cancer In Them Mix" and "Because You Made Me Title This Mix".
  • The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • Stereophonic Musical Listenings That Have Been Origin in Moving Film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan", the soundtrack to Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
  • The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, a spoken word album by Alan Moore.
  • From Bloodhound Gang, "The Inevitable Return Of The Great White Dope", "A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying", "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks" and "Lift Your Head Up High (And Blow Your Brains Out)"

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  1. This is the title of the single, but not the title of any of the songs on the record.