Anyway, you are dead right about timings.

Sometimes the timings shown on releases were way off - often to persuade DJs (in the days when DJs got to pick what they played), that the next item was only 1.59 when it was in fact 2.59. I do not know how many times I got caught efore a news break with a single which should be just fading out as the news jingle started, but had instead, just reached its climax.

Oh how I cursed "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" whose label read 3.05 when the song actually lasted 3.50! I cursed it even more when the label PR guy said - "ooops - did we say 3.05? Sorry - we really meant 3.50".

Very funny.

And how I applauded when Billy Joel, who was aware of the "fraud" which bad been perpetrated, penned his own song "The Entertainer" to contain the line "If you're gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05."

But my favourite record was "26 Second Song" by Shel Silverstein, the entire lyrics of which read:

"All the DJ's keep complaining,
Tunes run much too long.
So I've gone and wrote myself,
A 26 second song".

But it ran for 24 seconds so the joke was that instead of being longer than it claimed on the label, it was slightly shorter! So you ended up with 2 seconds dead air, which to you is 2 seconds but to a DJ is an eternity.

Oh silly days. But great days.

• RE: The Dartells - Hot Pastrami - Stereo 1963 - John 01/29/2015 21:06:57 EST (0)