"If you're conscious of the length of a traditional song, the singer has failed."
Says everything to me
A three verse song badly sung is is two verse too long - boring
The longest ballad you can name, well sung is not long enough - riveting
Our literary classics - Dickens - Hardy, Mrs Gaskell - boring?
not to me - I enjoyed reading all of them and was sorry when they ended.
Walter Pardon once summed up the length of songs in his inimitable brilliant "simple countryman" (as a folkie one described him) way
Talking about his version of Van Dieman's land, he said, "It's a long old song, but it was a long old journey" - a perfect description of a good singer at ease with his art
Those who judge songs by their length need to ask if the problem doesn't lie with them rather than the songs
Jim Carroll