Tattie Bogle wrote: And, on a personal note, I'm afraid long songs have the same effect on me as long story-telling - deep slumber!

And yet, the Iliad and the Odyssey are still around, and were the basic texts of Greek culture, and for a long time survived orally. And, to take something more recent and English, the romance of Sir Orfeo -- which is the equivalent of 151 verses long -- exists in three versions that are sufficiently different to prove oral transmission but that are sufficiently similar to prove that people were trying to maintain the text.

That's not to disagree with you entirely; I too have a tendency to get lost in a long song if I don't know what I'm supposed to listen for. But there is, I think, an art to this: A really good performer can catch you up in a long song. My guess is that we aren't teaching that "art" any more, because people have becomes used to short songs.

Which perhaps is a lesson in technology: Everyone got used to listening to music on 78s, and when the length restriction was lifted, people didn't go back.