Songs with long intros before the vocals start

"Where The Streets Have No Name" - U2

 

Supergrass - Tales of Endurance (Parts 4, 5 & 6)

 

"Halo of Flies" - Alice Cooper

 

Genesis - Dancing With The Moonlit Knight

 

Neil Young -Cortez The Killer. .3m. 23sec before first verse. ( What a song though!)

 

"Living In the Past" by Jethro Tull seemed to have a very long intro for its time, at least for a single on the AM side of the dial.
I remember having that thought when the song was a big US single in late 1972-early 1973.

Looking through earlier posts, I see "Colour My World" and "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" fall in about the same timeframe. I do remember thinking "Colour My World" had a long intro back in the day. I don't remember hearing "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" on the radio back then; the stations my family played in the house at that time didn't play that song.

I realize that album versions of tracks have much longer intros. Many of the earlier posts also mention songs that would only have been played on FM stations, which I didn't start listening to until about 1980.

 

How so? The song starts with Gabriel's vocal. Maybe you are joking?

 

Well done, Columbo!

 

Zooropa - U2
One - Metallica

 

Probably a dozen or so Sonic Youth songs.

 

"Turn Me Loose," Loverboy
"I Love You," People
"Cowgirl in the Sand," Neil Young & Crazy Horse
"Nothing Else Matters," Metallica
"Green Grass and High Tides," Outlaws

 

"Not Because You Can" - Game Theory

 

Make those doughnuts with extra grease.......

 

Motors "Dancing the Night Away" - vocals kick in two minutes in after a great intro.

 

Mickey Jones in full-Garcia mode:

I don't know if they even get to the words "You make me wanna run and screw my head into the ground..."

 

Woman In Chains - Tears For Fears

Vocal starts at the one-minute mark and there's barely anything going on in that minute. Hard to believe it was a single.

 

Pink Floyd - Welcome To The Machine/Time/Money
Queen - '39
Led Zeppelin - In The Light

 

I think this is the longest and one of the beast I know of, Versailles - "Faith and Decision", almost 7 minutes.



The intro is my favorite part.

 

Song For America's a longer intro than that, surely?

 

Barclay James Harvest - Beyond the Grave
Ruphus - Love Is My Light

 

Some of you people have really weird ideas about constitutes a "long" intro.... (either that or you're just really impatient).....

 

Janis Joplin - As Good as You've Been to This World

 

David Crosby - What Are Their Names

 

Dan Fogelberg - 'These Days'