The Shortest No. 1 Hits Of The '70s Are Proof That Less Is More

Many classic hits of the 1970s got all the way to No. 1 on the pop chart with relatively very little material — rock bands and solo acts didn't need more than a couple of minutes of run time to make a best-selling smash. The 1970s is the age associated with the longest songs ever recorded; epic, multi-part hard rock sagas like Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and Don McLean's "American Pie" went on and on. But what casual music buyers and radio listeners really wanted was the short stuff. In the '70s, songs that got in there and got out in well under three minutes was not only common but the prevailing method of pop craftsmanship.

However, they're all over so very quickly. Five of the best-known, chart-topping songs of the 1970s all boast official running times of two minutes and 30 seconds or less. Here are the most minimalist, time-efficient classic hits of the '70s — the decade's briefest No. 1 hits.

Released in December 1972, the disaster movie "The Poseidon Adventure" earned $93 million at the domestic box office. That made for a massive potential audience for the film's bittersweet, sweeping, and inspiring theme song "The Morning After," as performed by soundtrack specialist Maureen McGovern, but it wasn't a hit at all, at least not at first. After "The Morning After" won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song, the masses got interested in re-living the action of the harrowing film by playing its prominent song on their home record players. The Oscars took place in March, the single entered the Hot 100 in late June, and in early August, "The Morning After" spent two weeks in the No. 1 position.

McGovern and songwriters Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn required only a handful of musical moments to capture the essence of "The Poseidon Adventure." With a length of two minutes and 14 seconds, per the 45's label, "The Morning After" is the shortest song to reach No. 1 within the 1970s.

What fans might not know about Hall and Oates is that the rock-soul duo that dominated the pop chart in the late '70s and 1980s struggled to break through commercially for years. In 1977, the act officially known as Daryl Hall and John Oates hit No. 1 for the first time with a single from its sixth studio album, "Bigger Than the Both of Us." That song, "Rich Girl," may sound catchy and sweet and showcases the vocal interplay of Hall and Oates and a string section, but lyrically, it's a savage diss track. Hall's girlfriend once dated a guy who lived off of his father's wealth earned in restaurants; Hall flipped the gender and came up with "Rich Girl." 

Hall and Oates didn't need to blast the subject with a litany of complaints — they just wanted to call out a person for acting spoiled, obnoxious, and entitled. They didn't need a lot of time to do it, either. According to the 45 released in 1976, "Rich Girl" clocks in at two minutes and 23 seconds.

Jim Croce would belabor the point, or run the risk of not fully getting his intended meaning of the song across, if "Time in a Bottle" were a longer song. A deeply bittersweet track about the cruelty of the passage of time, the singer-songwriter delivers a painful message about how he wishes he could slow down or save his moments with his beloved so that they might go on forever. But alas, time is fleeting, and so is "Time in a Bottle." It finishes on a message about how his life is so pleasant that even endless time wouldn't be enough to enjoy it all to its fullest.

The observations and morals of "Time in a Bottle" are all the more poignant and heartbreaking by the fact that Croce died shortly after recording the song. "Time in a Bottle" peaked at No. 1 in December 1973, two months after the 30-year-old musician died in a plane crash. "Time in a Bottle" bottled up a mere two minutes and 24 seconds to make its point.

Folk singer Melanie wasn't too well known before she took the stage at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, an iconic moment that changed rock history forever in August 1969. Performing in front of about 400,000 people can create an instant star, however, and in the early 1970s, the singer-songwriter-guitarist began sending her straightforward and earnest tunes up the charts. Melanie landed in the No. 1 spot only once, and in late 1971 with "Brand New Key." The song, featuring Melanie reaching for and nailing a bunch of high notes with minimal musical accompaniment, spent three weeks in the top position.

Full of fairly obvious symbolism — the narrator's roller skates and another's key to make them function hint at a sexual awakening — it took Melanie just 15 minutes to write "Brand New Key." That's a very effective use of time, because the finished product is equally shockingly short. "Brand New Key" occupied just two minutes and 26 seconds of vinyl in its original release.

For the first time since rock 'n' roll became the dominant musical genre in the U.S., a cover of a previous No. 1 single became a No. 1 hit itself. Popularized by crooner Steve Lawrence in 1963, "Go Away Little Girl" was a smash all over again in 1971 for Donny Osmond, the youngest member and breakout star of the family act the Osmonds. Earlier that year, the Osmonds scored a No. 1 single with "One Bad Apple," and Donny earned so much press that handlers engineered a solo career, having the then-13-year-old cut a poppier version of "Go Away Little Girl," a very adolescent song about not giving in to urges and advances and attempting to remain chaste.

The tune rattled through its protagonist's many issues and protests quickly, and in September 1971, "Go Away Little Girl" began a three-week stay at No. 1. Osmond's recording of it lasts all of two minutes and 30 seconds.