The Longest Rock Song Ever Recorded Is A 1972 Prog-Rock Epic

Rock music began in the middle of the 20th century, and yet after seven decades of innumerable output, the longest rock song ever recorded remains a progressive rock epic from 1972. Several rock artists of the '70s produced epically long songs worth listening to, such as Rush and the Grateful Dead, but the longest rock song goes to Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick." With over 50 years for another rock band to come along and dethrone them, Jethro Tull remains the king.

Rock music has always been experimental, and the '70s scene was as fluid and creative as any other era. But this was an age of vinyl records and 8-track tapes, when people still had the attention spans long enough to listen through an entire side of an LP. Today, we can skip songs or switch entire albums with the click of a button, and perhaps that has something to do with why the longest classic rock songs seem like part of a musical era of yesteryear. Or, maybe, rock bands capable of producing epically long musical stories are just exceedingly rare. Whichever the case may be, this Jethro Tull song is truly a wonder.

Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" is a single track that takes up both sides of a vinyl album. Indeed, it's the entire album, and while it's broken up into two tracks, this is only because one side of the physical media couldn't hold the entire, nearly 44-minute-long prog-rock song.

A lot of epically long songs go unlistened to in their entirety. They lull or get experimentally weird in a way that is more art than music, and not everyone has a taste for such work. "Thick as a Brick" is different, though. It's one of the few that was embraced and lifted up by the mainstream, which is illustrated by the song taking the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart in June of 1972, only three months after the band released it.

The song is a satirical piece that blends humor with technical musical talent, meant to kind of poke fun at other prog bands on the scene. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson even told Ultimate Classic Rock, "I was going to out-prog them, really." And he did: This prog-rock masterpiece has gone down in history as the longest rock song ever recorded.