Songs where the artist helpfully keeps a running tally of how much time the song (either in realtime or "storytime") has until its completion

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Johnny Cash- 25 Minutes To Go
The Ramones- I Wanna Be Sedated
Mark Owen- Four Minute Warning

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

Spiritualized - 200 bars

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

Wire - 106 beats that.

Hah. Beat you to it!

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)

De La Soul - Plug Tuning (we got two minutes) (or something like that)

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:34 (twenty years ago)

I can think of songs where stuff is counted or kept track of, but they are not quite within the framework of this thread.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

Todd Rundgren - Chain Letter doesn't count down, but it describes (sometimes erroneously) how far along it it's gotten.

― W i l l (common_person), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Edwin Starr "25 Miles" sorta works.

― Trip Maker (Sean Witzman), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

Pulp - The Countdown

― LSTD (answer) (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

Ghostface, "Beat the Clock"

― What's this place, Biblevania? (natepatrin), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Blackalicious, "A to G" (sometimes "A to Z")

― Haibun (Begs2Differ), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

Mr. Bungle, "Pink Cigarette".

...it's just two hours left until you will find me dead...it's just one hour left until you will find me dead...it's justBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

the fall - "music scene" keeps time from the beginning, not until the end. that sorta counts...

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

"six minutes!"

― LSTD (answer) (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

Only one I know offhand is The Fall's "Music Scene", in which the engineer or somebody helpfully yells out "Six minutes!", "Six thirty!" etc. as those milestones are reached.

I know there's a song in which a bandmember asks "Was that X minutes?" at the song's end, but can't recall it right now. It'll come to me...Oh! I remember - it's from the first (only?) Zitro album, 1967, a free-jazz miniature apparently made up on the spot to fatten a 13-minute LP side.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)

(oops, X-post...)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:39 (twenty years ago)

Felt, "Ballad of the Band" - Lawrence says "last time now" just before the final verse. I think this counts because the verses are all so clearly timed that the listener now knows exactly how much time is left.

And "Apollo 9" by Adam Ant counts down from 10 til the end.

― darren (darren), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 18:03 (twenty years ago)

Correction - I've just realised that the Adam song only goes from 10 down to 5 ! So it is not exactly an accurate way of telling how long to go. Durh !

― darren (darren), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 18:04 (twenty years ago)

new order did this with "temptation" a couple of times. i'm sure the (fucking awesome) proto-version on taras unspellable ends with him saying "and it's going to end ... here". except it doesn't. he walks off, feedback wails, the sequencers grind on, and the world shudders imperceptibly. god damn, i love that song.

there's also at least one "official" live recording with "oh it's the last verse" ... although, umm, it's a chorus, surely? anyway, that's barney for you.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 18:22 (twenty years ago)

The Rheostatics - 4 Little Songs keeps track of the number songs left. And like good little programmers they include 0.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 18:41 (twenty years ago)

Terence Trent D'Arby's "Rain" begins to do so, but doesn't complete the task (I think he would have needed 23 verses to do so).

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:11 (twenty years ago)

So Solid Crew - "21 Seconds"

― Brian Miller (Brian Miller), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:40 (twenty years ago)

Ollie Halsey & John Halsey - Bum Love (on the Miniatures LP).

― emil.y (emil.y), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 14:30 (twenty years ago)

I was going to add that one. But I thought it too obscure. Hey I'm new around here.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

The funny thing with "Four Minute Warning" is that on the album version the song really goes for four minutes and the "N minutes left to go" bits sort of line up. But since nobody bought the album, everyone only knows the single edit, which does not actually go for four minutes, throwing the timing out.

Pulp - The Countdown

I'm surely not misremembering this, but where in this song is there any actual counting down? Beyond the first line of the song ("Oh, I was seventeen when I heard the countdown start"), what is there?

― edward o (edwardo), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

Oh, and I got the names wrong. Ollie Halsall, I think.

― emil.y (emil.y), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 14:48 (twenty years ago)

"Factory" by People In Stores from the Propeller 7" (1981). From memory here, the song details a day's work in a factory. I believe he counts down to the end of the song (10, 9, 8, 7 ...) which is when he punches out of work ("Punch out! Punch out! For God's sake punch out!" is the last line).

― zaxxon25 (zaxxon25), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 16:59 (twenty years ago)

Pretty sure Arlo Guthrie does this in Alice's Restaurant...

― cdwill, Wednesday, 5 January 2005 18:36 (twenty years ago)

Canibus - "100 Bars"

― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 19:21 (twenty years ago)

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