50 Great Songs Under 2 Minutes Long

I had so much fun last week doing my list of 50 Great Songs Over 7 Minutes Long That Didn’t Make Rolling Stone’s List that I figured I would do a sequel.

Caveats: for better and worse, this list wasn’t created by a group of people sitting in a room, but rather just one guy using his iTunes. It’s probably too short on hardcore and too long on funny songs. However, when putting it together, it struck me that wittiness is a factor in a great short song in the same way that groove is a factor in a great long song.

This time, I narrowed it down to a single song per artist. Some of these are even the best song that artist ever did! And like last time, it’s alphabetical by artist.

50 Great Songs Under 2 Minutes Long

1. The Apples in Stereo – She’s Telling Lies
2. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
3. The Breeders – New Year
4. Buzzcocks – Oh Shit!
5. The Byrds – Old John Robertson
6. Camper Van Beethoven – Abundance
7. The Cat Heads – Hubba Part 1
8. Cheap Trick – Hello There
9. The Clash – White Riot (U.K. Single)
10. Elvis Costello – Mystery Dance
11. Cowboy Junkies – Mining For Gold
12. Bo Diddley – Gun Slinger
13. Bob Dylan & The Band – Odds and Ends
14. Dave Edmunds – What Did I Do Last Night?
15. Elastica – Vaseline
16. The English Beat – Click Click
17. Guided by Voices – Hardcore UFOs
18. Robyn Hitchcock – Uncorrected Personality Traits
19. Hüsker Dü – Actual Condition
20. ISM – Nixon Now More Than Ever
21. The Jam – But I’m Different Now
22. Lemonheads – Bit Part
23. Magnetic Fields – Reno Dakota
24. Masters Of Reality – Madonna
25. Moby Grape – Truly Fine Citizen
26. Monty Python’s Flying Circus – Bruce’s Philosophers Song
27. Mystery Science Theater 3000 – Love Theme From Mystery Science Theater 3000
28. Nirvana – Molly’s Lips
29. Pavement – Debris Slide
30. Pixies – Distance Equals Rate Times Time< /li>
31. Elvis Presley – All Shook Up
32. Queen – Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll
33. R.E.M. – Windout
34. Ramones – Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue (Live)
35. Rancid – Indestructible
36. The Replacements – Wake Up
37. The Rolling Stones – One More Try</li>
38. Simon & Garfunkel – The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
39. The Simpsons – The Monorail Song
40. The Smiths – Please Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want
41. South Park – Uncle Fucka
42. Tenacious D – Dio
43. They Might Be Giants – We’re The Replacements
44. Too Much Joy – Train in Vain
45. Van Halen – Eruption
46. The Vaselines – Monsterpussy
47. Violent Femmes – Old Mother Reagan
48. The Waterboys – Spirit
49. The White Stripes – Fell in Love With a Girl
50. X – We’re Desperate

Next week: 50 Great Songs Between 3:00 and 3:30!!