What is the longest note held on a song?
I’ve written before about how songs make for terrible alarm clocks. In that desperately tired slumber, your favourite songs don’t in fact invigorate you with excitement. Instead, they irritate and interrupt what was an otherwise peaceful dreamstate.
I know this because I learned the hard way. In what was a typical adolescent sleepover, I crashed up into a ball on an undersized sofa, slightly hungover from the night before when Bill Withers’ ‘Lovely Day’ started ringing out. Forgetting to remove his alarm from Saturday mornings, the song continued on, not waking my friend up. I, in a half-asleep daze, couldn’t figure out what the noise was, until Withers’ famously long vocal note in the reprise played out.
In that state, it genuinely felt like it went on forever, as I lay thinking, “Is this guy ever going to turn his alarm off?” It’s a memory that has stuck with me ever since, and while it provides a laugh on every telling of it, it’s an experience that has ultimately ruined the song for me. Forever.
Nevertheless, it’s an iconic moment in musical history that continues to cement Withers’ voice as one of the greatest of all time. It soars into the distance, like the sun that rises in the story he tells and marvels with equal measure. Because, as I learned the hard way, it is an impressively long note hold. Yes, it felt like years in my sleepstate, but in reality, it was a lengthy 18 seconds. They may sound meagre, but just try holding a note for that length and you’ll soon realise just how impressive that is.
But when it comes to the record books, Withers’ effort doesn’t even come close to the champion. Although I don’t think his intention was to gain the recognition of the Guinness World Record books.
So, who holds the record for the longest held vocal note?
Well, coming in at over double Withers’ effort, is Tee Green, who held a vocal note for 39 seconds on his 2011 track ‘Everything Must Change’. It beat a record that stood for 29 years as it checked in just three seconds longer than American singer Melba Moore’s 36-second note which came at the end of ‘The Other Side of the Rainbow’, which was released in 1982.
“I’ve been singing long notes for years as a party trick and have used this skill many times at charity events to help raise money,” said Green, who confirmed that off-record, he had managed to hold a note for a whole 48 seconds. “When I sing I always give it everything I have at that time, but I recover quite quickly as I’m a vocal coach so I’m normally fit enough for a few more goes if needed. However, I usually feel the effects the next day so I remain silent for as long as possible.”
But Green’s record doesn’t come from his own original song. ‘Everything Must Change’ was actually written by Ighner for Quincy Jones’ 1974 album Body Heat and was then covered by George Benson, Judy Collins, Randy Crawford, Nina Simone and Barbra Streisand, as well as Green. But obviously, the note that comes in at 5 minutes 12 seconds was Green’s chance to provide his own stamp on the track.
