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Mastropiero, as it was the habit, named his madrigal after the first verse of the poem, calling it Ye Beautiful and Graceful Maiden Went To Do Her Laundry but the lengthiness of this title seemed inadequate, so he renamed his madrigal as Ye Beautiful and Graceful Maiden Went To Do Her Laundry, She Clean'd In Ye Creek, And Wash'd As She Sang, Rubb'd Against A Rock, Hang'd It From A Birch and Les Luthiers has the pleasure to play tonight Johann Sebastian Mastropiero's Ye Beautiful and Graceful Maiden... mumble ...Hang'd It From A Birch
—Les Luthiers in La Bella y Graciosa Moza Routine
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Or TTWSBFOSHRLAGUTWIMTIUUFCEAOTTIIETIMMWIAPTHAOLTTITCOTTIBUIAISDW for short.
Exactly what it sounds like: Something with a very long name.
Differs from In Which a Trope Is Described by being only about names; differs from Exactly What It Says on the Tin by not being required to be accurate. Sometimes uses colons extensively (but see also Short Title Long Elaborate Subtitle). See Overly Long Name for when this applies to characters.
It is worth noting that in the 18th and 19th centuries, titles were used to interest people in a particular book, in the same way back-side blurbs are today.
The diametric opposite of No Title. See Try to Fit That on A Business Card and Overly Long Name for when this applies to characters. See also Colon Cancer.
Not to be confused with Long Titles vs. Short Titles and Short Titles.
An incomplete but ever-expanding listing of instances where this title trope has been applied in various media, as relentlessly compiled by The Contributors to TV Tropes (Wiki):[]
Comic Books: Or, Short stories printed on paper told through a mixture of sequential images and bubbles containing text, indicating what the characters are saying, thinking, and occasionally doing.[]
- The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael (And The Dead Left In His Wake)
- The second volume of James Stokoe's comedy Sci-fi series called Wonton Soup 2: Hyper Wonton Soup 2 Twoton soup: The Quickening 2 ... Soup.
- Action Comics issue 775 has the Superman story "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?".
Film: Or, A most intriguing series of celluloid photographs, documenting a theatrical work for all posterity, projected upon a silvered screen in a grand auditorium by means of a powerful beam of light; in addition, an analogous method that does away with the celluloid stock and achieves same by means of a rather complex series of ciphers unscrambled and transcribed by miniature calculating engines[]
- Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D.
- Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Zombified Living Dead, Part 3
- The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?.
- Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.
- Monty Python's And Now for Something Completely Different
- Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
- Many titles of the movies by Italian director Lina Wertmuller
- Many LifeTime movies, especially when they overlap with Colon Cancer
- Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?
- The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford.
- Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack.
- Godzilla, Mothra, Mecha Godzilla: Tokyo SOS
- The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain.
- The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused Loving Musical Gifted Intelligent Beautiful Tender Sensitive Haunted Passionate Talented Mr. Ripley
- The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres, which spawned the soundtrack album The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres Colon The Soundtrack, and the home video release The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres Colon For DVD.
- Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Jagshemash!
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension
- The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent
- Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth.
- The working title for Scary Movie was Last Summer I Screamed Because Halloween Fell on Friday the 13th
- Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire. Part of the problem is that a movie called Push had been released earlier in the year, so they had to come up with a new name for The Film of the Book to avoid confusion.
- The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon
- Belgian short How To Enrich Yourself By Driving Women Into Emotional And Financial Bankruptcy
- Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?
- I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney.
- After the War, You Have to Tell Everyone About the Dutch Gay Resistance Fighters Yes, you do. You certainly do.
- THE E.T. OF VAGINA: ONE SETTLES OF THE OTHER WORLD Or Specially Terrestrian: The extraterrestrial one
The Cinema Snob: That's even too fucking long for a TAGLINE! |
- Frequently seen in the titles of Japanese porno movies (adult videos, or AVs): one example is I Who Throughout My School Years Have Had So Little Experience Romantically – To My Home, Now Have At Least a Few Young Ladies Coming to Enjoy A Vs With Me – Upon Watching Erotic Scenes, Start to Get Restless and Cheeks Turning Red, Obviously Getting So Wet Throughout the Panties and With Many Embarrassing Stains!
- To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
- Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
- The Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck, also released under several shorter titles
- After the War, You Have to Tell Everyone About the Gay Dutch Resistance Fighters
- Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines--or, How I Flew From London To Paris in 25 Hours And 11 Minutes
- Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)
- Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution
- Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
- Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
Literature: Or, Written manuscripts, often from a bygone time when the usage of In Which A Trope Is Described was more common or dealing with technical subjects that must be stated precisely[]
- Jonathan Swift liked this trope:
- Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships. Nowadays called Gulliver's Travels.
- A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick.
- An argument to prove that the abolishing of Christianity in England may, as things now stand, be attended with some inconveniences, and perhaps not produce those many good effects proposed thereby.
- Daniel Defoe:
- The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who Lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been Cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself with An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates., by Daniel Defoe.
- The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.
- How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare, robbed a grave, made a new friend who might not have really been there at all, and while he was at it committed a terrible sin which everyone was doing even though he didn't know it.
- John Hodgman
- An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by myself, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in The Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical, Matters Literary, Matters Cryptozoological, Hobo Matters, Food, Drink & Cheese (a Kind of Food), Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels, Haircuts, Utopia, What Will Happen in the Future, and Most Other Subjects
- For your Consideration, The Firms of Dutton & Riverhead Books of New York City, Publishers of Ken Follett, Darin Strauss, David Rees, and the RZA, Present in the English Language: A Further Compendium of Complete World Knowledge in "The Areas of My Expertise" Assembled and Illumined by Me, John Hodgman, A Famous Minor Television Personality* , Offering More Information Than You Require On subjects as Diverse As: The Past (As There Is Always More of it), The Future (As There is Still Some Left), All of the Presidents of the United States, The Secrets of Hollywood, Gambling, The Sport of the Asthmatic Man (Including Hermit-Crab Racing), Strange Encounters with Aliens, How to Buy a Computer, How to Cook an Owl, And Most Other Subjects, Plus: Answers To Your Questions Posed via Electronic Mail, And: 700 Mole-Man Names, Including Their Occupations.
* "Formerly a Former Professional Literary Agent and Professional Writer, AKA "The Deranged Millionaire"
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the same writer of One Hundred Years of Solitude, also wrote The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor: Who Drifted on a Liferaft for Ten Days Without Food or Water, Was Proclaimed a National Hero, Kissed by Beauty Queens, Made Rich Through Publicity, and Then Spurned by the Government and Forgotten for All Time.
- On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, also known as The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
- Neil Gaiman
- The short story "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House in the Night of Dread Desire." This is the short title.
- Good Omens is more fully called (according to a title page) Good Omens, A Narrative of Certain Events occurring in the Last Eleven Days of Human History, in Strict Accordance as shall be shewn with: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Compiled and Edited, with Footnotes of an Educational Nature and Precepts for the Wise, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
- Sometimes used in poetry to make a title that's longer than the work it's describing.
- The Kenneth Patchen poem "The Murder of Two Men by a Young Kid Wearing Lemon Colored Gloves" consists entirely of two unique words: wait and now.
- An Ode to the Antiquity of Fleas:
Adam had'em. |
- E. V. Rieu wrote a series of poems with titles like "Meditations of a Tortoise Dozing under a Rosetree at Noon while a Dog scampers about and a Cuckoo calls from a distant Wood" and "Soliloquy of a Tortoise on Revisiting the Lettuce Beds after an interval of one Hour while supposed to be sleeping in a clump of blue Hollyhocks"; in each case, the title is longer than the actual poem.
- Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)
- Two books later, when Harold recalls the events of that book, George asks "You meant the one with the annoyingly long title?"
- "An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future Improvement of Society with remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers." by Thomas Malthus.
- "The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams", one of the first English novels.
- "A table alphabeticall conteyning and teaching the true writing, and vnderstanding of hard vsuall English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French, &c. With the interpretation thereof by plaine English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of ladies, gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons. Whereby they may the more easilie and better vnderstand many hard English wordes, vvhich they shall heare or read in scriptures, sermons, or elswhere, and also be made able to vse the same aptly themselues", the first English dictionary.
- Doe not calle up Any wordes whyche ye cannot putte downe in readable prose, lest Yogge-Sothoth drye yr inke in the pen, & eate yr face.
- As the full title is some 6,931 words (42521 characters) long, Marienbad My Love shall simply be referred to by its "condensed title".
- The full title of Michael Ende's novel Momo, in the original German, is MOMO oder Die seltsame Geschichte von den Zeit-Dieben und von dem Kind, das den Menschen die gestohlene Zeit zurückbrachte (Momo, or the Strange Story of the Time-Thieves and of the Child Who Brought Back the Stolen Time to Humanity).
- Not quite as long, but with something of a record for the longest word in a book title: Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch, translated into English as The Night of Wishes: or, The Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion.
- Immanuel Kant's guidebook to his own Critique of Pure Reason is called Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that Will Be Able to Present Itself as Science (Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können).
- Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death by Kurt Vonnegut, a fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much), who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, "The Florence of the Elbe," a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace.
- Henry Darger (1892-1973) was a reclusive artist who'd been brought up in an institution for the "feeble-minded." Upon his death in 1973, his apartment was being cleared out. Among all the clutter, there was found Darger's lifework; diaries, scrapbooks, and a manuscript, fifty years in the making, 15,145 pages long, with hundreds of illustrations. The title was The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion.
- David Moser's "This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself," a story made of self-referential sentences. And sentence fragments.
- Thomas Percival's A Father's Instructions; Consisting of Moral Tales, Fables, and Reflections; Designed to Promote The Love of Virtue, a Taste for Knowledge, And an Early Acquaintance with the Works of Nature.
- D. G. Compton wrote a science fiction novel succinctly titled Chronocules (sic). However, his British publisher didn't think the title was memorable enough and renamed it Hot Wireless Sets, Aspirin Tablets, the Sandpaper Sides of Used Matchboxes, and Something that Might have Been Castor Oil.
- Though not nearly as extreme as most of these examples, John O'Farrell's An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: or 2000 years of Upper-Class Idiots In Charge has to qualify.
- Adam Smith's "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"
- Dealing, or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues by Michael Crichton and Douglas Crichton.
- Everyone should be at least familiar with Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Ozymandias best known for the lines, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Less familiar is the fact that Shelley wrote it as something of a competition with a frend of his, Horace Smith. Smith's poem, on the same subject, was printed in the next month's issue of the magazine in which Shelley's was, and initially also titled Ozymandias. However after that initial publication, Smith decided to rename it to On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below. Note that at 20 words, the title is just over 1/5 the length of the 99-word poem itself. (Title aside, it's a pretty good poem.)
- The full title for Robert Lewis Stevenson's novel Kidnapped is Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away, his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson.
- Hungarian writer István Örkény's "One minute stories" parodies this in one of its stories, consisting of a hilariously long title and a two-word sentence.
- Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity by IT entrepreneur and blogger Joel Spolsky.
- The Coyote Kings Of The Space Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust.
- Samuel Delany's Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones. (For the curious, those semi-precious stones are used by the underworld as a sort of universal codeword. The stone is changed periodically - hence the name.)
- The Mage plays this one for laughs; a part of the book has nothing but titles (some several pages long) for chapters.
- James Hogg's "The Private Memoirs and Confessions of A Justified Sinner: Written by Himself. With a detail of curious traditionary facts and other evidence by the editor."
- The best-known French Book of Shadows, the Encyclopedia, sported the title "Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des science, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres.".
- The first truly American cookbook (i.e., containing original American recipes, in contrast to earlier cookbooks which, though published in the United States, were either reprints or adapted versions of European cookbooks), published in 1796, was titled American Cookery, or the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards, and Preserves, and All Kinds of Cakes, from the Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake. Adapted to This Country, and All Grades of Life. By Amelia Simmons, An American Orphan.
- A poem called The Word "Fuck" Written Seventeen Times and then an Ampersand fits this nicely.
- Actes and Monuments of these latter and perilous dayes, touching matters of the Church, wherein are comprehended and described the great persecution and horrible troubles that have bene wrought and practised by the Romishe Prelates, speciallye in this Realme of England and Scotlande, from the yeare of our Lorde a thousande, unto the time nowe present by John Foxe. Generally referred to as "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" for short.
- A 2010 Swedish novel by Eli Levén has the title Du är rötterna som sover vid mina fötter och håller jorden på plats (Eng. 'You are the roots that sleep by my feet and keep the soil[1] in place').
- The Book of Lies, which is also falsely called Breaks is a pretty okay example, but it takes the biscuit with chapter 77, the title of which is nineteen (or twenty, depending upon how you count it) times longer than the chapter itself. This is, of course, extremely significant.
- We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. The title is taken from a letter written by Rwandan Tutsis rightly fearing for their lives and pleading for help.
- Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's novel Le dernier amour d'Aramis, ou les vrais Mémoires du chevalier René d'Herblay, qui devint évêque de Vannes, duc d'Alameda, Grand d'Espagne, ambassadeur de Sa Majesté Très Catholique, Préposé général des Jésuites, et fut mousquetaire du Roi de France dans la compagnie de M. de Tréville sous le nom d'Aramis. It's an unofficial sequel to Vicomte de Bragelonne.
- "The Practical Distiller: or an introduction to making Whiskey, Gin, Brandy, Spirits, &c. &c. of better quality, and in larger quantities, than produced by the present mode of distilling, from the produce of the United States: such as Rye, Corn, Buckwheat, Apples, Peaches, Potatoes, Pumpions and Turnips. With directions how to conduct and improve the practical part of distilling in all its branches. Together with directions for purifying, clearing and colouring Whiskey, making Spirits similar to French Brandy, &c. from the Spirits of Rye, Corn, Apples, Potatoes &c. &c. and sundry extracts of approved receipts for making Cider, domestic Wines, and Beer." By Samuel Mc Harry, of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania (1809) is notable for not only being immensely long, but also including '&c.' (etc.) in its title. Meaning it is in some ways an abbreviation.
- While House Of Leaves itself is not an example, some of the fictitious references cites in its footnotes qualify, e.g. Women Who Can't Love: When a Woman's Fear Makes Her Run from Commitment and What a Smart Man Can Do About It.
- Harlan Ellison's Hugo Award winning story, "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W".
- In the introduction to one edition of The Discworld Companion, Terry Pratchett refers to his research involving reading Victorian books with titles so long that there is a refreshment stand at the half-way point.
- In case you want to follow every rule in the Bible, there's "A Handbook of Bible Law: An Indexed Guide to over 1500 Biblical Laws, Commandments, Statutes, Principles, Admonishments, Exhortations, and Guidelines Under 22 Different Subject Headings".
- JG Ballard's short story "The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered As a Downhill Motor Race".
- A lesser, modern example: I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want To Be Your Class President, by Josh Leib. Guess who the main character is and what happens.
- Soren Kierkegaard's doctoral thesis, "On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates."
- A kindle published title; Coffee Beans: How to buy coffee beans and then use the best coffee beans from green coffee beans to gourmet coffee beans including chocolate covered coffee beans. It's a mouthful in more ways than one.
- Political book example: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer- And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class.
- Joyce Carol Oates' novel After the wreck, I picked myself up, spread my wings, and flew away.
- The Lord of the Rings is not a long title, but it represents an abbreviation of its In-Universe counterpart, the Red Book, whose title is The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King (as seen by the Little People; being the memoirs of Bilbo and Frodo of the Shire, supplemented by the accounts of their friends and the learning of the Wise.) Together with extracts from Books of Lore translated by Bilbo in Rivendell.
Live-Action Television: Or, Televisual productions created through the orchestrated performance of living actors rather than by means of flashing pictures or other such deceptions[]
- Britain's Got The Pop Factor... And Possibly A New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly On Ice, a comedy mash-up of various Reality TV shows (Britain's Got Talent, Pop Idol, X Factor, Jesus Christ Superstar, Strictly Come Dancing etc.) Gains bonus points for the fact that the presenter announced its full name before and after every commercial break.
- An episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show was titled "The Sound of the Trumpets of Conscience Falls Deafly on a Brain That Holds Its Ears...or Something Like That!".
- North Korea has a propaganda show on correct and proper hairstyles titled Let's Trim Our Hair in Accordance with the Socialist Lifestyle.
- An episode of Star Trek is titled "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky."
- While the show itself does not qualify, an episode of Star Trek: Voyager features Naomi Wildman working on an essay titled, The Weird Planet Where Time Moved Very Fast and so did the People who Lived There. Seven of Nine helps her condense it.
- Mad TV had a skit about a sitcom: My Gay Dad Always Steals My Boyfriends Even Though They Say They're Straight; They Promise Me They Won't Fall For Him But They Always Do Everytime Because He's So Irresistible They Can't Help Themselves And I Hate It. The skit also embodied Show Within a Show, Title Drop and Expository Theme Tune (in this case, the name of the sitcom recited to music).
- The Ronnie Johns Half Hour (full name The Ronnie Johns Good Times Campfire Jamboree Half Hour Show (Now on Television))
- There was a 70s British kids' show called Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?, often abbreviated as WDYJSOYTSAGADSLBI or just Why Don't You...?
- The One With... episode naming style used by Friends occassionally resulted in rather long titles like "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister" or "The One Where Monica and Richard are Just Friends".
- ICarly: The "Pathetic Plays" have these: "The Cowboy With A Mustache And The Idiot Farmgirl Who Thought The Mustache Was A Squirrel" and "The Englishman Who Was A Terrible Father To His Two Children Named Fuffley And Peeta," plus the pre-'pathetic' "The Prisoner Who Just Wanted Some Soup And The Man Who Refused To Give Him Some."
- Multiple programs on HGTV like House Hunters decide instead of a snappy and short title for each episode, to describe every situation of every episode, resulting in tongue twisters such as "Albert and Marie, Graduates of Harvard University, Decide to Look for a Reasonably Priced Townhouse in the Back Bay Neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts So That They May Start Their Careers and Later Raise a Family." Most likely this is because there's only so many episodes you can name Townhouse Search.
- The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret has a long title, and "A Plan Is Hatched and a Date Is Not a Date" is the shortest episode title of the show.
Music: Or, Sonorous melodies crafted by the manipulation of specially produced instruments, often accompanied by lyrics, which in the past were delivered exclusively by means of on-site performance, but which were later recorded and delivered to the mainstream public as a groove in a wax-coated cylinder, a technology which was gradually replaced over time by a groove in a disc made of finest resin of Shellac, then of vinyl acetate, then by magnetic fields imprinted on a metallic oxide-coated polymer tape winded and contained in a casette, then by digitally-encoded signals engraved on plastic-metallic laser discs, and most recently, by a filtered, quantized, compressed digital signal encoded as a stream of binary data per specifications of the ISO/IEC SC 29 WG 11 Layer-3 standard, and transmitted through the worldwide packet-switched interconnected networks known collectively as the Internet[]
- Hello! Project has several of these, but perhaps the biggest offender is S/mileage's Asu wa DEETO na no ni, Ima Sugu Koe ga Kikitai (Even though we have a date tomorrow, I want to hear your voice right now).
- Math-rock band Don Caballero uses this trope quite a bit. Some examples: "A Lot of People Tell Me I Have A Fake British Accent", "Let's Face It, Pal, You Didn't Need That Eye Surgery", and perhaps the longest of them all: "In The Absence of Strong Evidence to the Contrary, One May Step of the Way of the Charging Bull".
- Thrash Metal band Lich King has The Attack Of The Wrath Of The Sword Of The Death Of The Strike Of The Sword Of The Beast. Say that 7 times fast with a mouth full of crackers!
- Grindcore band Agoraphobic Nosebleed has song titles that take longer to say than the song itself, especially on their album Altered States Of America. One of which being "Group Taking Acid As Considered Conspiracy Against The Government", an epic 6 second rocker.
- Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War of the Worlds
- Also, The Highlights From Jeff Wayne's Muscial Version of The War Of The Worlds.
- And even Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds - Alive On Stage! 30th Anniversary Tour.
- Also, The Highlights From Jeff Wayne's Muscial Version of The War Of The Worlds.
- Fiona Apple's When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing Before He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right.
- While it's not nearly as long of a title, her forthcoming album has been announced as The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do.
- Iowa breakbeat musician Stunt Rock has used this trope time and time again, generating such titles as "Richard Pryors' Face Catching On Fire As He Freebases Cocaine In The Eighties," "You Made A Really Short Song With One Sample Cause You Were Low On Material And Ideas. I Did It For This Whole Album." and "If I'm Not Sincere Enough, Please Let Me Know, And I Will Squint More."
- Sufjan Stevens is fond of long song titles in his state-themed albums.
- Michigan had "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)", "They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For The Homeless In Muskegon)", and "Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)"
- Illinois has so many that it's probably best to just list the longest: "The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'" The song is about two minutes long, and the title takes more than thirty seconds to scroll across the screen of an iPod.
- From The Avalanche: Outtakes And Extras From The Illinoise Album; "The Vivian Girls Are Visited In The Night By Saint Dargarius And His Squadron Of Benevolent Butterflies".
- Uno de mi calle me ha dicho que tiene un amigo que dice conocer a un tipo que un día fue feliz ("Someone who lives on my street has told me he has a friend who says he knows a guy who had been happy once"), a song by Joan Manuel Serrat.
- Morrissey, with The Smiths and in his solo work, has a fair number of these. The Smiths' album Strangeways, Here We Come alone contains the songs "A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours," "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me," and "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before."
- Two of Morrissey's most popular solo tracks: "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" and "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get".
- Rod Stewart and The Faces once came up with a song called "You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog For a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)."
- Meat Loaf, notably: "Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."
- "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More," "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk," and of course the medley "Where the Streets Have No Name (Can't Take My Eyes off of You" by the Pet Shop Boys
- The sleeve notes to their Alternative compilation of B tracks mention, with regard to "I Get Excited, You Get Excited Too" that Neil Tennant used to go out of his way to make the song titles as long as possible.
- Bentley Rhythm Ace once came up with Return Of The Hardcore Jumble Carbootechnodisco Roadshow (for UK-types, it's the song on that V2 advert that ripped off The Italian Job).
- Soulwax's Most of the remixes we've made for other people over the years except for the one for Einstürzende Neubauten because we lost it and a few we didn't think sounded good enough or just didn't fit in length-wise, but including some that are hard to find because either people forgot about them or simply because they haven't been released yet, a few we really love, one we think is just ok, some we did for free, some we did for money, some for ourselves without permission and some for friends as swaps but never on time and always at our studio in Ghent seems to have been titled solely to try and best Fiona Apple's record. It worked.
- "The Anaheim, Asuza and Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book Review and Timing Association" by Jan and Dean. Not as long as some, but the full title is sung, repeatedly, as part (but not all) of the song's refrain.
- Grindcore band Anal Cunt use these just for the hell of it sometimes. "I Liked Earache Better When Dig Answered The Phone", "I Made Your Kid Get AIDS So You Could Watch It Die", and so on.
- Les Luthiers has La bella y graciosa moza marchóse a lavar la ropa, la mojó en el arroyuelo y cantando la lavó, la mojó sobre una piedra, la colgó de un abedul as shown above on the quote.
- Lest we forget one of their more ingenious and memorable works, the Cantata del adelantado Don Rodrigo Díaz de Carreras, de sus hazañas en tierras de Indias, de los singulares acontecimientos en que se vio envuelto, y de cómo se desenvolvió (which could be roughly translated as Cantata about the adelantado Don Rodrigo Díaz de Carreras, about his feats in the land of the Indies, about the unique events in which he got involved, and about the ways in which he untangled himself from them).
- And every jazz tune has a long title. example: Pepper Clemens sent the messenger nevertheless the reverend left the herd.
- Seth Putnam's side project, Impaled Northern Moonforest. Not only is it the world's first acoustic black metal band, but it also has song titles that fit this trope like a glove. Examples include "Gazing at the Blasphemous Moon while Perched atop a Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Forsaken Crest of the Northern Mountain" and "Awaiting the Blasphemous Abomination of the Necroyeti while Sailing on the Northernmost Fjord of Xzfgiiizmtsath." Most of the songs are less than a minute long.
- Pink Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict."
- Man or Astro-man?'s "Many Pieces of Large, Fuzzy Mammals Gathered Together at a Rave and Schmoozing With a Brick."
- Love's classic album Forever Changes includes songs titled "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale" and "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This."
- Lampshaded by The Monkees with the title "Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?"
- During his first tour in 1979 after becoming a born-again Christian, Bob Dylan would introduce his newer songs by ridiculously long titles. But by the time he recorded and released those songs on the album Saved, he mercifully shortened them. For example, "Hanging On To a Solid Rock Made Before The Foundation Of The World" became simply "Solid Rock." Of course, back in 1966 he managed to release a song called "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again."
- Before that, he had "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." On the same album (Blonde on Blonde) there's "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine."
- Later on, there's "You'll Make Me Lonesome When You Go" (which is surprisingly almost exactly the same title length as "Stuck Inside of Mobile")
- The Beatles' song "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey".
- Beatallica made a style parody with this song (among two others, one being by Metallica) called "Everybody's Got a Ticket to Ride Except for Me and My Lightning".
- Primitive Radio Gods' "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand." Abbreviated to "Phonebooth" by fans and the Billboard charts.
- Though nowhere near some of the examples shown here, Coldplay's latest album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends qualifies (despite showing only "Viva La Vida" on the cover itself).
- Pick a random Fall Out Boy song title. There's at least a 50% chance you'll come up with an example of this trope.
- "The World's Not Waiting (for Five Tired Boys and a Broken Down Van)"
- "It's Not a Side Effect of the Cocaine. I Am Thinking It Must Be Love"
- "Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued"
- "I've Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)"
- "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me"
- "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part to Save the Scene and Stop Going to Shows)"
- "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me & You)"
- "I've Got All This Ringing in My Ears and None on My Fingers"
- At least their latest album is void of any songs exceding ten words. "Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet" was getting close.
- "Champagne for my Real Friends, Real Pain for my Sham Friends"
- "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me'"
- "Of All The Gins Joints In All The World"
- "Parker Lewis Can't Lose (But I'm Going to Give It My Best Shot)
- "Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things To Do Today."
- They even lampshaded this with "Thnks fr th Mmrs", which was born from a complaint that their song titles were too long.
- "I Liked You Better Before You Became a Fucking Myspace Whore.
- The longest title on Panic! at the Disco is "There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet." Their second album's song titles are fairly short, though.
- There's also "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off", "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage". And from their new album Vices and Virtues, we have "Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)" and "Nearly Witches (Ever Since We Met)".
- Cobra Starship has a song titled "Prostitution is the World's Oldest Profession and I, Dear Madam, Am a Professional."
- There's also "Pete Wentz Is the Only Reason We're Famous," "Being From Jersey Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry," "Damn You Look Good And I'm Drunk (Scandalous)," "Send My Love to the Dance Floor, I'll See You in Hell (Hey Mister DJ)," "It's Amateur Night at the Apollo Creed!," "My Moves Are White (White Hot, That Is)," "The World Has Its Shine But I Would Drop It on a Dime"...
- There's a Nile song called "Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve Its Possessor Against Attacks From He Who Is In the Water."
- Nile loves this trope: in fact, Karl Sanders has said in an interview that he does it on purpose so he can annoy his managers. The worst offender so far is "Chapter of Obeisance Before Giving Breath to the Inert One in the Presence of the Crescent Shaped Horns," though "Papyrus..." comes close.
- There's also "In Their Darkened Shrines III: Destruction of the Temple of the Enemies of Ra" and "Libation Unto The Shades Who Lurk In The Shadows Of The Temple Of Anhur." The last one is rather ironic, since it's an interlude track, in the time it takes to say the name twice, the song's almost over.
- Behold British metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon's most recent album. Its title: There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret. Also one of their songs is titled thus: No Need For Introductions, I've Read About Girls Like You on the Backs of Toilet Doors. This is, funnily enough, about something that happened during one of their gigs.
- Joe Jackson's "You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)."
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars".
- Prince likes doing this on the occasional B-side: "17 Days (the rain will come down, then U will have 2 choose. If U believe, look 2 the dawn and U shall never lose.)" and "Sex ('the '80s are over and the time has come 4 monogamy and trust')."
- Explosions In The Sky's album Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever, which contains the song "With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept."
- David Cross' Stand Up Comedy album It's Not Funny has long track titles that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the joke.
- That's because they're intended to mock the routines of lame comedians.
- The songs of post-rock band Red Sparowes, including such titles as "And by Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent in Their Puddles, the Air Barren of Song as the Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, the Locusts Noisily Thanked Us and Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole." Note that this song is only 1:42 long. And instrumental.
- The Cardiff indie rock band Los Campesinos! has a track called "This Is How You Spell, 'HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics.'" What makes this example impressive is the fact that the ridiculously long titles are actually taken from the songs (if not fully, then in part). Amusingly enough, front man Gareth Campesinos! had this to say about the first titled mentioned: "I know it's a stupidly long title, but it acts as a good test to see which people are morons, depending on whether they reference it as being 'Fall Out Boy-esque' or 'Ballboy or Ten Grand-esque'."
- Van Morrison's "You Don't Pull No Punches But You Don't Push The River."
- David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"
- Robert Fripp's "I May Not Have Had Enough of Me but I've Had Enough of You" (or the shorter title "NYCNY"--depending on whether the vocalist is Peter Hammill or Daryl Hall.)
- A song by The Orb, entitled "A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Center of the Ultraworld."
- The 90s surf band Man or Astro-man? (also mentioned briefly above) liked to give their songs long titles. Their longest one was "Multi-Variational Stimuli of Sub-Turgid Foci Covering Cross-Evaluative Techniques for Cognitive Analysis of Hypersignificant Graph Peaks Following Those Intersubjective Modules Having Biodegradable Seepage." Surprisingly enough, this song was not from their album called "EEVIAC: Operational index and reference guide, including other modern computational devices".
- Relient K has a song entitled "Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care." The title is funny enough, but it's only 10 seconds long and the lyrics are "I've just wasted 10 seconds of your life."
- The also have a song called "The Only Thing Worse than Beating a Dead Horse Is Betting on One."
- Porcupine Tree released a song called "Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled" on their 2000 album Lightbulb Sun.
- Gamma Ray have a live DVD called "Hell Yeah!! - The Awesome Foursome (And The Finnish Keyboarder Who Didn't Want To Wear His Donald Duck Costume) Live in Montreal." .
- Bal-Sagoth likely takes the crown on this trope. They have an album called Starfire Burning Upon the Ice-Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule, which contained no song which had less than seven words (the biggest one had twenty). And, of course, there's The Dark Liege of Chaos is Unleashed at the Ensorcelled Shrine of A'Zura Kai (The Splendour of a Thousand Swords Gleaming Beneath the Blazon of the Hyperborean Empire Part II). Go on, check Wikipedia.
- Hoagy Carmichael wrote a song titled "I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin' Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues."
- Taku Iwasaki sure had a lot of fun making up titles for the tracks on the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Original Soundtrack. The Team Dai-Gurren rap theme's title is very, very, very long. The Japanese title is "Rappu wa Kan no Tamashii da! Muri o Tōshite Dōri o Kettobasu! Ore-tachi Dai-Guren-dan no Tēma o Mimi no Ana Kappojite Yo~ku Kikiyagare!!". The OST cut of the song adds "(Short Start Edit)" to the end (since the 60 second-ish orchestral opening is cut). This Troper's chosen translation of the title, "Rap is a Man's Soul! We Kick Reason to the Curb to Make the Impossible Possible! Open up Your Ears and Listen to Our Team Dai-Gurren Theme!!", is so long that when used as a filename, "(short start edit)" is cut off at "(short ", and the length of the title caused all sorts of weird bugs to happen to Windows Explorer until he finally cut "(short start edit)" to "(SSE)". Oh, and to make it worse, the most common English translation uses wording that makes the title at least two words longer.
- "You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights But You Were Staring Straight at Me" by the Arctic Monkeys. People in Sheffield tend to talk a lot like that.
- The album that song is from is called Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.
- "Long Song Titles Aren't Cool Anymore Because the Rest of You Fuckers Are No Good at It" by Crime in Stereo.
- The Flaming Lips occasionally stray into this territory, especially on their 2006 album At War with the Mystics, which, among others, contains "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life As Blazing Shield Of Defiance And Optimism As Celestial Spear Of Action)" and Grammy Award-winning "The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight And Puts On His Werewolf Moccasins".
- Which all pale in comparison to "What Is the Light? (An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That the Chemical [In Our Brains] by Which We Are Able to Experience the Sensation of Being in Love Is the Same Chemical That Caused the 'Big Bang' That Was the Birth of the Accelerating Universe)"
- The movie musical Royal Wedding has a song titled "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life?"
- The Decemberists use this on their track "Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle The Thistles Undone)".
- The musical version of The Tempest from The Crane Wife doesn't have a very long title as such... instead, it has four short ones all joined together: "The Island: Come And See / The Landlord's Daughter / You'll Not Feel The Drowning".
- PM Dawn's albums Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry for Bringing You Here. Love, Dad and Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience.
- The debut album by Tyrannosaurus Rex (later much better known as T. Rex): My people were fair and had sky in their hair... But now they're content to wear stars on their brows.
- The Japanese angura-kei band Inugami Circus-dan wins with the enka song "Ani no Yamai no Tokkouyaku wa Shishuu Tadayou Chi no Ike Jigoku no You na Jinniku Suupu no Keijijougaku", which translates as "The Metaphysics of Human Flesh Soup Like a Sea of Blood in Hell with the Putrid Smell of a Corpse Being Wafted from the Special Medicine to Cure Older Brother's Disease." It's usually known as "Jinniku soup" for short, by the way.
- "Chu Chu Lovely Muni Muni Mura Mura Purin Purin Boron Nurururerorero" by Maximum the Hormone.
- "The Sad But True Story Of Ray Mingus, The Lumberjack Of Bulk Rock City, And His Never Slacking Stribe In Exploiting The So Far Undiscovered Areas Of The Intention To Bodily Intercourse From The Opposite Species Of His Kind, During Intake Of All The Mental Condition That Could Be Derived From Fermentation" by the Swedish group Rednex currently holds the record for the world's longest song title.
- "Regretting what I said to you when you called me at 11:00 on Friday morning to tell me that 1:00 Friday afternoon you were gonna leave your office, go downstairs, hail a cab, to go out to the airport, to catch a plane, to go skiing in the Alps for two weeks. Not that I wanted to go with you; I wasn't able to leave town, I'm not a very good skier, I couldn't expect you to pay my way, but after going out with you for three years, I don't like surprises. (A musical apology)" by Christine Lavin.
- ~Emerson, Lake & Palmer~: "When the Apple Blossoms Bloom in the Windmills of your Mind I'll Be Your Valentine".
- Also, the album Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends... Ladies and Gentlemen
- Spiritualized's album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.
- The JV Allstars have a song called "Hope is a Good Thing, Maybe the Best of Things, and No Good Thing Ever Dies." The song is only 54 seconds long!
- "The Synthesizer is Rapidly Overtaking the Guitar as the Most Popular Instrument in the World" by Custard.
- Dillinger Four have the longest song title that is all one word: SELLTHEHOUSESELLTHECARSELLTHEKIDSFINDSOMEONEELSEFORGETITI'MNEVERCOMINGBACKFORGETIT
- The Paper Chase does this a lot, but the longest title that comes to mind is "Delivered In A Firm Unyielding Way Lingering For Just A Bit Too Long To Communicate The Message 'I Own You'".
- My Little Airport does this as well. "Edward, Had You Ever Thought That the End of the World Would Come on 20.9.01", as well as "The OK Thing to Do on Sunday Afternoon Is to Toddle in the Zoo" are particular offenders.
- "Animali In Calore Surriscaldati Con Ipertermia Genitale" by Fantomas. The song is a whopping forty four seconds long.
- "Rock Anthem for the Retarded Teenage Hipster Population" by Smile.
- Pete Townshend released a best-of CD titled Coolwalkingsmoothtalkingstraightsmokingfirestoking.
- Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart by Manic Street Preachers.
- By the same band, "If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next".
- Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness by Coheed and Cambria, along with its sequel, Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World For Tomorrow.
- "Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills" by Ray Stevens supposedly once held the record for the longest titled song on the Billboard Hot 100. (It took a medley of ten songs to beat it.)
- Stevens later recorded an even longer-titled song: "Ned Nostril and His South Seas Paradise, Puts Your Blues on Ice, Cheap at Twice the Price Band (Ikky-Ikky, Ukky-Ukky)". Sadly, it wasn't a single.
- "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me" by The Bellamy Brothers. Two for the price of one, as it's also a lame-but-funny Double Entendre.
- "It Was an Absolutely, Finger Lickin', Grits and Chicken, Country Music Love Song" by Bomshel. Shortened to just "Country Music Love Song" on the charts.
- Similarly, "Dixie Rose Deluxe's Honky-Tonk, Feed Store, Gun Shop, Used Car, Beer, Bait, BBQ, Barber Shop, Laundromat" by Trent Willmon.
- "Dale Darrell Waltrip Richard Petty Rusty Awesome Bill Irvin Gordon Earnhardt Smith? Johnson, Jr." by Tim Wilson.
- "I Wish You Could Have Turned My Head (and Left My Heart Alone)" by The Oak Ridge Boys. A country music song title if ther ever was one.
- "It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long" by The Notorious Cherry Bombs. Country music is full of cheeky song titles.
- Technicality with Patty Loveless' "Blame It on Your Heart", which is listed on BMI as "Blame It on Your Lyin, Cheatin', Cold, Dead-Beatin', Two-Timin', Double-Dealin', Mean, Mistreatin', Lovin' Heart", but is just "Blame It on Your Heart" on the album.
- "Three Minute Positive Not-Too-Country Up-Tempo Love Song" by Alan Jackson, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- "We Threw Gasoline On The Fire And Now We Have Stumps For Arms And No Eyebrows" by NOFX
- The Marnie Stern album This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That.
- Electric Six has I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being the Master - oddly all of their other albums thus far have had one or two word titles. As far as song titles go, they have the relatively modest "There's Something Very Wrong With Us, So Let's Go Out Tonight".
- Blue Öyster Cult's album Imaginos has a song titled "The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria".
- Shawn Phillips' "She was waiting for her mother at the station in Torino and you know I love you baby but it's getting too heavy to laugh".
- Zebrahead has a couple: "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right, But Three Rights Make a Left", "Mike Dexter is a God, Mike Dexter is a Role Model, Mike Dexter is an Asshole", and "We're Not a Cover Band, We're a Tribute Band".
- Brazilian band Titãs has two albums with long titles: Jesus não tem Dentes no País dos Banguelas ("Jesus has no teeth in the toothless people's country") and A Melhor Banda de Todos os Tempos da Última Semana ("The greatest band of all-time from the latest week").
- Two Brazilian songs: Zé Ramalho's "Mulher Nova, Bonita e Carinhosa Faz o Homem Gemer Sem Sentir Dor" ("New, young and careful women makes men groan without feeling pain") and Guanabaras' "Preciso Te Ver Urgentemente Pois Se Eu Não Te Ver Urgentemente Logo, Logo Vou Enlouquecer" ("I need to see you urgently because if I don't see you urgently soon, soon I'll get mad").
- In August 2009, Danish Indie-Pop band Mew released their fifth album, entitled No More Stories, Are Told Today, I'm Sorry, They Washed Away, No More Stories, The World Is Grey, I'm Tired, Let's Wash Away. The title is taken from the lyrics of a mid album track which is itself only 1 minute 48 seconds long.
- The album Nespithe by death-metal group Demilich, the longest being The Planet That Once Used To Absorb Flesh In Order To Achieve Divinity and Immortality (Suffocated To The Flesh That It Desired...).
- The album A Collision by Christian group David Crowder Band features a bunch of long titles, including The Lark Ascending or (More Accurately, I'm Trying to Make You Dance), Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven (A Walk Down Stairs), and this troper's personal favorite, (Repeat/Return) or When the Seventh Angel Sounded His Trumpet, and There Were Loud Voices In Heaven, Which Said: "The Kingdom of the World Has Become the Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ, and He Will Reign Foreverandever Etc..."
- It should be noted that that last track is eleven seconds long.
- The first album by Happy Mondays is titled Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out).
- Lonnie Donegan, "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?"
- Bjork has a song called "Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the Left, Carry My Pain on the Right)."
- Most of the songs on Radiohead's Hail to the Thief have fairly long titles due to each one being an Either or Title with parentheses instead of a conjunction, like "A Punchup at a Wedding. (No no no no no no no no.)", "The Gloaming. (Softly Open our Mouths in the Cold.)", and "Sail to the Moon. (Brush the Cobwebs out of the Sky.)". The fans usually abbreviate them to the part outside the parentheses.
- Feist's "That's What I Say, It's Not What I Mean".
- A borderline example is Tom Lehrer's Lobachevsky, where the title of the song is just the character's name, but it mentions that his first original paper was on Analytical Algebraic Topology of a Locally Euclidean Metricization of an Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifold. This is a joke, of course: Riemannian geometry was developed quite a bit later after the Lobachevsky's paper had been published. According to Wikipedia, the Lobachevsky's paper was called A concise outline of the foundations of geometry - which, while not outrageous, still qualifies for this trope.
- And, for the record of longest album title, we have Chumbawamba's The Boy Bands Have Won, and All the Copyists and the Tribute Bands and the TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture to Be Shaped by Mimicry, Whether from Lack of Ideas or From Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try to Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother's Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don't Just Regurgitate Creative History, or Hold Art and Music and Literature as Fixed, Untouchable and Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try To "Guard" Any Particular Form of Music Are, Like the Copyists and Manufactured Bands, Doing It the Worst Disservice, Because the Only Thing That You Can Do to Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It's Over, Then It's Done, and the Boy Bands Have Won. Commonly abbreviated as "The Boy Bands Have Won." 865 characters.
- Not half as long as the immediately preceding, but perhaps more poetic: "Look into a crystal ball and see that its kind of like a fairy tale between the tides of time and the gates of dawn where a black dove flies from out of the woods, and a mystical wizard casts his spell over the land and a shadow hangs over the garden that never grows, and as the dust and the ashes come falling down like rain, you can still hear the sound of music, forever drifting through the winds of Eden."
- The band Quiet Sun has a song titled "Mummy was an Asteroid, Daddy was a Small Non-Stick Kitchen Utensil".
- Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart loved these, and had one or two on most of his albums. Some of the most notable are "I Wanna Find a Woman That'll Hold My Big Toe Till I Have to Go", "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains", "A Carrot Is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond", and "Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee".
- Experimental Post-Punk Psychadelic Industrial musician Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots and The Tear Garden does these from time to time. Notable examples are the LPD album Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves, The Tear Garden album To Be An Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide, and the solo album Down in the City of Heartbreak and Needles.
- Experimental Rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor has very few releases; but the titles for what they do have vary between this and True Art Is Incomprehensible. Their long-titled albums include: All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling, Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada, and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven,
- The metal band The Black Dahlia Murder (that's a long band name too!) has songs like "I Worship Only What You Bleed", "What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse" and "That Which Erodes the Most Tender of Things".
- A Finnish Goregrind band that goes by the name 55Gore's full unabridged name is as follows... *deep breath* Intracerebrally Consuming Cephalalgia Through The Cranium Macerating Debrisfucked Manure Ingested Remains Of The Mindfucked Cataplexic Wicked Mankind Whom Fistfucked The Progenies From The Deepest Depths Of The Analmaggot Raped Human Pieces Of Erotic Shitmasses Which Gave Birth To Worthless Eunuchs As Travesty For Cumstained Whorefaced Sluts Enslaved By This Stupid Society Full Of Fetal Garbages.
- Dethklok (the sorta-fictional metal band from the animated series Metalocalypse) has 2 of them: "My Inner Child Tied and Beaten in My Trunk" and "I Tamper With the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin".
- Wait? So they're writing songs about American Gods now?
- There's also "Crush My Battle Opponent's Balls". It's only about 1 minute long and has no lyrics.
- IOSYS has a few among their Touhou Project remixes, which only get longer as the songs are themselves remixed, but the prize goes to the Nico Nico Douga parody "[Ensou Shite Mita] Kanbu no Dekiru Oyome ni Taihen na Taiyou Kitare, Perfect Gumin-domo! [Prismriver]" ("[Singing Attempt] The Brides that Queue Up the Affected Area are Impending the Precious Sun, Perfect Ignorant Fools! [Prismriver]"), a medley of several of their most popular songs.
- The only album from defunct emo pioneers Cap'n Jazz was titled Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards In The Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over. Fans simply call it Shmap'n Shmazz.
- Pearl Jam's "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town", which stands out a bit because it's on an album that mostly has one or two word song titles. (and they stated it has such a long name because the band got fed up with one-word titles)
- Type O Negative used to love long titles. From the Slow Deep and Hard album, we have "Unsuccesfully Coping With The Natural Beauty of Infidelity", "The Misinterpretation of Silence and its Disastrous Consequences", and "Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 x 10-8 cm-3 gm-1 sec-2". From the October Rust album we have "The Glorious Liberation of the People's Technocratic Republic of Vinnland by the Combined Forces of the United Territories of Europa".
- The J-Rock band Buck Tick has, on their album Six/Nine, two: "Aikawarazu no "Are" no Katamari ga Nosabaru Hedo no Soko no Fukidamari" (As usual,"that thing's" package, idle at the end of a spew drift), and "Mienai Mono o Miyo to Suru Gokai Subete Gokai da"" (Misunderstanding in trying to see the invisible, everything is misunderstood).
- The Chariot has a song titled "Someday, in the Event That Mankind Actually Figures Out What it is That This World Revolves Around, Thousands of People are Going to Be Shocked and Perplexed to Find Out it Was Not Them. Sometimes, This Includes Me." that is currently the thirteenth longest song title. (It's also a Non-Appearing Title, and almost longer than the actual lyrics.) The album name is a mouthful too, being "Everything Is Alive, Everything Is Breathing, Nothing Is Dead, and Nothing Is Bleeding".
- Allen O'Neal And Nario Take An Afternoon Stroll Through A Field Of Poppies For A Picnic Lunch Of Wine, Cheese, And Whale Face.
- Modest Mouse. Most of their albums have really long titles. From "Good News for People Who Love Bad News" to We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank to "This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About" this indie group fits this trope.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has two, related songs with long titles. Both are usually just called "Rap is a Man's Soul!" The full names are "Rap is a man's soul! Now Open Your Ears Wide And Listen To The Mighty Team Dai-Gurren's Theme!" Which is played in Parallel Works 1, and another song where "Team Dai-Gurren" is replaced with "Kamina." It is the remix played in the bathhouse and for Parallel Works 5.
- Nǽnøĉÿbbörğ Vbëřř Ħōlökäävs Ŧ, an Ambient Cosmic Extreme Funeral Drone Doom Metal band, has songs like Eternal Darkness Vortex (Part VI: The Inescapable Singularity Is Intruded Upon As The Atoms and Quarks Of The Body Are Obliterated And Require An Escape Velocity Of Infinite Exponence To Retreat) and Doom Apocalypse X, The Ultimate Fate Of The Universe (Part VIII: The Black Hole Era). Many of the songs are more than a hour long with 7 hours maximum so song title length isn't compensating anything.
- Folkie Bert Jansch had 'Come Sing Me a Happy Song to Prove We All Can Get Along the Lumpy, Bumpy, Long and Dusty Road'/
- Fairport Convention gave on of their instrumental numbers the title 'Sir B. Mc Kenzie's Daughter's Lament for the 77th Mounted Lancer's Retreat from the Straits of Loch Knombe, in the Year of Our Lord 1727, on the Occasion of the Announcement of Her Marriage to the Laird of Kinleakie', specifically in an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records.
- Snow Patrol's album "When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up" and the song "We Can Run Away Now They're All Dead And Gone".
- "When It's All Over We Still Have To Clear Up" is a song, too. Songs for Polarbears had "One Hundred Things You Should Have Done In Bed," they've been fairly concise since then, though "Please Just Take These Photos From My Hands" and "If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It" are getting up there.
- James came up with "You Can't Tell How Much Suffering (On A Face That's That's Always Smiling)". Also a Title-Only Chorus.
- Add in names of remixes and you can get some ridiculous stuff indeed, like the Pet Shop Boys' "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More (Peter Rauhoffer New York Mix)".
- "You Will Be Reincarnated As an Imperial Attack Spaceturtle" by Behold... the Arctopus
- If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You by Caravan
- Jonathan Mann's "Song a Day #264: Quantum Decoupling Transition in a One-Dimensional Feshbach-Resonant Superfluid".
- "You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want, But You Got to Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through" by The Wildhearts
- This is Howlin' Wolf's new album. He doesn't like it. He didn't like his electric guitar at first either.
- Chiodos seems to be fond of these. Some examples include "I Didn't Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was A Wizard"; "Bulls Make Money, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered"; "We Swam from Albatross, the Day We Lost Kayley Coast"; and "The Undertaker's Thirst for Revenge Is Unquenchable (The Final Battle)".
- AND, lest we forget, 'Is It Progression If A Cannibal Uses A Fork'?
- "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again)" by Wilco.
- Inspired by the play Marat/Sade (see theatre section), Lalo Schifrin released an album titled The Dissection And Reconstruction Of Music From The Past As Performed By The Inmates Of Lalo Schifrin's Demented Ensemble As A Tribute To The Memory Of The Marquis De Sade.
- One of the Hives' early song titles was "Some People Know All Too Well How Bad Liquorice, Or Any Candy For That Matter, Can Taste When Having Laid Out In The Sun Too Long - And I Think I Just Ate Too Much."
- So, so many of Charles Mingus's pieces. This troper's favorite is "All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother."
- "Gunslinging Bird, or, If Charlie Parker Was A Gunslinger There'd Be A Whole Lot Of Dead Copycats"
- "The Shoes Of The Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive-Ass Slippers"
- Speaking of jazz, (Rahsaan) Roland Kirk was known to employ this trope. Favorite example: "The Ragman and the Junkman Ran from the Businessman They Laughed and He Cried."
- Some indie bands take it past long song titles by having long band names, such as "Somebody Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin."
- Though it could be the result of extreme Engrish, Japanese post-rock band té uses extremely long and incomprehensible song and album titles. For example, "It is Supposed to be 'Ordinary' that Imagination Moves Much Faster and More Freely than Bright Light in the Darkness" and "Increasing, if Heart and Senses Agree, All Best Change is Sly in Music"
- Post-rock band Red Sparowes has several albums where every track consists of page stretching glory. In them are such gems like "And by Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent in Their Puddles, the Air Barren of Song as the Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, the Locusts Noisily Thanked Us and Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole.", which might I add is under two minutes.
- Lemon Demon has Fly Straight or Drop the Oar and Wreck and The Saga of You, Confused Destroyer of Planets on an album called Live from the Haunted Candle Shop. A later album had The Only House That's Not on Fire (Yet). The vocalist's former musical project had AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!! (make sure to remember exactly how it's spelled).
- Primal Scream's single The Big Man and the Scream Team Meet the Barmy Army Uptown[2].
- My Chemical Romance have had their fair share, with songs such as "Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough For The Two Of Us", "You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison" and "It's Not A Fashion Statement, It's A Fucking Deathwish."
- And from their new album Danger Days: The True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys, (which is a long title itself), we have Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na).
- Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays' As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, both a song and an album from 1980.
- Amanda Palmer has a song titled "Do You Swear To Tell The Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass."
- Arizonian industrial group The Strand's third album is titled Destroyers of That Which is Destroyed and Rulers of That Which is Not Destroyed!
- Japanese visual kei band D (that's not a long title, heh) has a song called "Yami Yori Kurai Doukoku No Acapella To Bara Yori Akai Jounetsu No Aria" translating to "An Acapella Lamentation Darker Than Darkness And An Aria Of Passion Redder Than The Rose"
- The Police's "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around."
- Harold Barlow is probably best remembered (if he's remembered at all anymore) for "I've Got Tears In My Ears From Lyin' On My Back In My Bed While I Cry Over You"
- The scottish singer/songwriter Malcolm Middleton debuted with an album called '5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine'. It also featured a track called 'The Loneliest Night of My Life Came Calling'.
- Alt-country band Richmond Fontaines latest album (and one track on it) is called 'We used to think the freeway sounded like a river'.
- Producer and singer/songwriter T Bone Burnett appears to like making long song titles. Notable examples are 'Anything I say can and will be used against you', 'I'm going on a long journey never to return' and 'The strange case of Frank Cash and the morning paper'.
- The phrase "I'm Going on a Long Journey Never to Return" is never heard in the song's lyrics. A good choice, perhaps: because the crucial, repeated lines are:
Oh this death |
- Game Theory's song, "All Clockwork and No Bodily Fluid Makes Hal a Dull Metal Humbert / In Heaven Every Elephant Baby Wants to Be So Full of Sting / Paul Simon in the Park with Canticle / But You Can't Pick Your Friends / Vacuum Genesis / DEFMACROS / HOWSOMETH / INGDOTIME / SALENGTHS / OMETHINGL / ETBFOLLOW / AAFTERNOO / NGETPRESE / NTMOMENTI / FTHINGSWO / NTALWAYSB / ETHISWAYT / BCACAUSEA / BWASTEAFT / ERNOONWHE / NEQBMERET / URNFROMSH / OWLITTLEG / REENPLACE / 27", off their album, Lolita Nation, is one of the longetst song titles of all time.
- JLIAT (aka James Whitehead), obsessively fond of pristine sine-wave ambient devoid of embellishment. Not all of his CD titles, however, reflect this desire for simplicity. Most notably A Long Drone-Like Piece of Music Made With Synthesizers, Samplers and Digital Delays Which Attempts in its Minimalism to Be A Thing In Itself Without External Reference, Having an Analogue in Certain States of Consciousness Where Being is Experienced Also; another example would be When We Focus On Nothing as Opposed to The Set Or Subset Of Infinite Events with Whatever Intellect We Have in That Moment the Conscious State Becomes Aware of the Alternative to the Infinity of States Which in its Apprehension is Enlightenment. (yes, the period is included)
- The Swedish 18th century songwriter Carl Michael Bellman has some rather long titles, although it can sometimes be argued that what is written above the actual body of the song is not so much a title as a description or dedication — for example Fredmans epistel n:o 21. Varutinnan han 1:o avmålar natten med dess nöjen, 2:o tycks liksom för ögonen ställa ett slags aequlibrium emellan vinets och kärlekens styrka, men omsider ljusligen uppenbarar övervikten (Fredman's epistle number 21, in which he primo depicts the night with its pleasures, secundo appears to visualise a kind of æquilibrium of the respective strengths of wine and women, before the domination is eventually clearly revealed). However in the case of Fredmans sång n:o 54: Om handlingarna rörande Bacchi konkurs 8. Rådsturättens voteringsprotokoll och slutliga utslag i konkurstvisten emellan Bacchus och dess borgenärer (Fredman's song number 54, on the documentation of Bacchus's bankruptcy 8: Voting protocol and final verdict of the county court in the case of Bacchus vs. its creditors) it is clear that this really is the title.
- A song by a band called Naikaku, has a song called: I found a deep dark hole and I am going to jump in ! There will be no proof of my existence in this dark abyss. No - one will find me here ! I have to compensate for being born by the redemption of my life into death. I will become a commendable entity and stop all the senseless butchery and useless cruelty I have inflicted onto other souls. Right from the start we only live in the "now". But if we even stop to think of the here and now, it has already become the past in a twinkling of a moment. In turn, the future is pushing against the now and this whole perception as we know it soon becomes the past. To try and verify the moment of "Life" is an impossible task. When trying to prove life, it becomes a past existence in which there are too many memories. All in all, in the end life and death are exactly the same. So I am going to follow my dream and dive into my chosen fate ! ... Those are not lyrics, the song is an instrumental.
- Tourniquet has several, though many are not as long as the other examples. In order: "Harlot Widow And The Virgin Bride", "Gelatinous Tubercles of Purulent Ossification", "Proprioception: The Line Knives Syndrome", and almost every song on the album Microscopic View Of A Telescopic Realm, including "The Skeezix Dilemma, Part 2: The Improbable Testimony Of The Pipsisewah"
- Everything Goes Cold has a couple: "I've Sold Your Organs on the Black Market to Finance the Purchase of a Used Minivan" and "I Will Harness the Powers of Darkness to Destroy You". Both songs have remixes, adding respectively "I Don't Want Those Organs If There's Cancer In Them Mix" and "Because You Made Me Title This Mix".
- Simon and Garfunkel have "A Simple Desultory Phillippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamera'd Into Submission)".
- Eurythmics have "Better To Have Lost At Love (Ten Never To Have Loved At All)".
- Jethro Tull have "Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day", "One White Duck/0¹⁰=Nothing At All", "Too Old To Rock'n Roll, Too Young To Die", "From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser", "Gold Tipped Boots, Black Jacket And Tie" and "..And The Mouse Police Never Sleeps".
- From the Star Wars Christmas album, and also released separately: "What Can You Get A Wookiee For Christmas (When He Already Owns A Comb?)"
- Giraffes? Giraffes! have one called "...And Then She Look'd Down and Saw Miniature Houses and Miniature People and Inside the Miniature People Were Miniature Hearts Pumping Blood Through Miniature Veins (Her Mouth was Watery and Wet"
- and another from the same album: "She Looked Up From Examining the Freckles on her Arm and Shouted "Jesus! I'm Fucking God-Damn Tired of all this Make-Up Sex!" And He Just Stared Off."
- The Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band & Choir unsurprisingly have a few examples, such as the album ""This Is Our Punk Rock", Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing" and tracks like "Brothers! Sisters! Small Boats Of Fire Are Falling From The Sky" and "I Fed My Metal Bird The Wings Of Other Metal Birds"
- Stereolab have an album titled Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night.
- Anthallo has a few long song titles. "Hanasakajijii III: The Man Who Made Dead Trees Bloom". "Don't Kid Yourself, You Need a Physician". "To Gary and Marcus: The Sovereignty of God is Omnipresent". But the one that really takes the cake is, "I Thought in my Heart, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.' But that also proved to be meaningless".
- Bjork's remix compilation The Best Mixes from the Album Debut For All the People Who Don't Buy White Labels (which also falls under Exactly What It Says on the Tin)
- The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and The Holy Grail.
- The song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" by the italian singer Adriano Celentano.
- The Soup Dragons' album This Is Our Art: Useless, Boring, Impotent, Elitist And Very Very Beautiful. Generally known by the first 4 words, though some would prefer words 5 or 6.
- Alexisonfire had their fair share of songs with long titles, but The Philosophical Significance Of Shooting My Sister In The Face: An Essay By James Secord takes the cake.
- Indie bands tend to like this not just for songs or albums, but for their band names as well: ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead is a good one. Often shortened to just Trail of Dead, though.
- Brand New:
- "Good To Know That If I Ever Need Attention All I Have To Do Is Die" (which is a 7 minute song on top of the title)
- "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows"
- "I Will Play My Game Beneath The Spin Light"
- "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't"
- "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot"
- Half Man Half Biscuit have a few. All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit, We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune, 99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd, I Love You Because (You Look Like Jim Reeves), Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show, Tending The Wrong Grave For 23 Years, and so on.
- "There's Something Not As Valid When The Scenery Is A Postcard" by The Faint, from their album, Media.
- Of Montreal has released songs with titles like "We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafling", "Inside a Room Full of Treasures, a Black Pygmy Horse's Head Pops Up Like a Periscope", and "Upon Settling on the Frozen Island, Lecithin Presents Claude and Coquelicot With His Animal Creations for Them to Approve or Reject (The Rejected Inventions Walk Towards the Reverse Magnetizer)"
- The album The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire by the disappointingly short-named Mc Lusky.
- Queens of the Stone Age have You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire which is little more than a cool intro song.
- Now-defunct band I Am Ghost had Pretty People Never Lie, Vampires Never Really Die
- Everything Else has "Religion Song (Put Away The Gun)".
- Stereophonic Musical Listenings That Have Been Origin in Moving Film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan", the soundtrack to Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
- Wormphlegm's "In an Excruciating Way Infested with Vermin and Violated by Executioners Who Practise Incendiarism and Desanctifying the Pious"
- Mayday Parade has several relatively long titles, but the longest by far is "You Be The Anchor That Keeps My Feet On The Ground, I'll Be The Wings That Keep Your Heart In The Clouds".
- The Spoon B Side "It Took A Rumor To Make Me Wonder, Now I'm Convinced I'm Going Under". It's also a Non-Appearing Title, and seems to be an unlikely Shout-Out to Bonnie Raitt's "Something To Talk About".
- "A Bunch of Us Were Sitting Around a Candle in San Francisco Getting Stoned and I Hope You're There Next Time" by 1960s singer-songwriter Gordon Alexander.
- "Riding a Black Unicorn Down The Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking From a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children" by Voltaire. Inspired by a comment from a fan about what Voltaire's music was like.
Radio: Or, The spoken word of the human voice transmitted miraculously upon the aether by the appropriate application of wireless emissions of suitable wavelength, to be received across great distances by a carefully calibrated apparatus[]
- Although the actual title is given as Punt and Dennis: It's Been A Bad Week, that comedy current-affairs show is often referred to by the title of its prize - The Worst Week of the Week Award, Awarded Weekly on a Week-by-Week Basis. Which is mentioned at the end of every round.
- The comedy troupe Firesign Theater released an album entitled How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All
- One episode of BBC radio comedy The Burkiss Way is usually referred to as "Lesson 45: Write Extremely Long Titles The Burkiss Way". The full title, given in the Radio Times, was "Lesson 45: Write Extremely Long Titles With Lots And Lots Of Words In, Like This, So That The Radio Times Will Have To Allot More Space Than The Measly Half A Centimetre Of Billing Space We Usually Get And At Least It'll Look A Bit More Prominent On The Page, Although Still Nowhere Near The 50 Column Inches They Give To The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy The Burkiss Way".
Theatre: Or, Works written with the intention of live performance in front of an audience upon the theatrical stage[]
- The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. In the original German, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade, is a bit shorter. It's a play and a film, and it's pretty much Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- Publicists and playbill designers shortened this to Marat/Sade.
- Perhaps not so long as most of these but still worthy of mention: The tragical history of the damned life and deserved death of Doctor Johanus Faustus.
- And the one man show telling the same story, "An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening".
- Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad.
- Most of Shakespeare's works had really long titles in folio, octavo and quarto editions, which summarised most of the plot (and often ruined the ending).
- The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Containing his Death: and the Coronation of King Henry the Fift. [sic] (Henry IV Part Two)
- The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey, And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinal of V Vinchester, vvith the notable rebellion of Iacke Cade, And the Duke of Yorkes first claim vnto the Crowne. (Henry VI Part Two)
- The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel, which was also made into a movie. The play's title comes from the title of the protagonist's Science Fair project.
- The History of Two Valiant Knights, Sir Clyomon Knight of the Golden Shield, Son to the King of Denmark, and Clamydes the White Knight, Son to the King of Suavia, a romantic comedy produced in London by the King's Men in 1577.
- For Colored Girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange (1974).
- Not as long as others on here, but A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is still a mouthful.
- Just about any of the Farndale Ladies plays; a stand-out is They Came From Mars and Landed Outside the Farndale Avenue Church Hall in Time for the Townswomen’s Guild’s Coffee Morning.
Video Games: Or, Calculating-machine entertainment whereby the audience--through manipulation of articulating levers and buttons--may participate in a pseudo-holographic (although subject to change) performance and regulate the transpiration of events, as by a character within[]
- In-game example: Gordon Freeman's doctoral thesis was titled Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array, which doubles as Techno Babble.
- Attack Of The Mutant Zombie Flesh-Eating Chickens From Mars, starring Zappo The Dog (Vaporware in it's original form, but later rewritten badly by some other people and released under the rather shorter title of Star Paws).
- Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness.
- NIS America has Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This? (later changed to What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord?), a real-time strategy game in which players control an evil overlord protecting his stronghold from invading heroes.
- An obscure Centipede rip-off is known as War of the Bugs or Monsterous Manouvers in a Mushroom Maze.
- Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom, a classic Shoot'Em Up for DOS.
- Many of the later Street Fighter games are guilty of this, as they were essentially updated rereleases of updated rereleases, the title got more modifiers to distinguish the newer games from the previous installments. The already overly long Super Street Fighter II Turbo is known in Japan as Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge (that's a roman numeral two and the letter "ex") in Japan. The HD remake follows the tradition by being titled Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.
- Which, if spelled out completely, gives the even longer Super Street Fighter II Turbo High Definition Remix.
- Street Fighter EX plus α was a PlayStation version of Street Fighter EX plus that was in turn, an updated rerelease of the original Street Fighter EX
- Street Fighter III: New Generation was followed by Street Fighter III 2nd Impact: Giant Attack and Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: Fight for the Future.
- Everyone in Tobal 2 has a projectile attack: the official name for Fei Pusu's projectile is Ougi: Shippuu Dotou Shomou Kyuugoku Fuuun Raijin Kokugeki Kyuuryaku Shite Kurodama, which means something close to Secret Technique: Raging Violent Gale Wave Sphere Of Thunder God's Myriad Ultimate Wind Clouds: Dark Capturing Sphere.
- Golf Magazine: 36 Great Holes Starring Fred Couples.
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha Vs The Soulless Army and its sequel Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha Vs KingAbaddon. Atlus ARAM noted that people who complain about it "are only jealous theirs isn't as long". (Shin Megami Tensei was not part of the Japanese titles of these games, however.)
- GameSpot did for two years in a row an award for "Most Long-Winded Game Title". In 2005, it was on by Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie. In 2006 the first Shin Megami Tensei title mentioned above won (over entries such as The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King). Both years had Xenosaga games (which follow the system Xenosaga: Episode # - Untranslated Nietzsche quote).
- The UK/Australian titles of the Brain Age Express DSiWare titles are A Little Bit of... Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: [something edition]
- Aaaaa a Aaaa AA Aaa AAA Aa AAAAAA Reckless Disregard For Gravity.
- The same company also made a game called "1... 2... 3... KICK IT! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby)".
- The achievement names are also overly long, being:
- I am One in a Million, and There Are Six Thousand People in the World Exactly Like Me
- Air. Wind. Sun. Pain. I Am All of This, and Your Mom Makes a Fine Pasta Dinner.
- I Have Jumped Beyond the Powers of Two, and Have Lived to Tell the Tale
- I Have Broken More Glass Than a Finely Corpulent Opera Singer, and Love Myself For It
- I am at Risk of Contracting Mononucleosis, Which is Known Colloquially as the Kissing Disease
- The Rhylos and Skaery Memorial Achievement, for Which We Will Honor Them
- I Avoid Sleep Wherever Possible, So I Played AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! a Whole Lot
- Final Fantasy X has the "Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark III". There is no Mark I or Mark II.
- Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, which even Strong Bad suggested be just referred to as "SBCG4AP". Even better, it's an episodic game, so you have to tack on the episode title as well if you want to be more specific.
- Couple this with Colon Cancer and you get Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People: Episode 4: Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective.
- Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned.
- Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar
- Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards and some of its sequels:
- Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (In Several Wrong Places)
- Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals
- In Japan, a Gaiden Game for Beast Wars was released on the Game Boy Color entitled Duel Fight Transformers Beast Wars: Beast Warriors' Strongest Decisive Battle
- Just try saying Rockman: Digouter's Adventure Story in Halcyon Days: Adventurous Spirit of Steel with a straight face, I dare you!
- Then what about Rockman: Digouter's Adventure Story in Halcyon Days 2: Episode 2: The Mother Load and its prequel-demo Rockman: Digouter's Adventure Story in Halcyon Days 2: Episode 1: Close call, Roll-chan?
- Thank God for its short form Rockman DASH.
- The Baten Kaitos series has two titles, Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, and its prequel, Baten Kaitos II: Beginning of the Wings and the Heir of the Gods, although the latter's title was changed to Baten Kaitos Origins for its English release.
- The soundtrack for Wild Arms games consistently have titles with unusually long names. Some examples: "Even If I Can See the Reflection of Peace In Your Eyes", "This Downpour is a Blessing from the Heavens", "Walking into the Heart of the Sunset's Light", or "The Weight of a Heavy Life, the Meaning of the Meaning of Life".
- The upcoming indie game Dudebro — My Shit Is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It’s Straight-Up Dawg Time. For even more fun, check out the timeline.
- Most Touhou games are about halfway here thanks to basically having two regular sized titles, one in Japanese and one in English; Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism is a typical example. Then there's Touhou Hisoutensoku ~ Choudokyuu Ginyoru no Nazo wo Oe (Tranlates roughly to Lacking Perception of the Natural Laws of the East ~ Chase the Enigma of the Superdreadnought Guignol).
- The sequel to Osu Tatakae Ouendan, simply titled Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii: Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 or in English: Burn! Hot-Blooded Rhythm Soul: Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad 2.
- Gungnir: Inferno of the Demon Lance and the War of Heroes. It's a little less unwieldy in Japanese. Just a little.
- The Pajama Sam series had long titles in all the main games:
- Pajama Sam in No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside
- Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren't So Frightening
- Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat From Your Head to Your Feet
- Pajama Sam (4): Life is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff!
- Similarly above, the main Freddi Fish games all had long titles, and they were made by the same company:
- Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds
- Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse
- Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell
- Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch
- Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove
- Episode 4 of the King's Quest fan game The Silver Lining is titled "'Tis in My Memory Locked, and You Yourself Shall Keep the Key of It".
- Eojjeonji Joheun Il-i Saenggil Geot Gateun Jeonyeok (A Night Where Good Things Are Bound to Happen), a obscure korean PC beat'em up game.
- Tales of Game's Presents Chef Boyardee's Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa
- Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne - A Film Noir Love Story
- Spectrum Spelunker: Shoot Blocks to Win the Game, Also Jump and Run: Starring Hue
- Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters, an arcade game released by Atari Games in 1989.
Tabletop Games: Or, Games involving the manipulation of tangible objects such as paper cards, miniatures and dice, usually played atop a table by several persons (though the floor may be used if there is no table offering enough area)[]
- The grand-daddy of miniature wargaming, H. G. Wells's Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books..
- Magic: The Gathering has a card called the Our Market Research Shows That Players Like Really Long Card Names So We Made this Card to Have the Absolute Longest Card Name Ever Elemental, or OMRSTPLRLCNSWMTCTHTALCNEE for short.
- A couple of cards have flavour text attributed to Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, the Underworld Cookbook.
- Though the Magic card mentioned above is part of a Humor expansion, the Mythos CCG had a card called "The Thirty-Five Abominable Adulations of the Bloated One". Since Mythos referred to the Cthulhu Mythos, long names seem appropriate.
- The nonsensical fangame Super Hyper Paper Deluxe Mario Bros. Galaxy World Land 4: Partners in Sunshine Super Star Island & Saga of Time Advance 64 DS and its sequels have this.
Webcomics: Or, Stories available on the internet told through a mixture of sequential images and bubbles containing text, indicating what the characters are saying, thinking, and occasionally doing, much like a comic book but without commission.[]
- A Troll in Homestuck explains that in his planet, billions of years in the future, every short title has been used up, and so the titles are more descriptive.
CG: WHEREIN NUMEROUS VIGILANTES CONFRONT PERIL; ONE OF THEM BETRAYS THE OTHERS; (BUT IT TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG); |
- When you finally get a look on carcinoGeneticist's room, you can see the associated movie posters.
- The Incredible and Awe Inspiring Serial Adventure of The Amazing Plasma-Man
- A Beginners Guide to The End of The Universe
- Even in The Deepest Heart of Chaos A Glimmer of Order Can Be Found
- The Pokémon webcomic POKETTO MONSUTAA SPECIAL SUPER EX ADVENTURE XXXVX THE CHRONICLES OF RED BLUE GREEN AND A BUNCH OF OTHER KIDS WITH COLORS FOR NAMES; doubly so for negecting punctuation and being written in all-caps.
- And what number, exactly, is "XXXVX"?
- Comic strip #240 of Heroes Incorporated, AKA "Hey man? You ever think that the universe is just like, one atom of some even bigger universe we can't even imagine? Woah... My hands can touch anything but themselves..."
- Prequel -or- Making A Cat Cry: The Adventure, The Adventures Of Katia Managan.
- In El Goonish Shive, some of the early filler comics had these. Also a few story comics as well. These are usually played for laughs but at least one was played for drama.
- I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space
Web Originals: Or, Various pieces of fiction falling under a variety of descriptions distinguished by their initial appearance on a network previously establish to better facilitate the sharing of information between computers.[]
- The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon. Also an example of Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death
Western Animation: Or, Televisual performances produced throughout the Occident, mostly in the United States of America, made possible through the rapid display of slightly differing artistic renderings to create the illusion of movement[]
- Garfield and Friends had an episode called "The Creature that Lived in the Refrigerator, behind the Mayonnaise, next to the Ketchup, and to the Left of the Cole Slaw!", and the eponymous creature is referred to by the full title every time it's mentioned.
- Clerks the Animated Series used this, with each episode title being longer than the last, until episode 5: "Dante and Randal and Jay and Silent Bob and a Bunch of New Characters and Lando, Take Part in a Whole Bunch of Movie Parodies Including But Not Exclusive To, The Bad News Bears, The Last Starfighter, Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom, Plus a High School Reunion."
- Drawn Together did an episode called "Wooldoor Sockbat's Giggle-Wiggle Funny Tickle Non-Traditional Progressive Multicultural Roundtable!"
- There's also an organization in Drawn Together called "Special Tactical Operations Unit To Catch People Who Set Up Suicide Hotlines Because Of A Reality Show Challenge And Then Didn't Follow Through On Them So They Cause The People Who Needed Them To Take Their Own Lives And Then They Change Their Minds When They Realize Not All People Should Be Forced to Live So They Try To Assist Someone In Euthanasia". Or STOUTCPWSUSHBOARSCATDFTOTSTCTPWNTTTTOLATTCTMWTRNAPSBFTLSTTTASIE for short.
- Chowder had one episode called "Field Tournament Style Up and Down On the Ground Manja Flanja Blanja Banja Ishka Bibble Babble Flabble Doma Roma Floma Boma Jingle Jangle Every Angle Bricka Bracka Flacka Stacka Two Ton Rerun Free for All Big Ball". In TV listings, it's often shortened to Big Ball".
- King of the Hill has "What Happens at the National Propane Gas Convention in Memphis Stays at the National Propane Gas Convention in Memphis" as well as the (as of now unaired) "When Joseph Met Lori, and Made Out with Her in the Janitor's Closet".
- Also a season 5 episode when Joseph hits puberty which is called "I Don't Want to Wait for Our Lives to Be Over, I Want to Know Right Now, Will It Be... Sorry. Do Do Doo Do Do, Do Do Doo Do Do, Do Do Doo Do Do, Doo..."
- The Simpsons had Show Within a Show The Simpsons Family Smiletime Variety Hour.
- Mars and Mattel Quick Energy Chocobot Hour!
- Out-of-universe, Season Seven's 'Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish."'
- In a plot to be first in the phone book, one episode had Duckman naming his plumbing business AAAAAAAAAAAAA (ad nauseum) AAA-1 Plumbing, which was recited, in full, every single time it was said.
- One Count Duckula episode is titled, "Return of the Curse of the Secret of the Mummy's Tomb Meets FrankenDuckula's Monster And The Wolfman and the Intergalactic Cabbage." Another title: "The Count And The Pauper--I Ain't Gonna Work On Maggot's Farm No More!"
- At least three Hanna-Barbera shows had long titles: Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, Josie And The Pussycats In Outer Space, and The Completely Mental Misadventures Of Ed Grimley.
- Squidbillies had an episode entitled "Mephistopheles Traveled Below to a Southern State Whose Motto Is 'Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation".
- The Kids WB's The Cat&Birdy Warneroonie PinkyBrainy Big Cartoonie Show (The Big Cartoonie Show for short), which is a compilation show of The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, Animaniacs, Pinky and The Brain, and Looney Tunes. Later retitled The Cat&Bunny Warneroonie SuperLooney Big Cartoonie Show for season 2, upon which they've added Tiny Toon Adventures. Humorously enough, this early promo[3] suggests that the "original title" was The Cat and Birdy Warneroonie Pinkie Brainy Wacky Kooky Burpy Belchy Grinny Grannie Tazzie Spazzie Jokey Fally Smashy Gaggy Froggy Dancy Singy Wakko-y, Yakko-y Snickery Snockery Tickery Tockery Duckally Amuck-lly Daffilly Dottilly Bugsally Big Cartoonie Show!.
Anime/Manga: Or, Televisual performances produced akin to the preceding method, produced in the Empire of Japan, with considerably differing scope, visual style and manner of subject despite sharing a common means of conveyance[]
- On a general level, this trope is partially why certain formats of anime releases typically don't include episode titles in file names. After all, long show title + long episode title + a few subfolders = file paths exceeding 255-character length limits on some operating systems.
- Genshiken has a Running Gag of naming its chapters with a very verbose and academic-sounding title. The chapter where the group goes shopping on Akihabara, for example, is called "Comparative Classification of the Modern Youth Through Consumption and Entertainment".
- And "Genshiken" itself is an abbreviation for Gendai Shikaku Bunka Kenkyūkai, or "The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture".
- A good number of chapters from the Hayate the Combat Butler manga have really long titles.
- The title of episode six of He Is My Master is absurdly long. The full title is "The Sawatari Izumi Contest Series!! A Daring Test of Courage!! An Express Train to a Secret Hotsprings in the Northeast, a Mother-in-law Murdered in the Mist, a Madonna Teacher from an Elite Family Burning with Desire as They Watch a Housewife Battle For Control of Her Troubled Mansion!!". Episode five's title (which essentially describes the premise of the series) isn't much shorter.
- Kyoto Animation's recent (Jan 2009) anime. Behold Sora o Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai (loosely The World Reflected in the Eyes of a Girl who Looks Up at the Sky). Fortunately, said anime is a remake/continuation of the studio's earlier OVA titled Munto and its sequel, which allows the fans to call the series Munto the TV instead.
- All of the Baccano episode titles are long and overly descriptive.
- Taku Iwasaki had a lot of fun thinking up song titles for the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann soundtrack.
- The series title Sumeba Miyako no Cosmos-sou Suttoko Taisen Dokkoider (translation: Living in the Cosmos House, Foolish Dokkoida's Great Battle) was shortened to simply Dokkoida when brought to the US.
- Episode 26 of School Rumble is called "Totsuzen no 'sayonara'... Mayoikonda rabirinsu... Anata wa dare? ...Oshiete. 'Surechigai' 'Kataomoi' todoke, boku no kimochi. Todoke, watashi no omoi. Tabun ichido shikanai kisetsu, seishun no 1 pēji. Kore ga saigo no chansu, tashikametai... Kimi no kimochi. Tsutawaru kotoba, tsutawaranai omoi. Ano hi no kokuhaku, eien no ichinichi, dakedo... Itsumademo tsuzuiteiku, watashi tachi no 'ima'. Soshite ashita e... 'sukūru ranburu fōebā'". The official translation is just "School Rumble Forever!" which is probably not accurate.
- It's a well-deserved truncation, cutting it down to the final three words (which are just Gratuitous English).
- For those curious, the translation is "A Sudden Goodbye...Lost in a Labyrinth...Who are You?...Tell Me. Chance Encounters and Unrequited Love, Reach My Feelings. Reach My Thoughts. A Season That Probably Won't Come Again; One Page of Youth. This is My Last Chance; I Want to Confirm...Your Feelings. Words I Will Tell You, Thoughts I Won't Tell You. A Confession on That Day, That Eternal Day...but...Our 'Now' Will Go On Forever. And So, Tomorrow...School Rumble Forever."
- It's a well-deserved truncation, cutting it down to the final three words (which are just Gratuitous English).
- Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen Mae Hashutsujo, which translates to This Is the Police Station in Front of Kameari Park in Katsushika Ward, is the longest-running series in Shounen Jump, and the series with the longest title. Everybody just calls it Kochikame.
- The English title for episode 15 of Neon Genesis Evangelion is "Those women longed for the touch of others' lips, and thus invited their kisses."
- The English title for episode 12 is "She said, 'Don't make others suffer for your personal hatred.'"
- The Japanese title for episode 26 is "Sekai no chūshin de 'ai' wo sakenda kemono", which means "The beast who shouted (either 'love' or 'I') at the heart of the world".
- This (specifically the "love" version) is also the title of a Hugo-winning short story by Harlan Ellison, and the collection in which that story is to be found.
- The English title of episode 24 is "The Beginning of the End, or Knockin' on Heaven's Door".
- Although the episode titles in Revolutionary Girl Utena tend to be average length (the longest being episode 11: Graceful and Ruthless- The One who Picks the Flower), the songs used within the show and movie are needlessly long and have a habit of lacking any sort of relevancy to the lyrics. Just to name a few: Inhuman Illusory Soul Fusion Magic, The Absolute Destiny Apocalypse with Universal Gravitation, A Confessional Elevator- The Daydreamer's Troublesome Insect (Imaginary Bad Bug), Magical Lantern Butterfly Moth 16th Century, An Immortal Emperor in a Mundane Universe, The Natural Compatriot's Palace Perspective Book, We Who Have Cast Ourselves Aside Become Fallen Angels, Cradled in the Grave of the World in the Hands of the World, Rose Naked Body ~ Shura Physical Constellation 45 Nebula, and The First Duelist may be Reborn! The Never-Ending History of the Middle Ages.
- Gintama does this sometimes with it's chapter/episode titles like "ストレスはハゲる原因になるがストレスをためないように気を配るとそこでまたストレスがたまるので結局僕らにできることなんて何もない," or "Stress can lead to baldness, but if you try not to be stressed then that will make you stressed, so there's nothing we can do" (chapter 22 of the manga, episode 53 of the anime).
- In Psyren, the government branch responsible for the Grigori experiment is the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Psychic Powers Development Research Facility's Mental Sensitivity Department.
- The third Sailor Moon movie has the full title of "Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon Super S: The Movie: The 9 Sailor Soldiers Get Together! Miracle in the Black Dream Hole" due to haveing parts that refer to the 4th series/season, the fact that it's a movie, and giving the movie a standard episode title card. Most adds omit the last part while many listings of the full name omit "The Movie" (despite appearing on posters) The english dub chops it down to Sailor Moon Super S the Movie: Black Dream Hole.
- The anime/manga series Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne!!!! ("I Don't Like You At All, Big Brother!!"), which has one of the longest titles as far as recent shows go.
- Note that "recent shows" also includes Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai ("There's No Way My Little Sister Can Be This Cute"), which is just as much of a mouthful.
- Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai, which translates to "We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day." Viewers came up with the Portmanteau Series Nickname "Ano Hana" posthaste.
- To demonstrate how long and unwieldy this name is: on This Wiki the AnoHana is more commonly used as a Wick than Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai.
- The series' American licensee NIS America shortens it to anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.
- Moshi Kōkō Yakyū no Joshi Manager ga Dorakkā no "Management" o Yondara ("What if the Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker's Management?") aka Moshidora - the title card for the anime and the cover of the novel both write the title so that it splits into two lines with "Moshi" and "Dora" at the beginning of each, thus the abbreviation. The anime title card highlights this.
- Most episode titles in Best Student Council are of perfectly normal length, but episode 18 blindsides the viewer with "Hitoshi Satou, 28 years old, Occupation: Lawyer, Parents are Rich, and Even More Good Qualities to Make Him a Favorable Partner."
- Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaete Mo Omaera ga Warui which could be seen as a little bit like a Gender Flipped The World God Only Knows, sans supernatural Myth Arc. Kuroki has gotten most of her socialization practice from Otome games and can't interact well with real people outside of her family. The difference between her and Keima Katsuragi is that she's trying to be more social, while Keima just wants everyone to leave him alone and let him play his games. Each character seems to be achieving the goal of the other.
Other: Or, Honourable mentions arising from miscellaneous aesthetic productions that somehow elude veracious insertion underneath any of the aforementioned categorical headings[]
- Some of Salvador Dali's paintings have ridiculously specific (but precisely accurate; they belong to that kind of art) titles: Apparition of a Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach, Face of Mae West Which May Be Used as an Apartment, Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire, Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, One Second Before Awakening from a Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate...
- Also Joseph Wright of Derby's painting A Philosopher giving a Lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun.
- The Little Girl Who Was Forgotten By Absolutely Everyone (Even The Postman). Also known as The Little Girl Whose Story Has An Incredibly Long Title Because the Author Thought It Would Be Funny Until She Had To Type It Everywhere.
- Car names tend to be short and punchy, but for a few years in The Eighties, Mazda put the full model designation ("Mazda 323 DX 1.6i", four separate badges each in a different font) all in one row on the trunk lid above the left taillight on some models. Depending on the size and positioning of the dealer's emblem, that could mean a row of plastic badges stretching all the way from the left edge of the trunk lid to the keyhole halfway across.
- Youtube Poop tends to feature these kinds of titles, combined with either an Intentionally Awkward Title or Word Salad Title (for instance Krobo's Voluptuous Cooking Program or The Grinch Excites Himself Onto A Christmas Tree).
- Although it's only mentioned on the "about" page, David Chess's blog is titled The Curvature of the Earth Is Overwhelmed by Local Noise.
- A blog post at [1] has a new version of the bible called "New and Revised Standard Edition Version 13.75 for angsty and rebellious emo faggots who have nothing better to do than blindly take shots at things that they're too stupid to understand and too anal-retentive to actually notice the point of the message." or the NRSEv13.75fAaREFwhNBtdtBTSaTtttStUatA-RtANtPotM for short
- Apple products don't have model numbers, so they get names like "Power Macintosh G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors)" and "Mac Book (13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008)."
- In sports, particularly notable games get immortalized with a short descriptive title. This is not one of them.
- The instruction manual for the Kymera Remote Control Wand, which admittedly looks and performs like a real magic wand, and thus has this thematically-inspired reference.
- Mark Reads Twilight gives us this: “I Am Going To Do Something Spectacular And Clearly Attention-Grabbing In Front Of Plenty Of People, Yet No One Is Going To Notice Except (Conveniently) The Main Character” Phenomenon. He shorted it to the IAGTDSSACAGIFOPOP,YNOIGTOE(C)TMC Phenomenon when referring to it later. This is referring to the scene where Edward stops the van with his bare hands, yet nobody in the "sea of faces, all frozen in the same mask of shock" noticed this from Chapter 3 of the first book.
- J.M.W. Turner painted in 1840: "Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhon Coming On)" and it's better known now as simply "The Slave Ship." At the time, Punch Magazine lampooned the title with one of their own: "A Typhoon, Bursting A Simmoon, Over A Whirlpool Maelstrom, Norway, A Ship on Fire, An Eclipse, With the Effect of a Lunar Rainbow."
- Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space a Doctor Who Kid Fic by earlgreytea68.