Taking my time

Описание: "Long Time" - Boston
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🎵 “Long Time” — Boston
Album: Boston (1976)
Written by: Tom Scholz
Producer: John Boylan & Tom Scholz (uncredited)
Personnel:
Brad Delp – lead & backing vocals
Tom Scholz – lead guitars, rhythm guitars, acoustic guitars, bass, Hammond organ, clavinet, percussion, songwriting, arrangements
Barry Goudreau – additional rhythm guitars
Fran Sheehan – bass guitar (live and some album contributions)
Sib Hashian – drums
Jim Masdea – early demo drums (influence on final arrangement; uncredited on LP)
⭐ Overview
“Long Time” is the moment where Boston’s debut album stops being a great rock record and becomes a statement — a declaration of longing, escape, ambition, and unstoppable propulsion. Sitting as the second half of the “Foreplay/Long Time” suite, it’s a song built on momentum: a rising, rolling, forward-driving anthem designed to be blasted in cars, dorm rooms, and stadiums.
Released in 1976, it captures everything Boston was: hyper-melodic, meticulously engineered, emotionally earnest, and unapologetically grand. If “More Than a Feeling” was the hook, “Long Time” was the backbone — the song that cemented Boston as an arena-rock force.
⚙️ Origins & Writing
Tom Scholz wrote “Long Time” in his basement studio in Massachusetts years before Boston existed as a proper band. Scholz, an MIT graduate and Polaroid engineer, approached rock songwriting like mechanical design:
melody = architecture
harmony = load-bearing structure
rhythm = propulsion system
production = aerodynamics
“Long Time” is one of the earliest songs where this engineering-based philosophy is fully realized.
The lyric sits between melancholy and liberation — the feeling of breaking away from something familiar to chase something undefined. Scholz later described it as “moving on when you don’t know where you’re going, only that you can’t stay.”
🎚️ Recording & Production
This is where the mythology of Boston really shows.
Almost everything you hear on the final track was recorded by Tom Scholz alone in the basement of his Watertown home, then re-amplified and mixed to sound like a full band in a proper studio. The guitars? Stacked and layered by Scholz. The organ? Scholz. Many of the bass parts? Scholz. The arrangements and mix? Also Scholz.
Brad Delp’s vocal performance is what lifts the song from brilliant to unforgettable. Delp had a supernatural ability to deliver arena-rock power with choirboy clarity. His range on “Long Time” is extraordinary — full-throated, warm, and utterly sincere.
Guitars:
The guitar tone — the famous “violin-like” sustain — was achieved through Scholz’s homemade gear: early prototypes of the Rockman circuitry he later commercialized.
Organs & Keys:
The Hammond B3 swells during the choruses expand the harmonic space and give the track its soaring, upward thrust.
Drums:
Sib Hashian plays with clean, unfussy drive, anchoring the song’s forward momentum without cluttering the mix. The tom fills that lead into the chorus are deceptively simple but perfect.
Barry Goudreau’s rhythm parts add width and grit, giving the track the illusion of a massive live ensemble.
📡 Impact & Legacy
“Long Time” became one of Boston’s signature tracks despite never being as ubiquitous as “More Than a Feeling.” It is:
a classic-rock radio staple
one of the most sonically immaculate rock recordings of the ’70s
a blueprint for melodic hard rock for two decades
a fan favorite in every live set
a masterclass in DIY studio engineering
a time capsule of the “golden age” of arena rock
The song’s success also reinforced the mythology of Boston — the band that sounded too perfect to be real.
⭐ Why It Endures
Brad Delp’s voice — pure, soaring, unmistakable
Tom Scholz’s engineering genius — homemade tech turned into a global sound
The melodic clarity — every line is singable
The emotional arc — restlessness, hope, escape
The production quality — 1976, yet still sounds modern
“Long Time” is the sound of a man building an entire universe in his basement — and then watching it fill stadiums.
It's not just a song.
It’s a reminder that one person’s vision, executed with obsessive perfection, can echo for decades.