Longest song to enter the Billboard Hot 100
Who
“I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time”, by André 3000
What
12:20 minute(s):second(s)
Where
United States ()
When

“I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time”, the first track on André 3000’s (USA, b. André Benjamin) debut solo album New Blue Sun, debuted at No.90 on the US singles chart on 2 December 2023. Clocking in at 12 minutes and 20 seconds, the instrumental “I Swear…” is the longest-ever entry in the Hot 100’s 65-year history, blunting Tool’s 10-min 21-sec “Fear Inoculum”, which debuted at No.93 on 17 August 2019, by almost 2 min.


“Shorter hit songs are music to TikTok generation’s ears,” reported The Daily Telegraph on 8 February 2022, citing research based on the length of Song of the Year nominations at the BRIT Awards since 2017, but former Outkast rapper André 3000 spectacularly bucked the trend with New Blue Sun, where the longest of the eight tracks – “Dreams Once Buried Beneath the Dungeon Floor Slowly Sprout into Undying Gardens” – is 17 min 11 sec.

In total, three compositions on New Blue Sun are longer than “I Swear…”, and six cuts on the 87-min 11-sec album of “experimental flute music” are at least 10 min long.

With an equally epic 79 letters (minus punctuation), “I Swear…” is also one of the longest Hot 100 song titles, although it doesn’t beat Ray Stevens’ 90-letter, No.35-peaking epic from 1960, “Jeremiah Peabody’s Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills”, nor Dutch novelty act Stars on 45’s No.1 from 1981, the full title of which, due to copyright laws, featured every track it sampled – running to 153 letters (minus apostrophes, colon and forward slashes)! The track was conveniently shortened to “Medley” by Billboard magazine.