Songs That Go Together

There are songs on classic rock radio that must be played together. You can't have one without the other. They are Queen's "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions," ZZ Top's "Waitin' for the Bus" and "Jesus Just Left Chicago," and Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" and "Living Loving Maid." All these songs follow one another on their original releases, so there's that. But, why have these songs managed to stay joined at the hip?

With one second left in "Bus," the song seems resolved. But, then there's a quick snare flourish. This would be taken as an eccentricity, except that it syncs up with and seems a perfect lead-in to the beat in "Jesus." Also, there's less than a second between the two songs, which makes me believe ZZ Top wanted them played together. This leads me to a point about the Zep and Queen duos, which isn't entirely my own. I'm not the first person to ask the "what's the deal with..." question, and when I found a thread about this topic, I also found this thoughtful comment from thanotopsis:

"There's zero silence between them on the original recording. A radio station either needs to crossfade into a new song, or talk over the fading song as it leaves the air. You can't do that on either Heartbreaker or We Will Rock You without starting to play Living Loving Maid and We Are The Champions."

Away from the radio, like "Bus" and "Jesus," these songs can be played apart, though it feels weird. Hell, ZZ Top recognized this. It's hard to find live clips of the band where the two songs aren't joined. Also, Queen, most notably at Live Aid, played "Rock You" and "Champions" successively(strangely enough, according to wikipedia, "Champions" was the A side and "Rock You" was the B side to the original UK single, but since rock stations in the US were playing "Rock You" and "Champions" back to back, in that order, Queen's US label released the two songs as a double A-side single). Seems like Zeppelin is less concerned with the adjoinment of "Heartbreaker" and "Maid," as "Heartbreaker" was included in the 1990 "Remasters" and 2007 best-of "Mothership," while "Maid" is not on either record(it's well documented that Page doesn't like "Maid," a reason it was never performed live).

We've dealt with the technical aspects. On to any thematical similarities between the songs. "Heartbreaker" and "Maid" both deal with a prostitute, so I see why they seamlessly flow together. I like to think that Jesus is the main character of "Bus" and that "Jesus" is a kind of prologue to "Bus," but that's just me. As far as Queen goes, there is a connection, at least a perceived one, between the two songs, but I won't let myself break them down. I would sound we todd ted, and I fear I would never recover from the downward spiral of music dorkitude that would follow. Gotta leave that one be.

I welcome your comments. What are some other songs that must go together?

http://www.ask.metafilter.com/41048/Why-will-no-one-break-the-champions