Long Long Time

After her 1969 show at the Bitter End, David Bromberg told her that Gary White, then playing backup guitar for Paul Siebel at the Cafe Au Go Go, had a song for her. She went expecting to be disappointed, heard it backstage, and told White she wanted to record it at once. It is a song about lasting love for someone who did not last as a lover.

She cut it in a morning session in Nashville for Silk Purse, and the band kept her live vocal. Norbert Putnam played bass and is credited with the arrangement, Buddy Spicher played fiddle, and Weldon Myrick played steel, a sound he called the Goodlettsville String Quartet. Ronstadt later said she butchered the phrasing and learned to sing it better, but that the song bought her time. Capitol released it, she said, and then told her not to bring them another country single. It reached number 25 on the Hot 100, became her first Canadian single, and earned a Grammy nomination.

Live and after

setlist.fm logs 33 performances, from the Troubadour in September 1969 to Radio City Music Hall in March 1982, and she sang it on The Johnny Cash Show in October 1970. In January 2023 the third episode of The Last of Us took its title from the song: Bill, played by Nick Offerman, plays it on piano, and it becomes the theme for him and Frank. Craig Mazin chose it at Seth Rudetsky's suggestion. Spotify reported a 4,900 percent jump in US streams in the hour after the broadcast, and the song went to number one on Billboard's Rock Digital Song Sales. Cliff Richard, Mindy McCready and Alannah Myles are among those who have covered it. The upload in the hypersongs web is the official 2023 lyric video of the full album version.