Jim,

Contrary to what you might think I have worked in a LOT of countries and states in 36 years. This whole anti Nashville thing you have, non-withstanding, the rest of the world does do longer songs. They also lose more venues, and are losing revenue hand over fist.
But most of the people that are on a lot of forums like this come to Nashville. But this is not just Nashville. It is American pop, rock, soul, blues music for most of the recorded history.
When the music capital of the world is in Edinburg, we can follow your lead. This forum was started by Mark Kaufman over the shortness of Beatles songs. As I seem to recall, the Beatles gained their biggest success when they came to America.
Sorry if it galls you but that is simply history. You can dissagree, spin it any way you want but the basic rule in almost all pop music and now to country and most other formats are the three minute songs. The reason is the attention span and commercial radio. But even so the blip on the radar screen which are the songs that you are talking about were 30 years ago.

That is my point. We agree to disagree once again. Imagine that.

MAB