A soft-lit confession about waiting—a question asked into the quiet until the phone, the clock, and the heart all start to answer back.
Essentials up top. Song: “How Long Is Too Long.” Artist: The Partridge Family (lead vocal David Cassidy). Album: Bulletin Board (Bell Records, released October 1973). Writers: Tom Bähler & Tony Asher. Length: about 3:41–3:42. Single status: not released as a U.S. single (no Hot 100 peak). Recording date: September 4, 1973. TV usage: performed during the show’s Season 4 run (notably in “The Diplomat” and “Keith and Lauriebelle,” aired March 2, 1974). Album note: Bulletin Board was the eighth and final Partridge Family studio LP—and the first to miss the Billboard album chart.
For older ears, “How Long Is Too Long” captures a very specific early-’70s feeling: the house gone still after dinner; the television murmuring in the next room; the sense that love sometimes arrives late when you’ve already talked yourself into doubt. Bähler and Asher—one a veteran singer-arranger, the other forever linked with Pet Sounds—write in plain language and steady pulses. The title phrase does most of the heavy lifting, circling back like a thought you can’t shake. It isn’t a melodrama; it’s a holding pattern—and that restraint is what makes the chorus feel true.
On tape, the Bulletin Board sound is tidy and unfussy: light backbeat, acoustic strum up front, and a halo of backing voices that lift Cassidy without crowding him. Liner credits show the usual Los Angeles A-team shaping that air-bright feel—Hal Blaine on drums; Max Bennett/Jim Hughart on bass; guitars from Larry Carlton, Dean Parks, Richard Bennett and friends; Michael Omartian/Larry Muhoberac on keys; and the household blend of the Ron Hicklin Singers (John & Tom Bähler, Jackie Ward, Ron Hicklin). Whatever the week’s plotline, this studio family could take a modest tune and let it breathe—two guitars answering like friends, the rhythm section keeping the floor steady while the lyric does its work.
Context deepens the song’s glow. Cut on September 4, 1973 and sequenced on Side Two, it arrived at the very end of the Partridge run, when the show’s world was shifting and the records were leaning a touch more grown-up. The album itself bowed in October 1973, and while prior Partridge LPs had glided onto the charts, Bulletin Board quietly didn’t—proof that the phenomenon was easing down even as the craft stayed high. One intriguing footnote from the same source: though Wes Farrell is the credited producer, the set was produced and arranged by John Bähler (Tom’s brother), which explains the vocal blend and the gentle, television-room intimacy of the mix.
If you remember the TV moments first, you’re not alone. Season-four episode guides and fan archives place “How Long Is Too Long” right in the living fabric of the series: a showcase number in “The Diplomat”—all bright smiles and nervous hearts—and again in “Keith and Lauriebelle,” where the band performs it onstage and the lyric’s waiting-game turns into a shareable feeling in the room. That braid of screen and stereo is why so many of these late-catalog tracks live vividly in memory even without 45-rpm paper trails.
What the song means now is what it meant then: sometimes love isn’t a thunderclap; it’s a question you ask kindly, again and again, until the answer arrives. Cassidy sings it with open vowels and a short leash on the vibrato; he’s not pleading, he’s checking in. The band leaves air between the lines so the listener can fill it with their own hours and doorways. And the chorus refuses to spike—no key change, no fireworks—because the point isn’t catharsis; it’s companionship. You could two-step to it on a gym floor, or just sit with it while the coffee cools.
For collectors and completists: “How Long Is Too Long” runs about 3:41 on the original LP and 3:42 on common digital issues; it was recorded Sept 4, 1973 and first issued on Bulletin Board (Bell 1137, Oct 1973), with Bähler/Asher credited as writers and the core session ensemble listed above. Although it wasn’t a single, the track later found a second life on the 1989 Greatest Hits compilation, which is how many fans rediscovered it in the CD era. Taken together with its two TV placements, those breadcrumbs map the little journey the best Partridge songs made: from a studio, to a set, to a living room, and back again.
Put it on today and the old picture snaps into focus. You can almost hear the stylus settle, see the room take on that soft evening color, and feel the years compress to a single thought: how long is too long to wait for a good thing? In the Partridge Family universe, patience isn’t punishment; it’s a kind of care. And this song—small, sturdy, and beautifully ordinary—makes that care feel like company until the door finally opens.