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Now THAT’s How You Close An Album

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Following on from Bingo Little’s thread on album openers, how about on the best ever finales, the tracks that conclude an album with the maximum satisfaction?

I suspect The Beatles may feature but I’m going to nominate T. Rex’s Rip Off, the wild track that concludes Electric Warrior. I love its rampant rhythm and the parping sax, but the rhyming couplets, giving the listener a glimpse into Marc Bolan’s unusual mind, are what make it special. “Rocking in the nude/Feeling such a dude” is my personal favourite (somehat inexplicably, it makes me think of Rob C!).

Any better ideas, Afterworders?

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Comments

  1. I LOVE rip off. Vivid memories of an old school mate insisting we play a battered tape of Electric Warrior in the car and his dad, who was driving, suddenly spluttering “did he just say rocking in the NUDE”?

    I’ll nominate I Am The Resurrection, as it’s an obvious one.

  2. Interesting. I love ‘Electric Warrior’ but I’ve never liked ‘Rip Off’ and in fact I always skip it.

    I would nominate ‘A Day In The Life’. Unoriginal choice perhaps, but I can’t seriously think of any other closing track that comes close.

    • I guess A Day In The Life would walk a poll. However, you are missing out, eddie. Rip Off is a summation of all the lust and sweat of Electric Warrior. Besides, it’s a much better ending than Life’s A Gas! Give it another try. I think you’ll find it is better than you recall.

  3. I’m not going to try to argue that my choice here could win in a proper fight against ‘Jungleland’ or ‘Inner City Blues’, but it always makes me want to put the album back on and listen to it all over again. And I hate guitar solos, but adore this one.

    • Fantastic track closing a fantastic album, perhaps Pere Ubu’s best. It’s almost funky. It’s a blessed relief after all that broken glass. Non-Alignment Pact isn’t too shabby an opener, either.

  4. Hang on, I’ve just realised what that nagging feeling as I posted above was. This:

    Mogwai Fear Satan – Mogwai

    Final track, debut album. Still the best thing they’ve ever done. My second favourite song of all time. THAT’s a closer.

    And I rock to it in the nude, all the time.

  5. Well if I think Speak To Me is a brilliant opener, anticipating the music to come, Eclipse is an amazing way to end (and what’s in-between is the best album ever made!). All that worrying about time, money, madness, politics, death etc amounts to nothing with the final eclipse that sees everything blown to smithereens. (Much the same as with The Final Cut’s Two Suns In The Sunset but to a better tune.) Ending with just the final pulse of the heartbeat that brought us into this world in the first place.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El2l__hRta0

    • Other favourites:
      I Am The Resurrection – Stone Roses
      Cloudy Day – Shades
      Biko – Peter Gabriel 3
      Waiting On A Friend – Tattoo You
      And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda – Rum, Sodomy & the Lash
      Shangri-La – A New World Record
      Child Of Vision – Breakfast In America

  6. Oh, crikey…a few off the top of my head:

    Bowie – Rock n’Roll Suicide
    The Smiths – Suffer Little Children
    I Won’t Share You
    REM – Find The River
    Prince – Purple Rain
    Sometimes It Snows In April
    Gold
    Roxy Music – For Your Pleasure
    ABBA – Like An Angel Passing Through My Room

    • I don’t understand the love for A Day In The Life (hardly surprising – I don’t understand the love for The Beatles). It could have been a great song with those Lennon verses, but for me it’s really really spoilt by McCartney’s “Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head” shite. Just sounds like a silly comedy Vaudeville piano song to me, that bit.

  8. A few from me

    I agree with Rip off from Electric warrior – great album, great song.

    David Bowie – Rock & roll suicide/ Bewlay brothers (Hunky Dory)

    The Beatles – A day in the life/ Good night (White album)

    Madness- The liberty of Norton Folgate (Title/ final track from the album of the same name.

    Elton John – Curtains (Captain Fantastic & the brown dirt cowboy)

  11. And a few usual suspects:

    Led Zeppelin -When The Levee Breaks
    Jethro Tull – Wind Up
    Eels are good at this – Things The Grandchildren Should Know & P.S. You Rock My World
    Love – You Set the Scene
    The Stones – Moonlight Mile

    • I was just thinking “Wind up”. There’s a cracking live version on the soon to be released reissue of “Minstrel in the gallery” on the extras disk.

  15. Joni was good at this, always concluding with a song that was memorable in some way. The a capella close to Hissing is probably the most dramatic example.

    Blue –

    Court and Spark

  21. Might not be a candidate for the greatest song in the last spot but if the category’s THAT’s how you close an album I’m happy to stay fairly recent with Glacier from John Grant’s Pale Green Ghosts. The lyric is a manifesto of personal strength about having the wisdom to appreciate how our pain shapes us and we don’t have to apologise to anyone for who we are. The music is sumptuous, as huge and as stately as a glacier, building to a thrilling climax, while containing near-homeopathic quantities of Sinead O Connor.
    (*turns to camera*) Nice.

  22. Two examples where the closing track is not only really brilliant, but also happens to be the only good track on the album:

    Coney Island Baby
    Truth Bitter Truth (Dangerous Acquaintances- Marianne Faithful)

  24. Well, there have been some fine suggestions so far. But I think there’s one obvious classic that hasn’t been mentioned yet. I love it when Arthur Lee brings “Forever Changes” to a monumental finish in “You Set the Scene”:

    “This is the time and life that I am living
    And I’ll face each day with a smile
    For the time that I’ve been given’s such a little while
    And the things that I must do consist of more than style
    There’ll be time for you to start all over…”

  28. Not quite.

    The closing track on The Soundtrack of Our Lives’s Communion album is The Passover. It’s a lovely elegiac end to a very fine album filled with slow stuff and a bit of rock. Can’t copy clips at mo, but do look it up.

  29. Joy Division – Decades
    Not a barrel of laffs, admittedly, but a poignant closer for “Closer”.

    Elliott Smith – Say Yes
    A nice bit of swearing to finish off “Either/Or”

    Manu Katché – Rose
    I love this track which finishes “Neighbourhood” in a plangent fashion.

  30. Lots of good suggestions. I even agree with several, but AC/DC have form here.

    Night Prowler on Highway To Hell (sleazy as all get out), and Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution on Back In Black are total killers for mine. I need a quiet lie down after either of those albums.

    And with all due respect to the Bowie selections above, what about Fame at the end of Young Americans ?

    • I really am not in a position to comment on AC/DC.

      However, I don’t think Fame fits on Young Americans. It was recorded later with the nucleus of the band that made Station To Station, sharing its drier sound. Fantastic record but it feels tacked onto Young Americans when it really belongs in the thick of Station To Station. I’d place it after TVC15 on side two. It works perfectly.

      Speaking of which, Wild Is The Wind is hard to beat.

  31. Another slow burner beyond compare.
    Mary Lorson ex Madder Rose, as Saint Low.

    All I’m looking for is the last track from an O Susannah LP, forget which, and my work is done

    • Piper is the only Floyd I listen to. However, Sydney makes a poignant return at the end of A Saucerful Full Of Secrets

      Jugband Blues. Now, that’s the kind of brass I like!

  37. Just a few…
    Richard Thompson – Al Bowlly’s In Heaven (Daring Adventures)
    Teardrop Explodes – When I Dream (Kilimanjaro)
    Be Bop Deluxe – Blazing Apostles (Sunburst Finish)
    XTC – Complicated Game (Drums And Wires)
    Paul Simon – Loves Me Like A Ropck (There Goes Rhymin’ Simon)

    I sure I can think of a few more, but they’ll do for now.

    • Thinking of closing instrumentals, I’ve recently acquired the mono mix of the My Generation LP. The Ox is a corking track, featuring Keith Moon going really ‘mental’ with Nicky Hopkins giving him a good run for his money on piano.

  41. Never Mind The Bollocks.
    Admittedly, EMI is not the strongest song on the album, but it closes with a delightfully placed raspbery from Johnny to previous employers (EMI and A&M). No doubt also meant for Malcolm McLaren, and probably the rest of the world.

  42. two tracks I’ve actually posted here recently, in different contexts.

    It’s one of their weaker LPs, but “Omertà / The Vampire Lanois” at the end of The Afghan Whigs’ 1965 is incredible – ten minutes of sleazy grunge soul that dissolves into a skronking wigout. And it quotes Nas.

    and then “Wail of Sumer / And There Your Heart Be Also” at the end of Elyzium by – don’t laugh – Fields Of The Nephilim is a gorgeously hallucinogenic fifteen minute daydream that superbly evokes the slipping into an afterlife it describes. The proggers and Floyd fans here could do a lot worse than listen to the whole album. It’s wonderful.

  43. Oasis have some form in this area.

    Definitely Maybe – Married With Children
    Somewhat out of step with the rest of the album, being acoustic , almost “tender” with an acerbic lyric and Liams soon-to-be trademark Manc accent , and elongated vowels

    Whats The Story Morning Glory – Champagne Supernova
    Listen to this and tell me Noel can’t write a song, and Liam can’t sing

    Be Here Now – All Around The World
    The full version (including Reprise).
    Splitting it into two parts, with Its Getting Better Man! in the middle was a daft idea – works much better as one track.
    Thats another one to add to the list of “Ways to improve Be Here Now”

      • I don’t agree. His best song is Racing In The Street, a song about how youthful hopes, dreams and desires soon turn sour. All that passion invested in the freedom of racing a car is lost in the weary, relentless need to earn a living in an unforgiving world. There is no escape from the blue collar existence and the girl, bright-eyed with hope becomes a resentful spouse. It breaks my heart.

    • For some reason I can’t quite fathom, Viv reminds me of The Clash. Why they didn’t list song on the cover or the label is inexplicable because it is the perfect finish for London Calling.

  55. The Super Furries are good at finishing their albums off with some aplomb. There’s a few I could have chosen but ‘twould be a toss up between Mountain People or this’n, Slow Life for me

    • You know, Zanti, since the new site opened, you are the contributor who has made me laugh the most. This track is dafter than the one closing Their Satanic Majesties Request and The Stones had the excuse of being off their heads on acid.

  60. Difficult to really pick a “prog” closer as they are “pieces” rather than songs but this one closes out “Close to the Edge” and it is magnificent. The Yes, proving that they have the rock, the roll, the funk and the jazz. Not sure if Bruford or Squire ever topped the playing on this.

    https://youtu.be/Ydw-5FvQ6D0

  64. Well, our steam powered laptop hasn’t taken off the www bit so I’ll tell you what they are:
    Dexys Midnight Runners’ There There My Dear
    Elastica Stutter
    Moby My Weakness

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