# Disappointing song endings **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [January 9, 2025, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770 "2025-01-09T20:18:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/61 "2025-01-11T03:00:04Z")
…apparently it’s called “sean-nós” which is an old irish style of singing. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Yam5uK6e-bQ/maxresdefault.jpg "The Cranberries - Dreams (Dir: Peter Scammell) (Official Music Video)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yam5uK6e-bQ) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/62 "2025-01-11T03:16:19Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > Speaking of Clapton, Derek and the Dominos’ Layla. Rocking party song on the front end that devolves into a piano recital at the exit. Yes, that first half is awesome, the second is two minutes of ear- bending whine. > [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I love Dinosaur Jr’s cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven”, What a discordant cacophony combined with a nasal twang vocal that sounds half-assed. > [@](#): > > but then it just stops, seemingly mid-song (it’s not really mid-song, they have sung all the verses, but it sounds like that). Yes, it appears to be intentional, as the video shows a TV screen with the band getting turned off, but it is abrupt, which is doubly mystifying as the intro is almost half the song of just music. > [@Jaycat.again](#): > > When I bought Blonde on Blonde at the time of its release, the ending of Sooner Or Later One of Must Know faded out. Imagine my surprise when, years later, I bought it on CD and that song had a real ending. My point is, it must have been faded out in production, I doubt it was Dylan’s decision to do so. Richard Marx had a song that IIRC the album version fades while the radio version ends. Annoys me. I want the version that ends. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/63 "2025-01-11T03:33:39Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > Didn’t I read somewhere that (future psycho) Jim Gordon’s latter half of “Layla” was ripped off from Bonny and Delaney? Been looking, can’t seem to locate it. Jim Gordon, who is credited as co-writer, had a riff and brought it to Rita Coolidge - they were an item at some point - and she developed it into a song. She made a demo and when they all were traveling with the horde of people backing Delaney and Bonnie she played it for Clapton. Next thing she knew, Gordon was in Clapton’s band, and they had a song whose coda was indubitably her demo. But she never got credit. Or royalties. She laid out her side in her autobiography, _Delta Lady_, excerpted at length in _Billboard_ magazine. > **[Was Rita Coolidge Cheated Songwriting Credit on ‘Layla’? (Exclusive Memoir...](https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/rita-coolidge-layla-memoir-delta-lady-eric-clapton-derek-dominos-7318951/)** > > Over a long career in music, Rita Coolidge is known for her numerous hit songs and extensive studio work across pop, rock, country and more. Her place in history is secure, but even with a body of accomplishments dating back to the early ‘70s, one... I don’t think Gordon - or Clapton - ever copped to this theft, or gave their side to dispute it. I do think it’s pretty well conceded in the industry that Coolidge absolutely deserves a partial credit. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/64 "2025-01-11T04:18:23Z")
It still remains one of my favorite songs but the end sounds like they made a mistake while recording it. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SGRgAULYgWE/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC4AOKAgwIABABGGUgUihDMA8=&rs=AOn4CLBDw7f3ilWTnfaAKAResPym63iEqQ "Dream Theater - "Pull Me Under"") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGRgAULYgWE) ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/65 "2025-01-11T04:23:15Z")
Wow I have absolutely no recollection of that whatsoever! Simply putrid. My god. Remember the main part of the song enough times on the radio back in the day, but not that crap. Did stations cut it off? My least favourite fadeout might be for a number I like quite a lot: ZZ Top’s “La Grange”. ETA: I mean sure, the ending’s suitable within a blues jam context, but still - it’s like I’m waiting for them to go ripping back into the refrain again (oh with that awesome triplets drum fill!) ETA II: thank-you @Exapno_Mapcase, for the elucidation. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/66 "2025-01-11T04:29:27Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > My contribution: “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero.” It is apparent that Billy and the Girl are deeply in love. She tells him not to sign up, not to be a hero, but he signs up and tries to be a hero anyway. Sadly, Billy is killed. > > She gets the news in a letter that mentions Billy’s heroism, and that she should be proud of him. _And she throws the letter away!_ > > Dahell, Girl? You don’t want a souvenir of your Billy, even if it’s secondhand? Who’s next for your affections, I’m the exact opposite. She had the chance of having her happy ever after with the man she loved, but he would rather have glory. Well, he had the glory, and so she lost him. She threw the letter away because she wanted to have Billy, and he threw their future away. I don’t know the exact relation between this song, the Vietnam war, Britain’s involvement, and the American draft, but when this song came out, there were a lot of people unhappy about how people were dying for no good reason ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/67 "2025-01-11T04:53:54Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > Remember the main part of the song enough times on the radio back in the day, but not that crap. Did stations cut it off? A 2:43 single version for radio was released. The album version is 7:02. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/68 "2025-01-11T05:54:22Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > It still remains one of my favorite songs but the end sounds like they made a mistake while recording it. ISTR reading it was a deliberate homage to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, which similarly ends abruptly. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/69 "2025-01-11T06:08:01Z")
Ah, thanks. One fade-out I’m ok with is the Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime”. Not often you’ll hear vocals fading out. I think Mr. Byrne was just trying to be an oddball, there. Not sure if the end of the Beatles’ “Cry, Baby, Cry” falls more into coda territory. Certainly haunting. “Good Morning Starshine” is a nice, melodic, upbeat number that IMO is brought down by the last minute or so of “dooby-dab-dooby” scat, followed by variatons of “sing, sing a song”, and then a final “SING!”. 💩 🤮 👇 💩 ---
**Author:** ![Disinfectus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/disinfectus/32/11085_2.png) [@Disinfectus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disinfectus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/70 "2025-01-11T06:48:02Z")
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned “Her Majesty” from Abbey Road yet. The most abrupt Beatles ending ever. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/71 "2025-01-11T12:22:01Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > > [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > > > I love Dinosaur Jr’s cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven”, > > What a discordant cacophony combined with a nasal twang vocal that sounds half-assed. Hehehe 😅, what can I say, I like noise rock. And Robert Smith liked the cover, too. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/72 "2025-01-11T16:52:19Z")
Well, I enjoyed it. And that ending really is extraordinary. I can’t think of anything even similar. j ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/73 "2025-01-11T18:10:02Z")
With these super-abrupt endings, like with “Her Majesty”, you can’t help but wonder if they just, um, ran outa tape? Doubting, though, that was the case with either of King Crimson’s “Court of the Crimson King” or “Twenty-first Century Schizoid Man”. Despite its appropriateness due to the processional nature of the tune, I don’t like the ending of the Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere”. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/74 "2025-01-11T18:24:38Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > > [@Loach](#): > > > > It still remains one of my favorite songs but the end sounds like they made a mistake while recording it. > > ISTR reading it was a deliberate homage to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, which similarly ends abruptly. That’s correct but at the time it came out I didn’t have the internet to find the answer. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/75 "2025-01-11T18:36:01Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > Despite its appropriateness due to the processional nature of the tune, I don’t like the ending of the Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere”. I love that ending! Yeah, it’s surprising and unusual, but for me it ends on a good note. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/76 "2025-01-11T18:55:48Z")
For a lyrical rather than musical end - I hate the ending to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” He’s singing all the way through about how he wants to go out dancing with her, and she should wake him up if he’s asleep. Then at the very last, she asks him to go out dancing, and he tries to talk her into staying home to ~~fuck~~ sleep. Dude, that’s why she was leaving you at home in the first place! ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/77 "2025-01-11T19:04:06Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > The Beatles’ “Long, Long, Long” - another more or less sedate number with an even more cacaphonous ending - really freaked me out as a five-year-old listener. Ian MacDonald, who was (many say, and I agree) one of the most insightful writers on Beatles songs, thought this was a key moment in their recordings – a serendipitous tinkling of a wine glass (Ringo had something to do with this) and George’s “disembodied wail,” together expressing something deep about the pain of love and the human soul. But I can see why you were freaked out! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/78 "2025-01-11T20:33:56Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > For a lyrical rather than musical end - I hate the ending to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” > > He’s singing all the way through about how he wants to go out dancing with her, and she should wake him up if he’s asleep. Then at the very last, she asks him to go out dancing, and he tries to talk her into staying home to ~~fuck~~ sleep. Dude, that’s why she was leaving you at home in the first place! I just read the lyrics carefully. I wonder if the “dancing” all along is a euphemism for sex and he’s actually complaining that last night she masturbated while he slept. He’s “not planning on going solo” is him lamenting that he wants her to get him off, not do it himself. It’s kind of a weak interpretation, but just might make sense to somebody. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/79 "2025-01-11T20:38:06Z")
Harry Chapin was never happy with the ending to 30,000 Pounds Of Bananas. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770/80 "2025-01-11T20:45:59Z")
Good point. I have heard that "dancing"in the 80s was code for sex. Except for that last verse which is > Cuddle up baby > Move in tight > We’ll go dancing tomorrow night > It’s cold out there > But it’s warm in bed > They can dance > We’ll stay home instead So maybe she went to a swinger’s club? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappointing-song-endings/1012770.md?page=5)