One more – a pleasant, homespun ditty by Jethro Tull (“The Smoke”=London; a “sarnie” is a sandwich; “candy floss” is cotton candy…), with a stupid, extraneous strummed chord at the end:
I love Dinosaur Jr’s cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven”, 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).
Interlaced with Duane Allman’s guitar, which is exactly what makes it one of the greatest songs in rock history.
Everybody hated this ending so much that some radio stations created an edit that stopped before it could torture us.
The end of Bowie’s “Life on Mars” is incredibly annoyingly disappointing - trailing off like aether - plus telephone rings!
ETA:
The Stones’s “She’s a Rainbow” - light pop-psycadelic number that ends with horror movie violins.
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.
Is the OP only interested in tunes where the instrumentals end poorly, or are examples of the lyrics sorta crapping out lamely also fair game?
The latter’s cool, too
I’m of divided minds about numbers with fade-outs that fade back in (ha and then fade back out again. Finally)
Like Hendrix’s “Ezy Ryder”. Couple others just on the tip of my tongue that, for some reason, I roll with, while other times I don’t.
“Strawberry Fields Forever”
Yes another creepy Beatles ending that freaked out this tyke.
“Hey Jude”. There just weren’t nearly enough na-nas and hey heys for this listener.
I love Joni Mitchell, and really like her song Big Yello Taxi. But for some inexplicable reason she laughs at the very end. I find it weird and out-of-place.
I don’t think I’ve ever listened to that song except in the context of the album, and I’m perfectly happy with the way it leads into “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise).”
The Beatles’ “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” ends on the 5th.
The last 21 seconds of Green Tambourine by the Lemon Pipers. Considering the song is less than 150 seconds long, that’s a thud factor of 14%.
I always thought that she’s giggling at herself and the goofy way she deepens her voice the final time she sings put up a parking lot.
That song raises a lot of questions. What exactly is the “big yellow taxi” to which she is referring? Is it a regular Yellow Cab, or is it a Toronto police car; which at the time of the song’s writing, were school-bus yellow? Mitchell, having spent time in Toronto, would certainly be familiar with Toronto and its police cars. Who knows?
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, Girl, Luke down at the feed mill or Danny in the general store? It’s apparent that you don’t care, as long as you have a guy. Hey Mr. Producer, was the 45 single going on too long so you couldn’t satisfactorily conclude the story, or what?
The State Capitals song from Animaniacs is very clever, but the weakest part of it is the last two lines, rhyming “city” with “city”. They could have rearranged it a little bit, perhaps changed the order of verses, so this came in the middle of the song.
I think you’re correct, and I don’t like that, either.
The subject matter is sorta serious. And then she laughs it off in the end.
I think that pic you cite really ought to be the new American Flag.
I don’t agree.
She has whatever souvenirs from before he left. What she doesn’t want is a reminder of her anger. especially delivered in the cold clinical tones of bureaucratese.
Her throwing away the letter is the emotional whack upside the head to the audience that he threw his life away for the glory of the government and she’s now calling the government’s hypocrisy out to us. Powerful stuff.