“She’s a Rainbow” - Rolling Stones…Nothing like a nice, bucolic tune about a wonderful girl that ends with horror movie soundtrack violins.
Rambling, almost Bartok-like piano at the end of Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane” - even more spidery-like in the “David Live” version.
About three-quarters through what would have been my favourite Black Sabbath tune - “Symptom of the Universe” - they break into something that would have been much more at home on the Doobies’ “What Were Once Vices and Now Habits” album, which has a couple half-decent songs, itself, but definitely not capping off SOTU.
About the only thing I can tolerate about April Wine’s “I Like to Rock” (and it’s kinda neat actually) is how it fades out, deftly intertwining the guitar lines from “Satisfaction” and “Day Tripper”.
“Long, Long, Long” - Beatles - keyboards at the end go way up in the mix, with odd howling. Interesting hearing that for the first time when you’re a five-year-old ('69) sitting almost fetal-like in front of the old Viking console and then appropriately freak-out responding by pen-scratching actually several Beatles albums, which were kept around as a friendly reminder. A year or so earlier an older sister freaked at the “I buried Paul” coda on “Strawberry Fields”.
So yeah, if you have any traumatizing backstory to any examples, feel free to share.
Eric Clapton sometimes couldn’t figure out how to end a song. Take, for example, “Motherless Children” – completely unnecessary cymbal-drum work, after the already-too-long ending is over.
You mentioned George Harrison’s “Long Long Long.” Also, there’s “Within You Without You,” which ends with some laughter. Some have credited George with wisely breaking the tension (even perhaps a bit of self-deprecation) after such a serious, morally scolding song.
For such a jolly happy band (compared to many of their contemporaries), the Beatles knocked it out of the park as far as odd/creepy/incongruous endings go.
The backwards recording at the end of “Rain,” the infamous “I buried Paul/Cranberry sauce,” and especially “I Want You” at the end of Abbey Road’s side one. Back in the LP days you had to get up out of bed in a dark room to lift the tone-arm, and it was ALWAYS creepy.
I never bought the album on CD, so I have no idea what the effect is when you just launch right into “Here Comes the Sun.”
Destruction’s *Confused Mind * ends with, half-human gruntings, the slowly approaching sound of foosteps, a woman screaming then a sick laugh :dubious: . Of course, coming from one of Germany’s top 80s thrash metal bands, I guess it’s par for the course.
My brother and I used to listen to it late at night when we were 13-14, in a state that can perhaps be described as “a bit creeped out, a bit amused”.
Off of Prince’s seminal (heh) album Dirty Mind, he has the song Gotta Broken Heart Again. A sad little song about getting broken up with - but at the end the music trails off with some lyric about ending it all…followed by a gunshot. Too much.
John Entwistle’s "I Believe in Everything" ends with a rousing version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
It was far more incongruous in its time, when people got the reference, but the end of the Doors’ “Touch Me” have them singing the end of the Ajax Laundry Detergent jingle – “Stronger than Dirt.”
On the Mr. Fantasy album, Traffic starts out with “Paper Sun.” In between songs, you hear music in the background. Then the final cut of the album – titled “We’re a Fade, You Missed This.” – they sing a final verse to the song.
I’ve used the coda to Layla in a lot of homemade YouTube tributes to people and pets who have passed away. You’re right; it’s not creepy at all, but very oddly incongruous.
In my adolescence, I interpreted that ending as an orgasm, with the final drum beat as the last spasm. I can see how a five-year-old might not think of that.
On the Vince Neil solo album Exposed, as one of the songs ends (I can’t remember which one, but it’s either the end of side or 2, not a song in the middle), there’s a bunch of silence. then, out of nowhere, a kid’s voice says “oh, no.”
If memory serves, that was said by his daughter Skylar, who died in 1995, of cancer. The album was released 2 years prior to that, but I first heard that when I was trying to sleep. Totally dark room, radio on, and a child’s voice says “oh, no” with no provocation. Scared the shit out of me.
