Greatest Closing Tracks of All Time

Second choice is "Strange Loop" by Liz Phair.

Last choice is "Fairies Wear Boots" by Black Sabbath. Absolute mindfuck of a track.

If we’re doing nineties classics, Matthew Sweet’s closing tracking on Girlfriend, Nothing Lasts, doesn’t go out with a bang but a whimper, appropriately so, as it mourns the real end of the relationship charted across the previous tracks. It’s a great and fitting closer, however downbeat it is.

^ Forgot link to Nothing Lasts.

Not by any means the greatest, but I always appreciated how “High Fidelity” closes out Elvis Costello’s “Get Happy!!” with the fading refrain “Can you hear me?”

Or does it close out the album? The original US LP release messed up the labels and had the sides in the wrong order and subsequent releases have “High Fidelity” as the end of side 1.

R3, interesting choice.

"A Day in the Life" from [italic] Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band[/italic] .

Stevie Nicks ends Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors with the haunting, spare Gold Dust Woman.

R7, maybe I'm lame, but I also love Good Night from The White Album.

Greatest closing track of all time is "I Won't Share You" from The Smiths' Strangeways Here We Come.

It sounds suspiciously like a declaration of unrequited love from Morrissey to Marr, and the fact that the band broke up before the album was released adds to the emotional power. I've always found the fadeout of Marr's harmonica at the end to be especially poignant.

R8 You beat me to it, I'll have to think of another one.

Eclipse on Dark Side of the Moon

"The Tourist" on Radiohead's OK Computer.

Nights in White Satin

My copy of the Stone Roses record ends with Fools Gold after I am the Resurrection. I couldn't ever figure out why they put two very long songs at the end. Did the US label add Fools Gold at the end?

R15, looks like you are correct. That makes no sense, that has no business being the last song on the album (it's a great one though). On the deluxe edition, it's on the second album which makes more sense. It's on there with other songs like "One Love", "Elephant Stone", "Somethings Burning", etc.

“The Morning Fog” closing Hounds of Love by Kate Bush. Such a delightful song on its own, made better as the closing number of The Ninth Wave suite.

“Hasten down the Wind” (side one) and “Someone to Lay Down beside Me” (side two) from Linda Ronstadt’s Hasten down the Wind album.

Moonlight Mile on Sticky Fingers

I like this topic. I need to spin the gears in my head after naming Eclipse and Moonlight Mile to come up with another. Let me think some more.

I give up for now but I will say that I think Tom Petty should have ended Damn the Torpedos with Refugee.

From a purely commercial standpoint (as a single), probably "Africa" on Toto IV.

No offence R22 but I hate that song. Toto sucks.

Warren Zevon - s/t: “Desperados under the Eaves”