It is my birthday today, so I thought I would capture my 40 favourite closing tracks of the 178 I’ve covered so far here. This is based on whatever subjective qualities I felt they had this morning.
Don’t forget the index is available to look through that back catalogue here. Normal service resumes next week.
40. ‘In The Backseat’ - Arcade Fire
Alice died in the night
Our previous entry from Patti Smith’s debut, Horses, left us on a note of sadness, dwelling on what happens when friends, colleagues and contemporaries can no longer be with us. On Funeral, Arcade Fire, or specifically Regine Chassagne, tell us what it is like when a family member is no longer with us.
39. ‘Mr. November’ - The National
38. ‘Closing Time’ - Tom Waits
37. ‘Champagne Supernova’ - Oasis
36. ‘The Back Seat of My Car’ - Paul and Linda McCartney
34. ‘When the Levee Breaks’ - Led Zeppelin
33. ‘I Know The End’ - Phoebe Bridgers
The billboard said "The End Is Near"
For weeks and months in 2020, we all wanted to scream. We needed to scream. This tweet, from the anonymous confession account Fesshole, sums it up rather succinctly.
32. ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return’) The Jimi Hendrix Experience
31. ‘New York, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down’ - LCD Soundsystem
30. ‘Stars’ - The XX
29. ‘When an Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease’ - Roy Harper
28. ‘Oh! Sweet Nothin’’ - The Velvet Underground
26. ‘Cop Shoot Cop’ - Spiritualized
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes
These days, when I think about the closing track of Spiritualized’s Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, the other all-time classic released on 16th June 1997 in the UK, it brings to mind two different types of needles; one should be evident to anyone familiar with the song, the album and the band, the other is more of a time and place-bound m…
25. ‘Tower of Song’ - Leonard Cohen
24. ‘A Certain Romance’ - Arctic Monkeys
23. ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’ - Joni Mitchell
22. ‘Torn Curtain’ - Television
21. ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ - The Pogues
20. ‘I Can't Give Everything Away’ - David Bowie
Seeing more and feeling less
Before my children were born, my wife and I woke to the sound of BBC6 Music on a DAB radio. This alarm call was just before 7 am; we still had work offices to attend physically, back then. A few mornings had entertainment news breaking overnight, and I remember several of them clearly.
19. ‘It's All over Now, Baby Blue’ - Bob Dylan
18. ‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’ - Radiohead
17. ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’ - The Beastie Boys
16. ‘Debra’ - Beck
15. ‘He's Misstra Know-It-All’ - Stevie Wonder
14. ‘All Apologies’ - Nirvana
All in all is all we are
For a band as famous and influential as Nirvana, there’s never been a definitive goodbye as a piece of musical output. In Utero is, of course, their third and final studio album, but it doesn’t function in the way a planned last album or something like Joy Division’s
13. ‘Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)’ - Marvin Gaye
12. ‘Is This Music?’ - Teenage Fanclub
11. ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ - Carole King
10. ‘One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)’ - Frank Sinatra
09. ‘You Can't Always Get What You Want’ - The Rolling Stones
07. ‘The Private Psychedelic Reel’ - The Chemical Brothers
And the way I feel just makes me want to scream.
There’s a point around the three-minute mark into The Chemical Brothers’ song ‘The Private Psychedelic Reel’ where what sounds like a Formula One car comes careering into earshot and then pans across from right to left, complete with Doppler Effect. If you listen to this on headphones, it sounds like a tiny car driving at 200 mph around the gap between …
06. ‘soon’ - my bloody valentine
04. ‘A Day In The Life’ - The Beatles
01. ‘Decades’ - Joy Division
Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders
There were many possible epitaphs for Ian Curtis after he died. ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was released a month afterwards and is the obvious one most people will know. ‘Atmosphere’ was released as a single in the UK that September and features prominently in
The whole Substack Playlist is below
Happy birthday!
Really cool list. "Is This Music?" was the first Teenage Fanclub song I was exposed to, back in the late 90s. They have since grown into one of my favorite bands. What do you think about Nothing Lasts Forever? Pretty good closer on there.
Happy birthday!