Songs With a Fake Ending

You reached for the dial. That was the mistake.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. A doctor's prescription pad and a brown pill bottle on a stadium stage monitor, a microphone stand already knocked over and set back up.

    10. Bad Medicine

    Bon Jovi · 1988

    Lead single from New Jersey and a Billboard No. 1. Around 4:20 the song is wrapping up, Jon announces he is not done, and the band goes back for one more chorus. They do it live every night, which means he has not been done since 1988.

  2. Rain falling upward from a puddle into gray clouds, a reel-to-reel tape recorder on a windowsill playing in reverse.

    09. Rain

    The Beatles · 1966

    The B-side of Paperback Writer, and per Walter Everett the first Beatles fade-out, fade-in coda. What fades back in is Lennon singing backwards, a trick he says he found by accident at home, very stoned, with the tape on wrong. Ringo calls it his best drumming.

  3. A theater stage backdrop of psychedelic colors with a pile of flower leis and a tambourine left on the boards after the curtain call.

    08. Hello, Goodbye

    The Beatles · 1967

    At 2:36 the song ends. Then comes a 45-second coda Ian MacDonald called the Maori finale, ad-libbed in the studio. Lennon disliked the song, wanted I Am the Walrus as the A-side, and said the best bit was the end. He stayed for the encore.

  4. A Hammond organ in a candlelit room with one key held down, a twelve-string acoustic guitar leaning against the bench.

    07. Thank You

    Led Zeppelin · 1969

    John Paul Jones's Hammond fades into a false ending, then swells back about ten seconds later. Musicologist Walter Everett files it beside Rain and Strawberry Fields as a fade-out, fade-in coda. On Led Zeppelin II, it is the one song that is not trying to hurt you.

  5. A jukebox in a 1960s dance hall with the record paused mid-spin, two-tone shoes frozen in a dance step on the checkered floor.

    06. Do You Love Me

    The Contours · 1962

    Berry Gordy wrote it for the Temptations, who were at church, so the Contours got it. The song stops dead near the end and then barrels back in. It hit No. 3 in 1962 and returned to No. 11 in 1988 thanks to Dirty Dancing, which is its own kind of fake ending.

  6. A drum kit after a session, cymbals still wobbling, two splintered drumsticks on the floor beside a carnival slide.

    05. Helter Skelter

    The Beatles · 1968

    One July take ran 27 minutes. The released one fades out around 3:40, fades back in, half-fades again, then crashes back with three cymbals before Ringo yells about the blisters on his fingers. The mono mix quits at the first fade and skips the blisters.

  7. A deflated pool float slumped on a white leather sofa in a sleek modernist living room, a vinyl record's run-out groove glowing on a turntable nearby.

    04. In Every Dream Home a Heartache

    Roxy Music · 1973

    A chilly cocktail-organ love song to an inflatable doll, which would be enough. Then it closes side one of For Your Pleasure by fading into the run-out groove, and roars back drenched in phasing. A generation of turntable owners got up too early.

  8. A small chrome harmonica and a pair of bongos at the edge of a theater stage, a bass guitar leaning half-unplugged against an amp in the wings.

    03. Fingertips (Part 2)

    Little Stevie Wonder · 1963

    Recorded live in Chicago. Stevie, 13, says goodbye, the band plays him off, the bass players swap for Mary Wells's set, and he comes back anyway. The new bassist can be heard yelling to ask what key. It went to number one, key undisclosed.

  9. A studio mixing console with one fader pulled all the way down and a second hand-drawn arrow pushing it back up, a gold rhinestone cape draped over the chair.

    02. Suspicious Minds

    Elvis Presley · 1969

    RCA's Felton Jarvis overdubbed a roughly 15-second fade near the end and then brought the song back. Chips Moman, who produced the session, said Jarvis messed it up. It became Elvis's last Hot 100 number one anyway, so the fade fooled everyone except Moman.

  10. A vintage Mellotron in a dim studio with its tape reels spinning backwards, strawberries scattered across the keys.

    01. Strawberry Fields Forever

    The Beatles · 1967

    Two takes in different keys and tempos, sped up and slowed down until they met in the middle. Then it fades out, waits a few seconds, and fades back in for a backwards-Mellotron coda that fed the Paul-is-dead crowd for years. The mumble was studio chatter.

Honorable mentions

  • A small acoustic guitar resting on a velvet throne cushion, a long strip of blank leader tape trailing off the end of a reel.

    Her Majesty

    The Beatles · 1969

    Not a fake ending, a fake album ending. After The End comes 20 seconds of leader tape, then 23 seconds of Paul serenading the Queen. An engineer under orders never to scrap Beatles tape tacked it on. McCartney called it typical Beatles: an accident.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A five-disc CD changer with its tray open in a dark living room, a smashed black electric guitar lying in pieces in front of it.

    Endless, Nameless

    Nirvana · 1991

    Nevermind ends with Something in the Way, then about ten minutes of nothing, then a live cacophony that includes Cobain smashing his only left-handed guitar. The first pressing left it off by mistake. Grohl said part of the point was to mess with CD changers.

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