Best Closing Tracks, Pt. 4

#20: “Outsiders”
Franz Ferdinand
You Could Have It So Much Better (2005)

I saw Franz Ferdinand live in 2005, touring new material right before the release of their second album. While the band performed well and whipped the crowd into a frenzy with favorites from their spectacular debut album, the new songs didn’t seem to connect with people at all. The exception to this was “Outsiders”, which was saved for the encore and immediately grabbed the audience’s attention. With its rubber bassline, funky, nervous guitar skittering and polyrhythmic breakdown, “Outsiders” proved there was life after their debut for Franz Ferdinand.

#19: “Leave Me Alone”
New Order
Power, Corruption & Lies (1983)

It’s amazing enough that the three surviving members of Joy Division managed to cope well enough with the death of Ian Curtis to form New Order. It’s even more astonishing that New Order ended up being one hell of a good band. Perhaps the jewel in their proverbial crown is Power, Corruption & Lies, an album which bridges the gap between Joy Division’s ominous atmosphere and New Order’s future as dance-oriented peddlers of melancholy pop. The closing “Leave Me Alone” looks back at Joy Division’s sound more than other songs on the album and the resulting blend of sad melody and resigned lyrics closes the book on the legacy of Joy Division forever.

#18: “If It Was Me”
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
Fear Is On Our Side (2006)

Once you get past the name, it’s obvious that this Austin-based group records some of the darkest, least-Texan-sounding music to ever escape the vast confines of the Lone Star State. Drawing heavily from late-70s post-punk, “If It Was Me” is the explosive closing statement on their sole album to date. The song grows out of a dark guitar riff, before finally whipping itself into a frenzy of cathartic release that demands some headbanging from even the most restrained listener.

#17: “Something In The Way”
Nirvana
Nevermind (1991)

Nevermind is, of course, an album much more famous for its era-defining opener, but the album’s claustrophobic, broken closing track, “Something In The Way”, is just as powerful. After listening to Cobain’s punky rage for an entire album, this skeletal guitar-and-cello song is jarring and very, very creepy. It’s the kind of song that gains all kinds of emotional relevance after the fact of Kurt’s death.

#16: “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda”
The Pogues
Rum Sodomy & The Lash (1985)

Despite their hardcore Irish roots, the Pogues’ most emotionally intense song is actually about Australians. Their cover of Eric Bogle’s epic tale of a wandering young Australian man who gets recruited into a brutal war that robs him of his legs outshines any of their drunken Irish anthems. Shane MacGowan seems to instinctively know how to wring the most emotion out of his dry voice and the slow build to the song's horns and emotional gut-punch (“For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs, no more waltzing Matilda for me”) is nothing short of crushing.

#15: “Lazyitis”
Happy Mondays
Bummed (1988)

“Lazyitis” is the rare closing track that sounds completely and wonderfully happy. Picking up where the Beatles’ “Ticket To Ride” left off, Happy Mondays run through their insanely sunny, druggy vibe with such infectious energy that you can’t help but smile when you hear this song. Pay no mind to the somewhat dark and cryptic lyrics; just get up, dance and be happy.

#14: “Faith”
The Cure
Faith (1981)

The Cure recorded albums that were darker or angrier than Faith, but never have they recorded something as spectral and, in many ways, that sound feels the most natural for the band. Those who need proof need look no further than the album’s title track. Simon Gallup’s echoing, haunting bass forms a crucial background for Robert Smith’s ethereal guitar wisps, while Smith’s downcast lyrics manage to avoid all the classic “sad-goth-kid” clichés, creating something honest, intense and resonant.

#13: “Shut Up I Am Dreaming Of Places Where Lovers Have Wings”
Sunset Rubdown
Shut Up I Am Dreaming (2006)

Like all good Sunset Rubdown songs, this glorious track ends somewhere completely different from where it started. What seperates this song from the rest of Sunset Rubdown’s catalogue, though, is the stops it hits between those two points. Tense acoustic guitars wrap themselves around Spencer Krug’s abstract, evocative lyrics before the whole thing explodes into chaos, then boils itself back down to a whisper. This stunning use of dynamics makes the song one of the brightest spots in Krug’s expansive songbook.

#12: “The Overload”
Talking Heads
Remain In Light (1980)

Without a doubt the darkest song Talking Heads ever recorded, “The Overload” finds the New York art-punk-weirdoes trafficking in the cavernous, crushing blackness usually reserved for English mope-masters like Joy Division and Echo & The Bunnymen. David Byrne suppresses his bug-eyed lyrical inclinations, instead opting for a deadpan, distant vocal delivery that sounds like the last voice left on Earth after the apocalypse. Under the watchful eye of Brian Eno, the band match his darkness moment for moment, crafting a mood so heavy and bleak that the band had to record the sugary nonsense of Speaking In Tongues three years later to wash the bad taste out of their mouths.

#11: “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)”
Neil Young
Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

If I ever get around to writing a Best Opening Tracks list, this song will be on that list too. Rust Never Sleeps opens and closes with two versions of the same song, with an acoustic version serving as the opener and a belligerant electric one closing the whole thing out. That last one, though, is the most memorable of the two, since it threatens to literally melt your face off. With Neil playing through a broken amp and Crazy Horse roaring at their most powerful, Young’s anthem about the dangers of growing old and complacent is one of the most searing and cynical songs ever recorded. It’s the song that gave the world Neil’s immortal cry: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”