Entertainment For Lively Minds
Greatest Closing Lines
Just read through the Opening Lines thread and that made me think about closing lines. Cinema has dozens of great examples but music not so many. I can only think of two.
I once watched a sporting contest in a crowded pub and it was hideously one-sided and right near the end of it everyone else but me had obviously lost interest.
Someone asked me why I was bothering as the result was a foregone conclusion. As my least favourite team of anything in the world were the ones on the recieving end I answered by paraphrasing the closing line of Masters of War, I said "I'm gonna stand over their grave until I'm sure that they're dead."
I've heard people quote Hotel California a few times, "You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave."
Are there any others?
- More from Cookieboy.
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I'm too sexy
...for this song.
What's her name
Virginia Plain
Sincerely
L. Cohen
Best LC song.
Maybe the best song ever. Have an up.
All the boys along the bar
began to sing along
Who's responsible?
YOU FUCKING ARE
Who's responsible?
YOU FUCKING ARE
Who's responsible?
YOU
FUCKING
ARE!
And...
...what a song, too.
Drive My Car
I've got no car & it's breaking my heart,
But I've found a driver & that's a start!
Martha...
"And I remember/quiet evenings/trembling close to you"
and then there's the wee dying plinks of the piano...
Here are some more for your consideration
An old thread
"...I'm afraid I told a lie..."
from "The Mercy Seat", Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
Alpha & Omega
'I never thought it would happen With me and the girl from clapham'
'And so it’s my assumption I’m really up the junction'
ohhhhh....
....give us yer money.
The Battle of Epping Forest
It's hardly the best thing in the early Genesis canon, but I've always liked the end:
There's no one left alive, it must be a draw.
So the black-cap barons toss a coin to settle the score...
and
he drove the fastest milkcart in the west
Xmas gold top
Forget Slade.
Forget The Pogues.
Forget Greg Lake.
'This' is the Christmas hit that should be on a continual loop in your local supermarket.
I think there's a case (genuinely) for Benny Hill to be considered the greatest lyricist of the last seventy years (genuinely).
No.....really.
I'm with you Ranger
I have a soft spot for the tune. Sometimes when I'm leaving the pub on a friday night I stick it on at the end of a bunch of tunes before I go it always brings a few smiles along with 'Can you go now!'.
A couple:
"And after this love there'll be no other
Until the razor cuts..."
Buzzcocks - Love You More
and, on a happier note:
"She turned around and walked away with me"
Roy Orbison - Running Scared
Running Scared
Or Nick Cave's typically pessimistic version, "You turned around and walked right out on me."
And so it's my assumption
I'm really up the junction.
(oops! - didn't see it had already been posted - not that I'm surprised, it's easily the winner)
and she's buying
a...
*lighters aloft* *all together now*
Peter Hammill's
doubting "Everything's going to be alright?" at the end of Lost and Found.
Some of my favourites -
"I blinked once and he was gone".
"I went down to Taneytown....I ain't goin' back there anymore".
"I can look in my rearview, into your eyes of blue
Ooooh, what's a poor boy gonna do".
"In the end, every kid wants his mother".
"What's he buiding in there?".
"Father!"
"Yes son?"
"I want to kill you"
"Mother, I want to..."
Not ideal for a family singalong I grant you
And in the end, the love you take
is equal to the love you make.
Is, of course, the winner.
No contest. Closed an era, not just a song.
Doesn't really make any sense though
...does it?
You think?
For me it says it all.
Basically - do good things - good things will happen to you in equal measure.
I like that - that'll do for me.
It's a long last line but...
Tom Waits "Frank's Wild Years"
"One night Frank was on his way home from work, stopped at the liquor store, picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths drank 'em in the car on his way to the Shell station, he got a gallon of gas in a can, drove home, doused everything in the house, torched it, parked across the street, laughing, watching it burn, all Halloween orange and chimney red then Frank put on a top forty station got on the Hollywood Freeway headed north - never could stand that dog."
"Somethin' Else" and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"
Eddie:
Look a-there! What's all this?
Never thought I'd do this before,
But here I am a-knockin' on her door.
My car's out front and it's all mine;
Just a forty-one Ford, not a fifty-nine,
I got that girl an' I'm a-thinkin' to myself
She's sure fine lookin' man,
Wow! She's something else!
Bob:
But the funniest thing was
When I was leavin’ the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin’
They were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn’t drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, “Good luck”.
Bruce burns his bridges....
From Thunder Road...
"Its a town full of losers and i'm pulling out of here to win"
Good job it worked out for him.
Miles Davis (and Brock Peters) - "Yesternow"
off "Tribute to Jack Johnson"
"I'm Jack Johnson -- heavyweight champion of the world! I'm black! They never let me forget it. I'm black all right; I'll never let them forget it."
Not only the closing line of the track, but also the opening line.
"A Rainy Night In Soho" - The Pogues
Now the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there's a light I hold before me
You're the measure of my dreams
The measure of my dreams.
that's a brilliant one as well...
and it took a fair bit of agonising before I chose 'Martha', above, over this.
Good choice!
I love that line.
"Swordfishtrombones" - Tom Waits
And if you think that you can tell a bigger tale
I swear to God you'd have to tell a lie.
Elvis Costello - "Couldn't Call It Unexpected #4"
"So toll the bell or rock the cradle
Please don't let me fear anything I cannot explain
I can't believe, I'll never believe in anything again"
Save your kisses for me
Even though you're only three.
But he made it out...
With a bullet in his back! - AC\DC 'Jailbreak'
God loves his children, God loves his children, yeah! - 'Paranoid Android'
I want to vanish
This is my last request
I've given you the awful truth
Now give me my rest - Elvis Costello 'I Want To Vanish'
What kind of creature bore you, was is some kind of bat?
They can’t find a good word for you,but I can...TWAT. - John Cooper Clarke 'Twat'
My love is as sharp as a needle in your eye
You must be such a fool to pass me by
New Order - Your Silent Face
I give you the eternally honest...
"The sign that leads the way
The path we can not take
You've caught me at a bad time
So why don't you p**s off"
From "Power, Corruption & Lies".
Victoria's Lines
"This tune's gonna punish ya!"
..... I jest, I jape! Actuallement, for me, its the third Waitsian solilo .... err, solila .... spoken-word track on this thread :
'... and I wondered how the same moon outside over this Chinatown fair could look down on Illinois and find you there'
(yes, yes, there's a load of sozzled wailing afterwards but ya get the idea).
BR
FT
There are more than 3...
Martha
What's He Building In There?
Frank's Wild Years
Swordfishtrombones
and your Shore Leave.
Because.....
I was that soldier
And without a sound, I turn around,
And I walk away...
Gary Barlow - Open Road
Gary spends the entire song heading down an open road, trying to find the man who knows him. After a good three minutes or so of searching, he reveals that he has finally found the man who knows him and ... "that man is me".
Good grief.
My favourite
closing couplet, spat out with disappointment, resignation, despair and bitter hope
"I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough!"
Whereas....
Ray Lamontagne sang on his last record....at the end of the song -
"Gotta get out of New York City son,
New York City's killing me".
Morrissey - Dissapointed
This is the last song I will ever sing(cheers)
No I've changed my mind again (boo's)
Good night & thank you.
Genius.
John Lennon
The dream is over
"I blew up your body
- but you blew my mind"
In Every Dream Home A Heartache. Roxy Music.