Entertainment For Lively Minds
Not fade away
This isn't a deciding factor in whether I actually like a song or not - but I always feel an odd sense of satisfaction when bands bring their songs to a proper close, instead of fading them out.
I think it has to do with some memory of when I was a kid and had the old vinyl version of the Cure's best of (called 'Standing on a Beach' back then)... I'm pretty sure only one song out of all 12 or 13 fades out, and I remember admiring them for that.
But the question suddenly struck me - why do so many tracks fade out? Bands normally have to find a way to end most of their songs for live performance. So why not record them that way? Does anyone know if there is some arcane reason for this, apart from just not bothering to write an ending?
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Radio
I think it was to avoid dead air on the radio. Fade out gave the DJ warning the track was finishing, and something to talk over by the time I got around to owning a transistor. Bloody DJ chat spoiled many a tune taped from the top 40 on a Sunday....
Snow Patrol
not a great favourite of mine, but I've seen them a couple of times because 'er indoors likes them. They don't seem to have any idea how to bring a song to a proper conclusion, they just stop, neither finishing with a crescendo, or a gentle fade, or even an abrupt full stop. It's as if they run out of notes and it's just left hanging in the air.
Timing
There's a great bit of insight to this on Mike Scott's Waterboys site (http://www.mikescottwaterboys.com/). He says that 'Spirit', a song which originally appears for a grand total of 1:50 on This Is The Sea, was intended to appear in its uncut version (4:13 long) but the limitations of vinyl meant that it couldn't fit onto the first side of the record, and so was faded out...
Not just fade outs
but 2 part songs as well. Layla part 2 is more interesting than the first part yet rarely gets played in its entirety on radio. Likewise Oh Well by Fleetwood Mac
Re-listen to the last few bars of Mothers Little Helper
That's why fades can be a good idea, avoiding an awkward clumsy enforced ending.
But, hey...
I've always loved how Mother's Little Helper ends. It adds an odd but intriguing Greek knees-up air to the song
Pity they missed
the chance to "'ave a banana"
Actually there are
fade outs where you think I wish I could hear what they played after the fade out. I am sure there must be some really interesting jams that we never got to hear because of time constraints.
Actually there are
fade outs where you think I wish I could hear what they played after the fade out. I am sure there must be some really interesting jams that we never got to hear because of time constraints.
Actually there are
fade outs where you think I wish I could hear what they played after the fade out. I am sure there must be some really interesting......
Actually there are
fade outs where you think I wish I could hear what they played ...
Actually there are
fade outs where you think I wish I could hear...
I hate fade-outs!
Always feels like a door slowly closing, with me on one side and the band still playing on the other.
Funny, that
Just the other day I was trying to find out what was the first recording to use fadeout. And I found this at Wikipedia:
"Neptune", part of the orchestral suite, The Planets, by Gustav Holst, was the first piece of music to have a fade-out ending. Holst stipulates that the women's choruses are "to be placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed", and that the final bar (scored for choruses alone) is "to be repeated until the sound is lost in the distance".
Didn't see that coming
Nice to know I was onto something!
Then there's Hey Jude
...featuring, of course, the War & Peace of fade-outs, the fade-out that single handedly justifies this oft-abused device. Amazing how often the Beatles provide the how-to case, isn't it?
The ultimate fade-out track is unfortunately
Gloria off U2's truly (insert own view here) second album. It not only fades out, it FADES IN. Thus implying that the track goes on for ever, may be even now working for peace and an end to world hunger, and was surely handed to Bono directly from the Almightly.
And also there is
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others by The Smiths which fades in, then fades out quickly, then fades in again, then fades out at the end!
It's better to burn out
than fade away - surely?
How about mid verse fade-outs?
During an overly repeated chorus or an instrumental work-out I can understand, but I have never understood the mid-verse fade, such as "I am a child"/Neil Young, already a short song. Why, unless he was keeping the full 96 verse version back for his archive series? My first hearing was on a single, b-side, I believe, of "Heart of Gold".
Song endings are
a bit of an obsession of mine and I must admit I love fade outs. The good thing about them is no momentum is lost. I also really love it when the vocals end but the song keeps going. One of the worst endings ever must be Acquiesce by Oasis, which is like a balloon deflating. One of my favourites would be There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. The vocals fade out first then the music fades out slowly. It's nice to hear the Smiths without Morrissey sometimes!