Actual best last-line-from-any-song-ever absolutely has to be from Jeff Buckley's Dream Brother, for its hauntingly bleak oblique precogniscence:

"asleep in the sand, with the ocean washing over"

In every sense, the great last line.

The final lines of Serge Gainsbourg's Cargo Culte. (As translated here).

And I hold onto that hope of an air
disaster that would bring Melody back to me
A minor turned away from the gravity of the stars.

Also, the freeze-frame, 'Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid' ending of Winded by The Walkabouts.

Searchlight passed over the house
and we were surrounded
wild-eyed you opened the door
you would not surrender.

I make no apology for the entire lyric below, a song that is wonderful in it's desolation, sung mournfully over a wistful strum. A modern day Sylvias Mother, with the ending predictably more bleak, much as is often real life......

"I stood alone there in the driveway
Till I saw your headlights fade
Disappear
Burn out like stars
A Chevrolet train that rolls in the night

I must have had a hundred nightmares
Of you falling asleep at the wheel
I send my prayers
Where are ou now?
I am still here and going nowhere

Here is a photo of our first baby
Here is a photo of our wedding day
Nothing has changed
My love still the same
I am still here and here I remain

When you come back we'll have a party
We'll hang up the christmas lights
You'll be my bride
I'll be your groom
I miss you so much please make it home soon

Your mother said that you called this morning
'Tell him I love him, but won't be returning'"

(Now, wasn't this on a coverdisc some year or so back?)

A convict wonders whether he is still welcome at home, given what he has done. He asks the bus driver to look for a single yellow ribbon tied to a tree. If it's not there he will stay away forever. Oooh the suspense. And then...

"Now the whole damn bus is cheering
And I can't believe I see
A hundred yellow ribbons 'round the old oak tree"

For "the old oak tree" read applicable sexual identifier in state of arousal. Much as in the sister song, " and (knock) twice on the pipe". Makes you see Tony Orlando in a whole different frame of light.

I think I nominated a Wilco song for best opening line so here is the last few lines from a different song from the same album called She's A Jar

The people under me
My pop quiz kid
She's a jar
With a heavy lid
A sleepy kisser
A pretty war
My feelings hid
She begs me not to hit her

by Half Man Half Biscuit

"If I'd have known they were coming I'd have slashed me wrists"

If the old oak tree represents his a-herrrm, then the yellow ribbon represents, I suppose, his lady's front bottom. So what are we to make of 100 front bottoms on his a-herrrm?

First thing that came to mind:

They say that richard cory owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, a bankers only child,
He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life Im living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard cory.

The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes:
Richard cory at the opera, richard cory at a show.
And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy with everything hes got.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life Im living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard cory.

He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
Richard cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life Im living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard cory.

My all time favourite last line to any song:

Well it happened years ago when you lived on Stanhope Road.
We listened to your sister when she came home from school
'cos she was two years older and she had boys in her room.
We listened outside and heard her.
Alright.

Well that was alright for a while but soon I wanted more.
I want to see as well as hear and so I hid inside her wardrobe.
And she came round four and she was with some kid called David from the garage up the road I listened outside I heard her.
Alright.

Oh I want to take you home.
I want to give you children. You might be my girlfriend, yeah.

When I saw you next day I really couldn't tell 'cos you might go and tell your mother.
And so you went with Neve and Neve was coming on
And I thought I heard you laughing when his Mum and Dad were gone.
I listened outside, I heard you. Alright.

Well I guess it couldn't last too long.
I came home one day and all her things were gone,
I fell asleep inside. I never heard her come.
And then she opened up her wardrobe and I had to get it on.
Oh, listen we were on the bed when you came home, I heard you stop outside the door.
I know you won't believe it's true, I only went with her 'cos she looks like you.

Possibly more familiar to many of us as - No no, no no no no, no no no no, no no - there's no limit.

Now whilst that line alone should be enough to point the way forward for all of us, particularly in these difficult times, the last line truly nails it for me.

Whilst we all strive to reach our "limit", and let's face it, they are there, mine's just shy of three glasses of red these days, but the last line states "we do what we want and we do it with pride".

Now should we all follow that advice, surely SURELY that is the key. The answer. The solution.

Unbeatable.

...Every junkie's like a setting sun...

Nice.

...Smell's Like Teen Spirit, "A denial, A Denial, A Denial, A Deeniiiaaaalll, etc etc"

Brilliant.

The distant echo -
of faraway voices boarding faraway trains
To take them home to the ones that they love and who love them forever
The glazed, dirty steps - repeat my own and reflect my thoughts
Cold and uninviting, partially naked
Except for toffee wrapers and this morning's papers
Mr. Jones got run down
Headlines of death and sorrow - they tell of tomorrow
Madmen on the rampage

And I'm down in the tube station at midnight

I fumble for change - and pull out the Queen
Smiling, beguiling
I put in the money and pull out a plum
Behind me
Whispers in the shadows - gruff blazing voices
Hating, waiting
"Hey boy" they shout - "have you got any money?"
And I said - "I've a little money and a take away curry,
I'm on my way home to my wife.
She'll be lining up the cutlery,
You know she's expecting me
Polishing the glasses and pulling out the cork"

And I'm down in the tube station at midnight

I first felt a fist, and then a kick
I could now smell their breath
They smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs
And too many right wing meetings
My life swam around me
It took a look and drowned me in its own existence
The smell of brown leather
It blended in with the weather
It filled my eyes, ears, nose and mouth
It blocked all my senses
Couldn't see, hear, speak any longer

And I'm down in the tube station at midnight
I said I was down in the tube station at midnight

The last thing that I saw As I lay there on the floor
Was "Jesus Saves" painted by an atheist nutter
And a British Rail poster read "Have an Awayday - a cheap holiday - Do it today!"
I glanced back on my life And thought about my wife
'cause they took the keys and she'll think its me
And I'm down in the tube station at midnight
The wine will be flat and the curry's gone cold
I'm down in the tube station at midnight
Don't want to go down in a tube station at midnight

I don't have a husband
he don't play the trombone
and i need to borrow money
to pay this lawyer
and charley, hey
i'll be eligible for parole
this Valentine's Day.

Godawful last line:

Gary Barlow on Open Road sings of travelling down a road to find "the man who knows me". He reveals at the very end:

"the man was me"

Clever isn't it? No.

Well it's not a problem really, but what makes that Gillian Welch song so effective is that the gut-punch last line of the last verse isn't followed by a chorus, or a repeat to fade. You get the line, and in fact the song ends really abruptly, leaving the listener slightly stunned.

So, while the last line of Pulp's Babies is indeed brilliant, it isn't really the last line, as you get the chorus and then some extemporising. This slightly diminishes the impact of the Killer Line.

However, one way around this, if a song must end on the chorus, is to change the chorus. I thought of a few examples yesterday but I've forgotten all of them overnight, apart from Lucky Number by Lene Lovich, in which, after singing "My lucky number's one" she finally meets someone she likes and declares "My lucky number's two". I'm sure there are better examples, but it's a bloody storming song so here it is...

PS If you watch this video, do youself a favour and watch the one for Bird Song as well - it's superb. And it even includes what could be classed as a male voice choir at the end!

Don't confront me with my failures,
I had not forgotten them.

..find enclosed one son, one medal and a note to say he won.
(Little Boy Soldiers)

Something for the Weekend.

She's the bad one all along...

"He went down to the woodshed,
They came down hard on his head.
Gagged and bound and left for dead.
When he woke she was gone with his car and all of his money!"

by Steve Earle.

It's the tale of a young country negro going alone into the *big* town. Racial tension, a bit of self defence and the hanging of an innocent boy.

It does finish on the chorus but he changes the final line to "I went down to Taneytown, I ain't going back there any more".

I've always been quite keen on this as a closing stanza:

Well I'm shaking a hand, I'm clenching a fist,

If you gave me a pound for the moments I missed,

I got dancing lessons for all the lips I should've kissed:

I'd be a millionaire...

I'd be a Fred Astaire

The perfect combination of rhyme, repressed rage and regret from Martin Fry - in gold lame possibly.

...and it would be a bloody good one!

...wouldn't it just be a fine one indeed. Although can I suggest my 2 Unlimited track is not included, but perhaps a "bonus" track available to download.

You, the only sense the world has ever made
This I need to save
A simple trinket locked away
I choose my final scene today
Switching off with you

And the wonderful Positively 4th Street...

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you

Spitfire thin and strung like a violin
I was

Yours was the face with a grace
From a different age

You were the sun in my Sunday morning
You were the sun in my Sunday morning
Telling me never to go

So I'll live on the smile
And move down the isle
Of the last bus home
And if you're running late
This is where I'll go
Know I'll always wait

I grow tired of this song. Turn my eyes
to the blonde in the bleachers.
She's a lovely young creature.
I think she's seeking adventure.
I think she's ready to see that the world isn't so sweet or so tender.
I won't break her, just bend her, and make her into my new ringer for you.

I stay in the same comfy town, write the same old songs down, drive the same streets,
seek the same sense of dull peace, whisper the same sweet words to the chippies.
The same walk by the road and where the same muddy snow's finally leaving,

But i'll fight off the spring; I don't want lovely things,
I don't want the earth new.

Virginia Plain.

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

He only seems to be mentioned on this site for his clever one-take videos but I think the last verse of this song is beautiful:

"I know someday this all will be over
And it's hard to say what most will I miss
But give me one way to spend my last moments alive
And I choose this, I choose this, I choose this"

A sickly, sweet wind is blowing
Across the fields of hell
A licorice night's unfolding
Near a grave sight a corroded
old and burnt out carousel
Here lies the ice cream man, the devil treats him well

played guitaaaaaaarrrrrr....

"I don't think of you that often"

MAGAZINE-SONG FROM UNDER THE FLOORBOARDS

Incredible opening lines-
I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking
I know the meaning of life it doesn't help
me a bit
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it-

and then at the end of this raging and beautiful song,
the exquisite world weariness of-
And I got tired of counting all of these blessings
Then I just got tired.

.

It's a town full of losers,
And I'm pulling out of here to win!

Or Alternatively - Blue Nile - Over The Hillside..

I can't go on and I can't go back
I don't feel so matter of fact
I tried and tried to make good sense
What's the good to try it all again?

Referring Back to ABC - I always loved the end to King Money -

Plan the perfect double murder, Maybe win the pools
When I get some money Honey,
I'll be knee high in consumer Durables
Adorables

Too much too young:

'Keep a generation gap
Try wearing a cap'

The killer line - one of the best lines ever, let alone best last lines.

"You're a tragedy starting to happen"

An awesome band for lyrics.

"And after this love there'll be no other

Until the razor cuts....."

Well I'm not the world's most masculine man
But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man
And so is Lola

Last song on the album - a song called The End - the last verse:

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end

Does what it says on the tin!

It ended there
He claimed a late
appoinment
She quickly turned
To hide her
disappointment

She ripped her
glittering gown
Couldn't face another
show, no
Her deodorant had let
her down
She should have used
Odorono

..But this last line packs a good punch

has as good a last line as you'll find in any song, made better by the emphasis on the letter "f" in in "four by four".

And the Wood/Hugh Lupton collaboration "One in a Million" is also worth a Spotify.

A thought on this thread ( 2Unlimited apart) is that they are all good examples that increasingly rare genre, the story song?

Friday night/Saturday morning

"Wish I had lipstick on my shirt,
instead of piss-stains on my shoes."

Yep, sounds familiar.

after the big build up about not being able to find his place in this world (I still do feel so horribly lonely) he finally gets the long-anticipated message
'S.T.E.V.E.N. P.U.S.H. O.F.F.

Don't Look Down

Then God decides that he has taken quite enough
Of all this atheistic tosh I’m spouting off
And so he calls upon his favourite angel choir
To sing of times when men were filled with christian fire
But over-zealous angels flap their wings too fast
And cause the wind to blow and turn the wheel at last
And soon my feet are safely back on solid ground
And then I hear a voice say
"don’t look down!".

Our Mutual Friend

On our friend's settee She told me that she really liked me
And I said "cool, the feeling's mutual.
We played old 45's. I said "it's like the soundtrack to our lives
And she said "true, it's not unusual.
Then privately we danced
But couldn't seem to keep our balance,
A drunken haze had come upon us.
We sank down to the floor and we sang
The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine anymore
And then we kissed and fell unconscious.

I woke up the next day all alone but for a headache.
I stumbled out to find the bathroom.
But all I found was her wrapped around another lover.
No longer then is he our mutual friend.

Gin Soaked Boy

I'm the half-truth in the lie
I'm the why not in the why
I'm the last roll of the die
I'm the old school in the tie
I'm the spirit in the sky
I'm the catcher in the rye
I'm the twinkle in her eye
I'm the Jeff Goldblum in 'The Fly'

as well as the Costello cracker

The detectives come to check if you belong to the parents
who are ready to hear the worst about their daughter's disappearance.
Though it nearly took a miracle to get you to stay,
it only took my little fingers to blow you away

"Well they said if I burnt myself alive
That you'd come running back"

"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".

..The Weavers Answer....
"Look there in the distance
Whats this I think I see?
Could it be that after all, my prayers have answered me?
After years of wondering,
I see the reason why
You've left it to this moment
For I'm about to die"

"Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss"

for once I reckon that I have the ultimate killer last line even in comparison to these worthy mentions above. I reproduce the entire lyric of Mickey Newbury's San Francisco Mabel Joy below and urge you to take a minute to read it. Even better try to listen to his version of it, truly heart-breaking.

His daddy was an honest man a red dirt Georgia farmer
His mama lived her young life having kids and bailing hay
He had fifteen years and an ache inside to wander
Jumped a freight in Waycross and wound up in LA.
The cold nights had no pity on that Waycross Georgia farm boy
Most days he went hungry then the summer came
He met a girl known on the Strip as San Francisco's Mabel Joy
Destitution's child born on an LA street called Shame.
Growing up came quietly in the arms of Mabel Joy
Laughter found the mornings that brought the meaning to his life
Night before she left sleep came and found that Waycross country boy
With dreams of Georgia cotton and a California wife.
Sunday morning found him neath the red light at her door
A right cross sent him reelin' and put him face down on the floor
In place of Mabel Joy he found a merchant mad marine
He said your Georgia neck is red but Sonny you're still green.
He turned twenty one in a grey rock Federal prison
The judge had no mercy on this Waycross Georgia boy
Starin' at those four grey walls in silnce Lord he'd listen
To the midnight freight he knew could take him back to Mabel Joy.
Sunday morning found him neath the red light at her door
With a bullet in his side he cried have you seen Mabel Joy
Stunned and shaken someone said she don't live here no more
She left this house four years ago she was lookin' for some Georgia farm boy...

Aimee Mann - Believed You Were Lucky. The chorus ends "Life could be lovely/Life could be so great" - except it doesn't on the last chorus, when a single well chosen obscenity adds an indefinable extra: "Oh life could be lovely/Life could be fucking great."

The folk song, set back in the time when the British sent convicts to Australia.

I don't know who wrote it but Bob Dylan does a version(though I wouldn't know where to find it). The version I have is by Steve Forbert.

Jim Jones tells us of his conviction, sentence and the journey across the sea. The song finishes with his promise of revenge against the authorities.

"They'll yet regret they sent Jim Jones in chains to Botany Bay".

Never could stand that dog...
Tom Waits