OK, let’s get the disclaimers out of the way right up front. The title says these are all classic rock album closers, and that’s kinda-sorta true. But I’m using “classic rock” in its broadest possible application.
With one super-special bonus track, these songs all come from albums released prior to 2000. That lets out some of my own favs, from Green Day’s perfect ending of American Idiot, “Whatshername,” to the titanic finale of the Linda Lindas' debut “Racist, Sexist Boy.” Oh well. At least I got to name-drop them.
And “rock?” Well, they’re all close. One is kind of folky while another is almost pure jazz. Then there’s the one that is basically an update on old-time British musical hall. But I’m calling them all rock because if you squint hard enough, they all closed out rock albums.
What exactly makes a song a great album closer?
Glad you asked. To me, it’s a great song first. Regardless of where it comes on the track list, it’s a song you would want to listen to over and over. But it needs to do more than that. It needs to be a capstone of sorts. A musical piece that seems to put an exclamation mark on what had come before. Maybe lyrically. Most definitely musically.
Memorable album closers are often epic. Long songs with big sounds that explode. But that’s not always true. Sometimes, they can serve as a counterpoint. A quieter moment of reflection after the cacophonous storm that preceded it. There’s at least one of those in the following list. Maybe two.
But the one true baseline quality that all great album closers share is that they are memorable. Memorable as closers. That may seem self-evident but understand that in the early days of rock, album closers were often filler. They were often the worst thing on the album. The hits? They went up front where you could hear them from the first needle drop.
Because back then, you did literally have to drop the needle on your album. Or press play on your tape deck. Finding a song that came later required effort. If you’re old enough, you probably have fond memories of an album you used to love – maybe still do – and yet you have never even listened to the closing track.
Mom called you for dinner or dad told you to shut that racket off before you even got close to the end.
Concept albums changed that and the following list reflects that with a few iconic selections. If the album was something more than a collection of singles, then each track mattered. The final one might matter most of all, given how end-conscious we are in the USA. We always want to know the ending.
But for our purposes today, we’ll start at the beginning.
“A Day in the Life” by the Beatles from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
It’s probably the most famous closing track ever recorded. One of the acknowledged greatest songs from the most important band of all time. Whether Sgt. Pepper is the first concept album – or even a concept album at all – you can debate amongst yourselves. It doesn’t matter here.
At over five-and-a-half minutes, the song is the definitive slice-of-life poetry, with lyrics yanked out of local news stories and turned epic by a creative structure and the most famous closing note in modern music.
“The End” by the Doors from The Doors (1967)
The definitive closing track. I mean, when you call a song “The End…” Actually, the Beatles also had a song called “The End” but then in typically cheeky fashion stuck in a tiny little nursery rhyme by Paul after it so that the Beatles “The End” is not the end. But the Doors leave no doubt. One of the great builds … going from quiet to apocalyptic in just under 12 minutes. It’s as haunting as they come.
Note: keep that “apocalyptic” thing in mind. It will recur.
“Sister Ray” by the Velvet Underground from White Light/White Heat (1968)
The longest song on this list. 17:32 of … you guessed it … apocalypse. The fuzz of Sterling Morrison’s and Lou Reed’s guitar and the gothic drone of John Cale Vox Continental organ create a bed of cacophony upon which Reed tells his story of the drag queens and drug addicts that live and die in NYC.
It’s a total mess and utterly unforgettable. It wasn’t what rock artists were writing and singing about in 1968. But most rock artists were not the Velvets.
“When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin from Untitled (Led Zeppelin IV) (1971)
Apocalypse of a different sort. The blues sort. Taken from Memphis Minnie’s 1929 gorgeous acoustic blues original, Zep reworks it as a titanic force of nature. That force of nature comes primarily from John Bonham's overwhelming drums, and is ably assisted by Jimmy Page’s guitar and Robert Plant’s harmonica.
A sensational bookend for album opener “Black Dog.” There’s also something about a stairway in the middle, but I must say, after all these years, “When the Levee Breaks” is the song I most associate with Led Zeppelin’s most famous album.
“Rock and Roll Suicide” by David Bowie from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972
Debate whatever you want about what is and isn’t a concept album. Ziggy… is it. And this track closes out the story of the mythical extra-terrestrial who self immolates from fame in perfect fashion. Like so many of these songs, it starts quietly and builds to its anthemic “You’re not alone” finale.
In less than three minutes, Bowie soars from a simple acoustic guitar and a cigarette to a full-on orchestra and background singers, and even closes with that “A Day in the Life” chord, this time played on strings.
“Twisted” by Joni Mitchell from Court and Spark (1974)
After so many iconic classics, this one may seem a bit idiosyncratic. And it’s far closer to jazz than to rock. Hmm - idiosyncratic and jazzy. Sounds like a potential title for a Joni Mitchell biography. "Twisted" is beloved by many and is so uniquely Joni Mitchell that it is utterly enchanting. It is the only track on the Court and Spark that Mitchell didn’t write.
It came from Annie Ross and Wardell Gray about twenty years before Mitchell covered it. But it allows for Joni to run wild with her vocals. The tricky rhythms and tonal shifts are perfectly suited to her voice. And the playfully transgressive lyrics provide an ideal conclusion for an album filled with complex examinations of the roles women are assigned in modern society.
For Mitchell, the greatest role is that of genius, which is what “Twisted” proudly proclaims.
“The Day the World Turned Day-Glo” by X-Ray Spex from Germfree Adolescents (1978)
A kick-ass closer from one of the best rock albums released in the late ‘70s. X-Ray Spex is labelled as punk, and that’s a fair approximation of their sound. But it doesn’t really capture the richness of the short-lived band.
Rudi Thomson’s jazzy sax blends miraculously with the pounding rhythm of Paul Dean’s bass. Above it all, the one-of-a-kind vocals of Poly Styrene capture, with her typical prescience, the future.
“Purple Rain” by Prince & the Revolution from Purple Rain (1984)
A true epic. Prince doesn’t really need it, but he gets fabulous orchestral accompaniment which lends a grand scope to what could be a simple love song. The echoes and the emotional delivery build higher and higher until it seems there’s nowhere else to climb.
And then he soars higher still through the largely instrumental second half. After seven minutes, it appears to have drained itself, but Prince provides a denouement, still slightly off-kilter but an ideal way to ease out.
“Here Comes a Regular” by the Replacements for Tim (1985)
“Here Comes a Regular” was an inflection point for the baddest boys in punk. Frontman Paul Westerberg had already shown he could do more than write sophomoric bangers by the time ofTim. But the Replacements were still known as heavy-rockers with anthems like “Bastards of Young” and juvenile put-downs like “Waitress in the Sky.”
No one knew Westerberg had the depth of “… Regular” until they got to the end of Tim. Then they broke down and cried. Unlike the other songs on this list that usually provide that capstone moment, this one works precisely because it plays against type. The profound acoustic ache predicted a new direction for the band and for its primary songwriter.
“Al Bowley’s in Heaven” by Richard Thompson from Daring Adventures (1986)
We are in the somewhat more obscure portion of the list here. But whereas some of the other less-known tracks have plenty of passionate defenders, I rarely hear this gem discussed. I’ve seen Thompson many times and I still don’t believe I have heard him perform it live. This is drawn from the musical hall. It is quiet and somber, and as haunting as any song you will ever, hear.
Its narrator – a soldier left physically crippled by the First World War – offers an even more troubling story than Roger Waters’ airman from “The Gunner’s Dream” a few years earlier. Indeed, the song might be too depressing to hear were it not so masterfully written. It is a complete short story with a complex, tragic hero all in four-and-a-half minutes.
“Tower of Song” by Leonard Cohen from I’m Your Man (1992)
On an album filled with spectacular compositions, this closer attempts to sum up where it all came from and were it all may be going. It does what Cohen does best – supplements his incisive poetry with just enough understated music to create a literate earworm.
There is a gentleness in the delivery that Cohen is not often known for, and it balances out equally melodic bit rougher-hewn material like “Everybody Knows,” "Take This Waltz,” and the title track beautifully and sends the listener out with unexpected optimism despite the fatalism of the words.
“Road Trippin’” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers from Californication (1999)
Getting in just under the wire, the beautiful “Road Trippin’” closes out RHCP's best-selling album. Even the old-school fans who lamented the softer, poppier version of the band had a hard time resisting this tune. Totally acoustic with an organ to boot, there are no drums. Should you be at a RHCP show and hear them play this, buy yourself a lottery ticket. It is almost never performed live.
And, now, as a super-secret bonus, one song from the 21st century….
“Murder Most Foul” by Bob Dylan from Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020)
Dylan was born before any songwriter on this list except for John Lennon, Memphis Minnie , and the "Twisted" team, but he released this 17-minute epic just five years ago.
I’m including it because it ambitiously attempts to sum up much of what has come before in the history of popular music, beginning with the assassination of JFK and then tracing the way music has always been there to chronicle and comfort. He spends the final seven minutes recounting so many of the greats.
In 2014, when he was a few years older than Dylan at the time of “Murder Most Foul,” acclaimed film director Jean-Luc Godard made a revolutionary film called Goodbye to Language which served as something of a capstone, not just to a long career, but to an entire art form.
Of course, movies continued, but their future has indeed be called into question. “Murder Most Foul” did not put an end to music, but it did question whether it could remain relevant in a changing world. And that may make it among the most definitive closers ever put on disc.