Songs that don't end, but suddenly stop

i wonder if this ending is found on any pressings of 'Forever Changes' that predate 'Abbey Road'?

― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Monday, 10 January 2022 23:09 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for the clarif..

Yeah, I believe a version released in the UK 'restored' the "sudden stop", but it's more a sudden ending than an actual stop.

It got added to one of the deluxe editions, and i will say that for all those years I was irritated by the fiddly ending, but hearing the alternate made me appreciate the fiddly one more. Maybe just more familiar with it.

It's a sudden ending, it just cuts off, I always preferred it that way.

I can't find the version of "A House Is Not A Motel" that does the thing. There is an alternate mix version, but it fades out to 2/3rds volume and then cuts, it's not the same effect; also, it's an alternate mix. The alternate mix, too, there must've been reverb on the mastering chain, there's a tail on the cut. It is cool to read that Johnny Echols claims to have deliberately sought out that precise sound. On that Love thread though, people mention that "The Good Humor Man..." does something similar and I checked and yeah, it's interesting... I wonder if it is that track (and that track alone) that features the "sudden tape error" that people are speaking of. It's a pretty wild way to end a song!

I heard nothing like what I've described on Red Crayola's "Parable" but man it was so good to hear that album again. Yes to Sabbath's "Hole In The Sky" and Wrens's "Everyone Choose Sides" (which is such a good song I die every time I hear it). I love the Iommi instrumental on that Sabbath album too.

Stuff like "It's No Game" it's a different thing. Same with the Paul Simon. Zappa it's songs abruptly shifting into other songs it's different. This is a specific effect you know?

Perhaps I mischaracterized the ending of "War Sucks"... I'll listen again.

I wonder if it is that track (and that track alone) that features the "sudden tape error" that people are speaking of. It's a pretty wild way to end a song!

i've heard 3 different endings of 'a house is not a motel', i think.

-fadeout
-sudden tape error
-just stops, like the mastering engineer hit the mute button arbitrarily.

it's not an alternate mix that features the abrupt ending(s)

the effect at the end of good humor man is something else entirely, i would def call that an "ending".

it fades out to 2/3rds volume and then cuts,

don't think i've heard that one!
wonder if it's slightly different on ever edition?

Caetano Veloso - Irene stops at 0:45 and starts again at 1:00

yeah, but it's not an abrupt or arbitrary stop, it's some very musical studio chatter at the end of a verse...

jugband blues stops abruptly and resumes, though.

Sly Stone's "If You Want Me to Stay" does a bunch of things at the end. I think the song peters out/falls apart, the track fades, *and* it suddenly stops?

idk why I'm so interested in this. The emotional response is so specific. When you hear the performance peter out or the tape fuck up it's different. A deliberate cut-to-nothing has a totally unique feeling to it, it always shocks me. I must've heard "She's So Heavy" and been shocked by it as a kid, but then it was "Ascension Day" and it shocked me in my early 20s, and "Silence" (Portishead) in my late 20s. Does this happen in any other medium aside from the finale of The Sopranos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nZ25mPwXWo
Simple Minds - Murder Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y87K9-fJbdQ
Elvis Costello - Night Rally

"Ascension Day" isn't quite a cut to nothing, though, it segues straight into "After the Flood"?

Does this happen in any other medium aside from the finale of The Sopranos?

The film of Marat/Sade cuts to black in the middle of a riot, no credits, end of movie.

Something like this happens at the end of Two Lane Blacktop.

Yes, as if the film is melting in the projector a la Persona!

The last track on Black Dice's Beaches and Canyons does this--"Big Drop", at least on the CD...the vinyl version I had went into a locked groove.

John Cale - Ghost Story

excellent thread and fgti otm, there's something about the unexpected cut that's very affecting, takes me right back to hearing Abbey Road in like 1979 or whenever

I think every song on Immortal’s battles in the north does this.

"Metal Machine Music"

That was originally a locked groove, different kind of not ending

Tho I guess the first three tracks count

Yes, I should have specified Sides!

Realized that a song I voted for in the tracks poll this year kind of does this (and this time I ctrl-F'ed) - Self Esteem's "I Do This All the Time."

The music tapers, and she starts speaking as though starting another verse, and then the song cuts mid-sentence: "We laid there in the darkness and you were asleep/ And I wasn't checking my phone for a moment and I felt..."

'06 by vince staples

Does this happen in any other medium aside from the finale of The Sopranos?

Yeah Dhalgren does exactly the same thing.

And Pink Floyd The Wall

On the ceeenema side, the final shot of Hal Hartley's Henry Fool (1997) cuts off in an ambiguous way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuCmF3l_bqQ

It's not as abrupt/unresolved as The Sopranos, I guess (also, Hartley was likely influenced by Godard, who is mentioned above... not sure I ever made it to the end of a Godard film, though. Lmao!)

I think what I was hoping to suss out in this thread was "the first occurrence of this happening on a well-known record" and I guess it's kinda apparent that The Beatles coined it, well done Beatles

Now hold on there. "Sticky Sticky", the b-side of 1910 Fruitgum Company's "1-2-3 Red Light" does this and it was released almost a year and half earlier. This track sounds like they were given three minutes of tape to fill (and three minutes to write and record a song) and they kept recording till the tape ran out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJ60B_Twoo

^ amazed nobody has sampled this yet!

Back when lyrics, y'know, meant something, not like today's crap music

"a well known record", though I hope 1910 Fruitful Company has its day

Finnegan's Wake with its cyclical ending might not count but it kind feels similar. The abrupt "Where?" ending of the Ithaca chapter feels more like it

I lent out my copy of Bouvard et Pecuchet but I remember feeling that the way the novel ended (i.e. it was unfinished) was probably the best-possible way to conclude a book on that form/subject

It was the b-side of a single that got to #5 in the charts, so I think it's safe to say a lot of people heard it - even if it was only once.

More than "Big Empty Field" by Swell Maps, that's for sure!

I'm always curious about that - how many buyers at the time actually flipped a record to hear the B-side?
I think of the scene from the Assayas film L'Eau Froide, set in the early 70s, where the kids play "Around the Bend" repeatedly but never "Run Through the Jungle".

Would Mr. Bungle's Pink Cigarette count?

I think I've found an even earlier example of this. On the 1961 album The Best of Jimmy Reed, no less than four of the songs cut off with an obvious tape splice, sometimes in the middle of a measure. This probably has more to do with editing around the peculiarities of the live performance than a self-conscious mixing/mastering decision, because a couple of the songs end with the end of the performance, and the others fade out.

A newer example is the entirety of Whack World by Tierra Whack; IIRC she didn’t have a good ending for a song and they decided to spin the whole album in the same “Instagram friendly” 1 min per song/video format

I think I've found an even earlier example of this. On the 1961 album The Best of Jimmy Reed, no less than four of the songs cut off with an obvious tape splice, sometimes in the middle of a measure.

That's excellent.

This probably has more to do with editing around the peculiarities of the live performance than a self-conscious mixing/mastering decision

seems like something similar is up on Arthur Russell's 'Tower of Meaning', I don't really know what the deal is but would really like to know. I believe some of the tracks are sped up and others are slowed down.

Wilco - Poor Places (cuts off before the last "Foxtrot")

“Common Sense” (on Schmilco) cuts off in the middle of an instrumental part.

Deafheaven - Mombasa

XTC "Red" - End of side 1 on Go2

Occurred to me that they do this a lot in industrial music for dramatic effect, to highlight the I guess manufactured/cutnpaste/triggered/sampled qualities of the music. Like here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iprm5f78CA0

Somebody please upload that "sudden ending" version of "A House Is Not a Motel" to YouTube pronto!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_At4UAv4WUQ

Is this not it?

Arcade Fire - [Antichrist Television Blues]

Guided By Voices must have a bunch of these

(xp) No.

Yes, that "House is not a Motel" is a modern remix, and it seems to me that the ending of the track is the end of the performance.

(xp) I think it is..

There was a combination of someone mixing up the song titles on web boards, but listening to it there it seems to be :
1) A longer 'fade', and
2) The sudden ending, i.e. it drops rather than fading out completely.