Songs that don't end, but suddenly stop

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.

It isn't, my (vinyl) copy had the sudden ending and that definitely isn't it. For a start, the version you posted is a completely different mix and it lasts longer and, most importantly of all, there's no fade at all in the sudden ending version.

I had the notion in my head that at least some of the tracks on Twin Infinitives do this... but listening back, they don't, the band really "stops playing" and the "end" of each "song."

Twin Infinitives kinda has the same effect though because of the excruciatingly long silences between tracks

Was listening to Floating Points’ Elaenia yesterday and the album’s closing song ‘Peroration Six’ does this after a big crescendo.

Several tracks on NY & CH's Barn just stop, awkwardly, like somebody dropped somethin.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, "The Sun Goes Down", September 1967. Again, the b-side to a Top 10 hit, so pretty well known. Kind of sounds like a mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XEMGnXOZMs