Where's the ending?

[Gerhard]

Both are second-to-last and so are intended to prepare the mood for the finale - and as such they function as well as they do partly because there are fadeouts to bring the levels gradually down before a storm.

I wonder if that was the intent with Mysteries and Mayhem, which fades out with the chords that start the final epic, The Pinnacle, on Masque, by Kansas. That has always kind of annoyed me, I think they could have written a proper transition and just connected the two tracks.

[GuitarGeek]

A dreadful song on a dreadful album - Humble Pie covered "Rock n Roll Music" on their 1975 "Street Rats" album and faded the song out... then faded it back in!

That must have been where Kiss got the idea for the ending to I Love It Loud, which similarly fades out, then fades back in, then fades out a second time.

Hawkwind used the same trick on the Earth Ritual Preview EP, which had Night Of The Hawks fading out, but then it fades back in with a single chord crescendo. Actually, come to think of it, it was sort of like what Ld Zeppelin did on Thank You.

Two that disappointed me were "Madrigal" and "Different Strings" because it sounded like they didn't know how to end the song.

I think you might be right, at least with Different Strings. I've heard at least one person complain about how brief the guitar solo is on the ride out on that song. Well, Alex said, when he was interviewed in Guitar Player back in 1980 (don't worry, I bought the back issue from E-bay a few years ago, so I've actually read that one recently) that the solo was added at the last minute, and the problem was the backing track ended just as he was "getting warmed up" or whatever. So that's why it fades out so quickly. I reckon that the solo was "the best we could come up with" at the time.

But that's always made me wonder, when you listen to a solo fade out like that, say on Comfortably Numb, for instance, one wonders how long the solo is the master tape. For instance, did Gilmour wail for another couple minutes on that one, and Waters said "Right, this song doesn't really need to be 8 minutes long), or is there just another few seconds before the take ended? There's lots of tunes you I ask about that.

BTW, my point wasn't fade outs in general. Some songs I don't mind the fade outs at all. I just think in certain limited instances, the songs don't sound like they have proper endings. And in particular, the last song on the album should have an actual conclusion.

[GuitarGeek]

These aren't "classical" pieces of music; they're refined pop/rock songs, and those were regularly faded out at the end as more or less a tradition. Many of them, anyway.

I remember Mark Egan being asked about why so many of the tracks on his albums fade out, and he says that he doesn't like writing endings, he prefers to imagine the piece of music going on forever. I think he said Duke Ellington had the same attitude.

I'm not sure why so many songs fade out, maybe whoever was in charge of the arrangement couldn't come up with a satisfactory ending. I read an interview with The Romantics, where one of the band members said that's why Talking In Your Sleep fades out, because they were unhappy with any of the actual endings they tried. A lot of times, you hear live versions of songs that fade out on the records, and at least for me, the endings don't always work too well.

[Progbear]

I wonder if that was the intent with Mysteries and Mayhem, which fades out with the chords that start the final epic, The Pinnacle, on Masque, by Kansas. That has always kind of annoyed me, I think they could have written a proper transition and just connected the two tracks.

I heard that they conceived it as one big track, but it was separated into two because Don Kirshner objected to a 14 minute track.

[Gerhard]

I heard that they conceived it as one big track, but it was separated into two because Don Kirshner objected to a 14 minute track.

Thanks, that's interesting. To me, they feel like two distinctly different tracks, I just think they should have been linked/segued, like countless other songs had been before and since. Hadn't Kansas already done that before? (I'm thinking on side 2 of their debut album, but not sure)

[zravkapt]

But that's always made me wonder, when you listen to a solo fade out like that, say on Comfortably Numb, for instance, one wonders how long the solo is the master tape. For instance, did Gilmour wail for another couple minutes on that one, and Waters said "Right, this song doesn't really need to be 8 minutes long), or is there just another few seconds before the take ended?

Judging by the extended solos on DSOT and PULSE (which are similar IIRC), I assume Gilmour played something similar on the studio version. Bob Ezrin probably decided, "Yeah, we don't need all that...we'll just fade it out."

[GuitarGeek]

Judging by the extended solos on DSOT and PULSE (which are similar IIRC), I assume Gilmour played something similar on the studio version. Bob Ezrin probably decided, "Yeah, we don't need all that...we'll just fade it out."

Or maybe Waters said "Let's fade it out early". Ir emember Gilmour saying once that one of the hardest things about The Wall was keeping it from being a triple LP. That's why they cut What Shall We Do Now (or whatever it's called) from side two, and they also cut one verse out of The Show Must Go On, because they decided the LP sides were too long.

[GuitarGeek]

I heard that they conceived it as one big track, but it was separated into two because Don Kirshner objected to a 14 minute track.

Yeah, I can see that. I can imagine what the conversations Kirshner had with the band were like. "Boys, I've been doing this for more than a decade now, I know what gets on the radio, they might play these long pieces you're writing on FM radio, but you want to have a hit, you have to get on AM radio, and this stuff ain't cutting it. Why don't you write some singles, about stuff people can actually relate to?!"

To me, they feel like two distinctly different tracks, I just think they should have been linked/segued, like countless other songs had been before and since.

Kinda makes me think of what Elton John said about Funeral For A Friend and Love Lies Bleeding. They were originally two separate songs, until he realized the one ended on the same chord that the other started on, so he came up with the idea of seguing them together.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I heard that they conceived it as one big track, but it was separated into two because Don Kirshner objected to a 14 minute track.

Someone even took the Liberty to splice it together by their own, uhm, hand:



It's quite good, although those 'steady-bassline-with-keychords-ontop-as-in-HeartOfTheSunrise' antics always kinda cringed me out a bit.

[Dave (in MA)]

Fade-outs often look awkward when the band "plays" on a TV show.

[cannygoodlike]

This also happened on the track "Palladium" from Weather Report's Heavy Weather (it fades on the original LP, but runs a bit longer and then stops abruptly on the CD remaster).

This reminds me of my vinyl copy of Love's Forever Changes (an 80's European repressing) which stops suddenly at the end of one of the sides (I forget which). For years that was all I knew and I always assumed it was intentional, so I got a surprise when I bought the remastered CD a few years back and it faded out. From what I was able to find out, the CD was correct and the original vinyl used to have the fade.

[Facelift]

Genesis - Dancing with the Moonlit Knight.

The song just kind of peters out (no pun intended). I don't hate the end of it or anything (in fact, it does have a somewhat appealing trance-like quality) but IMO it does not fit that particular song, and the song would have been improved by something more appropriate.

[Scrotum Scissor]

This reminds me of my vinyl copy of Love's Forever Changes (an 80's European repressing) which stops suddenly at the end of one of the sides (I forget which). For years that was all I knew and I always assumed it was intentional, so I got a surprise when I bought the remastered CD a few years back and it faded out. From what I was able to find out, the CD was correct and the original vinyl used to have the fade.

Strange. The only "added fadeout" I ever knew about there was the one they forced onto "A House Is Not a Motel" (song no. 2) on some reissues; it's supposed to have an acute and sudden stop in the middle of that ravishing double guitar solo.

[GuitarGeek]

Fade-outs often look awkward when the band "plays" on a TV show.

I remember seeing Vicki Lawrence, on her talk show, do a performance of The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia. The thing was, she actually sang live, everything else was on tape. So at the end of the song, when it fades out, she kept singing at full volume. Always seemed a bit odd to me.

I read an interview with Thomas Dolby, where he talked of appearing on some TV show, and had to lip sync to the 7" version of She Blinded Me With Science, which apparently had a few edits that he had forgotten about. Anyway, he apparently felt embarrassed about missing a few cues and such. He said the audience seemed to know the song better than he did.

Another song where I think the fade out comes too soon is Getting To Know You Better from Trevor Rabin's first solo album. Fade out begins during the last chorus repeat, which is then followed by a guitar solo. So you really only hear a few bars of the solo before the track ends. It's even worse than Different Strings, in my view.

[Zeuhlmate]

What about Gentle Giant: In a Glasshouse?
or the tone generator sound on Magma: Köhntarköz?

[Vic2012]

I don't have a problem with fade outs. During the vinyl era it was common. There are some tracks that sound intentionally shortened because of the limitations of vinyl. A couple songs that are disappointing because they're faded out to soon are: Little Wing (Jimi), Little Girl In Bloom (Thin Lizzy), Different Strings (Rush).

[pb2015]

This reminds me of my vinyl copy of Love's Forever Changes (an 80's European repressing) which stops suddenly at the end of one of the sides (I forget which). For years that was all I knew and I always assumed it was intentional, so I got a surprise when I bought the remastered CD a few years back and it faded out. From what I was able to find out, the CD was correct and the original vinyl used to have the fade.

I bought an original LP of A Wizard/A True Star recently and was surprised that side one ends a bit differently than on the Rhino CD I've had since the late 80's. On the CD it ends with a sort of zapping sound like turning off an old tv, while on the LP it just stops when the needle hits the outgroove.

[cannygoodlike]

Strange. The only "added fadeout" I ever knew about there was the one they forced onto "A House Is Not a Motel" (song no. 2) on some reissues; it's supposed to have an acute and sudden stop in the middle of that ravishing double guitar solo.

Ok, I may well have got it mixed up in that case. I'll have to try to dig it out over the weekend and remind myself.

[Socrates]

or the tone generator sound on Magma: Köhntarköz?

I'm not able to check it now, but isn't that MDK? But still begs the question why they did it.

[Progbear]

I'm not able to check it now, but isn't that MDK? But still begs the question why they did it.

It’s on a bunch of their albums of that period. Attahk has it too, as do some pressings of Live.

[GuitarGeek]

What about Gentle Giant: In a Glasshouse?
or the tone generator sound on Magma: Köhntarköz?

I'm not able to check it now, but isn't that MDK? But still begs the question why they did it.

It’s on a bunch of their albums of that period. Attahk has it too, as do some pressings of Live.

Wait, what are we talking about here? What tone generator? Are you talking about that single tone that lasts for a few seconds at the end of Attahk, kinda like a hidden track? That's on some of the other records too? It's not on any of the versions I've ever heard.

[ThomasKDye]

Some fadeouts are like "walking into the sunset" endings, and that's how I see "Supper's Ready"...

[ThomasKDye]

Oh yeah! The early fadeout on "Whiter Shade of Pale" drives me nuts. Gary Brooker comes in, more dramatically than before, and it fades before he can finish the second line of the chorus! What the hell.

[Socrates]

Wait, what are we talking about here? What tone generator? Are you talking about that single tone that lasts for a few seconds at the end of Attahk, kinda like a hidden track? That's on some of the other records too? It's not on any of the versions I've ever heard.

Just checked: it is on my version of MDK and also there underneath the final applause after Makanik Zain on Live. But not on Attahk or Kohntarkosz. These are all LPs.

[Trane]

Supper's Ready. I don't get the fade out as it's so anticlimactic for a epic track. But there is a load of stuff I don't get about early Genesis. It just seems like they had no idea of how to finish the track so they just faded it out. The cd I have also has CONTINUED at the end of the lyrics so maybe there was supposed to be a sequel and maybe there was as I just don't know.

IMHO it just ruins the song. After all that it just fades out?

Well, yeah, but the whole As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs is anticlimatic, after all, how do you come down from such an awesome and epic Apocalypse in 9/8?

I always felt that fade-outs were always a cheap and easy way to end a song, simply because there are so many ways to end a song and it was probably getting clichéed by the end of the 70's with those "formulas"

During those years (late 70's), countless album were filled with the standard chorus-verse format had 15 seconds solos then return to the CVC before ending with a fade-out where there was another start of solo in it... Sooo frustrating that I spent many hours actually replaying the fade-outs with an increased volume, just to catch if anything was worthy

But that's always made me wonder, when you listen to a solo fade out like that, say on Comfortably Numb, for instance, one wonders how long the solo is the master tape. For instance, did Gilmour wail for another couple minutes on that one, and Waters said "Right, this song doesn't really need to be 8 minutes long), or is there just another few seconds before the take ended? There's lots of tunes you I ask about that.

Judging by the extended solos on DSOT and PULSE (which are similar IIRC), I assume Gilmour played something similar on the studio version. Bob Ezrin probably decided, "Yeah, we don't need all that...we'll just fade it out."

Or maybe Waters said "Let's fade it out early". I remember Gilmour saying once that one of the hardest things about The Wall was keeping it from being a triple LP. That's why they cut What Shall We Do Now (or whatever it's called) from side two, and they also cut one verse out of The Show Must Go On, because they decided the LP sides were too long.

Well since Gilmour was the obvious soloist in Floyd and therefore often axed (pun intended ) in those fade-outs, I could see how some here, always ready to dirty up Waters in the Dave/Roger rivalry would come to blaming this on Rog. I do agree with Gilmour saying that The Wall is too long... a lot of the stuff between Hey You and Numb on side three are totally expandable.

===============

The worse place where a fade-out could've happened sooner in a song is in Supertramp's From Now On... that last choral-chorus bit drags on for about one minute before finally getting muted down