57. 10 Last Songs

It struck me this week that I was neglecting the original idea, which was to make actual tracklistings for compilations tapes - orders lovingly put together and honed to create a perfect whole.
It was time to put the focus back on the music ... man.
In doing so, I have, ironically, not created a tape which works as a whole, as all these songs are, as the title suggests, last songs, so none of them should be 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th or 9th songs.
So, in a sense, the order in which they are listed represents the extent to which they fulfil their role in reverse, you see.

Goin' On - Flaming Lips
Misstra Know-It-All - Stevie Wonder
The Good Will Out - Embrace
Jet Lag - Brendan Benson
Judy and the Dream of Horses - Belle and Sebastian
Rock'n'Roll Suicide - David Bowie
For Now and Ever - Super Furry Animals
The Spirit of Giving - The New Pornographers
Sons & Daughters - The Decemberists
With Arms Outstretched - Rilo Kiley

All these are last songs on albums and all are are of a certain style, suited to the singalong, the handclap, the communal feeling.
Although this is a classic trick, they were surprisingly tricky to find, for a few different reasons. Firstly, bands quite often like to soften the blow on an album by putting a light or short track after what would appear to be the more natural ending - the most famous example being The Beatles ending their recording career with Her Majesty rather than The End, then you have Elbow putting Flying Dream 143 after Grace Under Pressure on Cast of Thousands or Friend of Ours after One Day Like This on The Seldom Seen Kid, that kind of thing. Which is fine. Somewhat more annoying is the modern obsession with bonus tracks being tagged on to the end, so that the actual big ending to an album loses power, so probably bands don't bother so much with it. Also (and i'm as guilty of this as anyone) very often one just doesn't reach the end of an album.
Indeed, album sequencing seems rather a lost art, which started off with CDs and has been hastened with the digital age. Most folk wouldn't know what the last track on an album was, they'd just pick and choose, so why should the artist bother creating that big outro -
A shame, as some of these are real favourites of mine. I'm a sucker for the big songalong - one or two of these are pretty gratuitous - The Embrace one sticks out, but at the time I remember it putting a lump in my throat.
I love the last three more than anything - if I was ever DJing at some hipster's joint, I would want to close the evening with one of them. Having played the tunes at a wedding recently, I regret that by the end I was too wasted to plan my my ending properly, and just kept going till I was switched off, rather than giving the event a suitable indie-singalong close.
Although a faux-poignant manufactured big ending can be a turn-off to the cynical mind, and these things have to be earned, when they are earned, there's nothing wrong with giving in to it.

THE LAST SONG YOU NEVER HEARD

You took all you could get
from that last cigarette
swore to love it henceforth in absentia
as, at last, you breathed out
no onlooker could doubt
what this whole-hearted sacrifice meant to you

But you tried to explain
that you'd come to abstain
as a protest against dull continuity -
such a misapplied phrase
and the eyebrows it raised
stained your good name into perpetuity

And suspicion it grows
at the country-rock shows
when you huff and turn tail as the end draws near
said you'd come to be bored
by the usual encores
that the cliches of closure offend your ears

If you scorn the best parts
'cos your set on being smart
then that scorn may find its own way back to you
so you'd bitch and you'd moan
if Bob played 'Rolling Stone'
an indulgent, extraneous track to you

Cold and callow, you'd boast
that a trumpet's last post
was a trick best ignored and best trivialised
and you can't understand
these conventions you've damned
bring the best from the honourably civilised.