The best last song of a studio album
 

So Over & Over won the best opening track poll.
best opening track

Let's see which song you consider the best last song of a studio album (R. lineup)

This is hard.

For sure, I wouldn't vote for Goodbye Baby or You and I, part 2, but deciding between the other 4 is difficult, especially since I'm not trying to decide between the best song, but the best song at closing its own particular album.

Michele

YES! That's mainly the point.

Tough one! I like ISA more as a song, but I feel GDW is a better ending.

This is really difficult. I voted ISA. The feeling I have when that tune fades out is sublime. Caps the album so nicely.

I LOOOOOOOVE GDW, but my vote is with Wish You Were Here. I love the song, and is a good end for an album. After songs like EOTW, SB, ES, is good to go home (?) with a relaxing song.
Regards!

Wow, there's not a bad song on that list! :shocked: In their own ways, they're all fantastic closing songs. I guess I'd have to go with Gold Dust Woman, though. It's just so big, iconic, outlandish... it really makes a statement about the musical journey you've just finished with Rumours. Closing with Gold Dust Woman made a statement: Fleetwood Mac as you've known it in the past has just grown into something entirely different & special.

On my own version of Tusk, "Over & Over" is the last song (I HATE it being the opening track...to me, the worst choice possible); but, since (to quote Peter Green) I'm living in the real world, I chose "Never Forget". It was close between that & "Wish You Were Here". While those other songs are good songs, I don't think they capture all what a "last song" needs to capture. They all leave one expecting at least "one more". Both "Never Forget" & "Wish You Were Here" put a nice big period at the end of the album.

If we were doing a Pre-Rumours poll on this I'd say for 1968-1970: Before the Beginning--one of the most haunting things I've ever heard.

For 1971-74: Why. An easy choice. Out of the park.

Either one of these songs is, in my humble opinion, stronger than the closers on the Rumours-era albums.

Love Gold Dust and Never Forget, but...

No one puts an album to bed like Christine McVie. Even on the solo albums. Smile I Live For and Giving it Back...GREAT closers.

Agreed! :thumbsup: "Why" was the "walk-off grand slam in Game 7 when they were down by 3 runs".

Pretty much from English Rose to Heroes Are Hard To Find, every album ender was a pretty great ending tune:

"Albatross" on English Rose
"Misson Bell" on Kiln House
"Show Me A Smile" on Future Games.
If it wasn't for Mrs Scarrott's ramblings on Bare Trees, "Dust" WOULD'VE ended the album quite nicely (actually, even the Side 1 ender "Sunny Side Of Heaven" would've nicely closed the album, as well).
"Caught In The Rain" on Penguin
"Safe Harbour" on Heroes Are Hard To Find.

Don't know what it was about the pre-Rumours era, but they definitely knew how to close an album. Seems like once Buckingham & Nicks came aboard, they lost that knack of coming up with just the right album closer.

"Never Forget" on Tusk
&
"Wish You Were Here" on Mirage
were (IMO) the only 2 real "closers" in that era.

On both FM & Rumours they were close...but had the closing songs on the wrong side of the LP:

Fleetwood Mac..."Crystal" should've closed the album

Rumours...definitely, "Songbird" should've closed the album

Tango In The Night & "You & I, Part 2"...no. Even "When I See You Again" really SHOULD've been the closer.

On Behind The Mask, "The Second Time" shouldn't even have been recorded much less made it onto the album AND be it's closer.

They blew it on Time...they HAD the perfect (no pun intended) ending tune, all they had to do was flip-flop "All Over Again" with "These Strange Times".

I like GDW (and ISA) as a closer because it's (somewhat) dissonant. Sometimes an aftertaste is interesting.

"Never Forget Tonight" is really great too, not in the least because its pleasant finality comes after a "night" of some serious unresolved acrimony.

The rest don't do it for me. They're logical choices but as songs a little forgettable. I like the very ending of "Wish You Were Here" though.

Yeah, she opens an album great too. I love Over and Over and Love in Store.

I voted ISA, but all the songs are great, a hard choice for me :D

"Love In Store"...yeah, definitely.

"Over & Over"?? (I think I threw up a little in the back of my throat)

Love in Store might be my favorite album opener on any Mac album.

I feel genuine joy whenever I hear it. So catchy. When all three sing together on the chorus, it's magic.

I went with Wish You Were Here, partly cause it's one of my favorites, and I like albums that end with a nice "mellow-ish" song

I agree with what chiliD said in regards to his album closer choices. :cool:

'Gold Dust Woman', big time. Perfect ending track.

But I do love 'Never Forget' a lot...

We agreed at one time on this. It has grown on me to the point where I think it's perfection.

The Tower. [Goodbye Baby] Definitely. I don't care what people say. That song is beautiful. There is a fragility, a vulnerability to Stevie's vocal which just says, "I've been through a lot. I have struggled and I'm sorry I failed you. But I love you and I'll always be there for you."

I would love to ask Stevie (if I ever met this amazing woman) what she originally tried to convey/what event or situation inspired Goodbye Baby. It sounds to my ear like the song is about miscarriage or abortion, but then I think no, that's too literal a meaning for a writer like Stevie. So maybe it is about separating from a past lover? But again, it just seems too simplistic.

I'm inclined to think maybe it was written about losing a child ... she has admitted in rare interviews to a time in her life where she wanted children, and during her Klonopin years even acknowledged the loss of multiple pregnancies. I think she would have made a great mother ... maybe if she grew up in a different time or didn't lose her late thirties and early forties to Klonopin she would have children now, who knows? When people ask her about it she always answers that children wouldn't fit into the busy working life of a rock star such as herself. But others do it - and not just men. Look at Adele, for example, or Cindy Wilson of B-52s fame. Both are mothers and currently working musicians (and Cindy is only 9 years younger than Stevie).

I think there is more to it than Stevie acknowledges - but enough of this pointless speculation.

Second place for me would have to be Never Forget.