4 Unassuming Closing Tracks to Totally Epic Rock and Folk Albums

We’ve written plenty of articles on this site about the importance of a classic LP having a worthy closing track. Many of the closing tracks that we’ve celebrated might best be described as epic.

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But there’s more than one way to get things done in that respect. Critics have hailed these four albums as undeniable masterpieces. And they all end with closing tracks that are fitting in their way, even if they’re a bit less than flashy.

“I’ll Be Back” by The Beatles from ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

The Beatles’ first flawless album? Well, you can make a case for Please Please Me, but some of the originals and covers fall a bit short of the band’s ultimate standard. We’d suggest A Hard Day’s Night instead. Some of the songs on the record appeared in the group’s first-ever feature film. But considering they needed 14 songs to fill out the album, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, writing all the group’s material on an album for the first time, occasionally deviated from their usual upbeat formula. Several songs on the second side of the record find them getting a little bit bluesy. “I’ll Be Back”, the hushing closing track featuring lovely harmonies from the two men, epitomizes this restrained approach.

“Flashback Blues” by John Prine from ‘John Prine’

John Prine’s self-titled debut album comes off now like a greatest hits package. Many of the songs would go down not only as some of his most beloved, but they’d also be acclaimed as singer-songwriter masterpieces. The fact that he’d been writing songs in his head for years before getting to record them can account for the album’s depth of brilliance. He easily could have chosen one of the more assertive songwriting achievements on the album to close it out. Instead, he went with “Flashback Blues”, a somewhat unorthodox choice. But it ultimately makes sense. Painful memories fill several of the album’s songs. The lyrics to this song imply that there are perils to getting lost in looking back.

“Buckets Of Rain” by Bob Dylan from ‘Blood On The Tracks’

Bob Dylan returned to the hyper-brilliance of his mid-60s era with Blood On The Tracks. Dylan claimed that his newfound interest in painting helped propagate a return to deeper material. Others would argue that his failing marriage was responsible for the epic anguish that keeps showing up on the album. But Dylan also throws some curveballs along the way. For example, the intricate story song “Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts” seems at a remove from the laments. Meanwhile, closing track “Buckets Of Rain” barely seems like a peep compared to the cries from the heart elsewhere on the record. Yet it works as a kind of exhausted, resigned sigh at the end of a painful journey.

“The Tourist” by Radiohead from ‘OK Computer’

Radiohead made the third-album leap that so many classic artists seem to do on OK Computer. On the musical side, the band went for the gusto at every turn, combining dramatic rock crescendos with carefully chosen effects. It made the album the 90s equivalent to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon. But they chose to pull back on the reins for “The Tourist”, the closing song on the record. The song ambles about at a crawl of a pace, seeming to heed the lyrics’ insistence: “Idiot, slow down.” Throughout the album. Thom Yorke hints at the impossibility of catching your breath in the modern age. “The Tourist” gives the album’s various protagonists a quiet moment of grace.

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