End of the Career Show

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Great 'final' singles - artists and groups self-consciously bowing out, bringing the curtain down on a career. The marketing-savvy world of modern pop allows plenty of opportunities to do this but sadly few take them.

Of course for the purposes of this thread I also want examples of singles that SHOULD have been the final one, not because what followed was particularly awful but because they would have been a supremely fitting farewell. In fact all three of the songs I'm going to use to start us off weren't ACTUALLY the last release by the act.

Madness - "Yesterday's Men" ("...hang on to today, to sing any old way")
Take That - "Never Forget" ("someday soon this will be someone elses dream") - this is the ULTIMATE example really!
Morrissey - "Boxers" ("losing in front of your home crowd")

Any more??

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

I'd go for "this is yesterday", I think, it has that goodbye-goodbye elegiac feel and is pretty epic, where the huger-sounding Everything Must Go singles were all a bit too, um, peppy for that end-of-the-line feel of a Final Single.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

faster as first (pre?) HB single though, screaming into the void etcetcetc I WAS A TEENAGE GOTH, WHAT OF IT????

holdingyoubutionlymissthesethingswhentheyleave*coff*

[cis.livejournal.com]

I think it was pre? I don't know, I'm so focused on it as a statement of intent, 'this is what to expect from HB', that I can't imagine it as a farewell. Also nowhere near sentimental enough!

Re: holdingyoubutionlymissthesethingswhentheyleave*coff*

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

THAT'S WHY IT WORKS ;)