Albums

Thankfully, not everybody was kung fu fighting

Posted on by brucehhackett

Each spring for the past six years, I have taken a look back at the albums that were released 50 years ago and done my best to select what I considered the Top 15. In 2018, sizing up the best LPs of 1968 wasn’t too difficult, because singles still ruled the roost at that point, and there simply weren’t that many superlative albums out there. That began changing in 1969, and each year since has become more and more challenging. The list of albums of 1971 in particular was an embarrassment of riches; I concluded there were upwards of 60 choices that were worthy candidates to make the Top 15 cut.

As I reviewed the roughly 350 albums released during the calendar year 1974, I realized I was going to struggle to find 15 LPs I thought were consistently superb. Frankly, it just wasn’t as great a year musically as the previous five. Sure, there were eight or ten that were easy to identify, but after that, there were a couple dozen “B”-grade choices. How to choose? Some of the year’s biggest sellers (like Marvin Hamlisch’s soundtrack to “The Sting” or Elton John’s “Caribou”) or even the Album of the Year Grammy winner (Stevie Wonder’s “Fulfillingness’ First Finale”) just didn’t light my fire, and paled when compared to the work of lesser known bands that had grabbed my attention that year.

Making “Best Of” lists has always been a subjective endeavor. What is the criteria for developing the list? Are these simply my favorites, or are they perhaps the biggest sellers, or maybe the most influential albums of that particular year?

Consequently, as is almost always the case, many (maybe most) of my readers will vociferously object to some of my selections.  You might howl in protest that one of your favorites was demoted to the “honorable mention” bin, or omitted entirely.  To that, I say:  Sorry ’bout that.  This is my blog, and I call ’em the way I see ’em.  Feel free to come up with your own list or maybe publish your own blog if you’re sufficiently motivated.

Meantime, I hope you enjoy the Spotify playlists below.  The first one features five songs from each of my Top 15 albums of 1974, while the second one includes three songs from each of the honorable mentions that didn’t quite make my list.

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“Court and Spark,” Joni Mitchell

From her modest debut LP in 1968 through her stunning 1972 album “For the Roses,” Joni Mitchell built a fanatical following (mostly women but also men like me) who were thunderstruck by her confessional lyrics and increasingly sophisticated songwriting. In early 1974, the mainstream music audience finally took notice of this unparalleled artiste through the sleek brilliance of “Court and Spark,” the highest charting record of her career (thanks to two hit singles, “Help Me” and “Free Man in Paris,” the album reached #2 on US charts). With the jazzy backing of musical pros like Tom Scott and the L.A. Express, Mitchell’s songs dipped and soared through many moods, from the raw emotion of “People’s Parties” and “The Same Situation” to the breezy rock ‘n roll of “Raised on Robbery” and the intellectual creativity of “Down to You” and “Trouble Child.”

“What Were Once Vices are Now Habits,” The Doobie Brothers

This hard-working band out of San Jose smoked so much pot in their formative days that they chose to name themselves The Doobie Brothers, and they ended up one of the most popular bands of the decade, with three vocalists, two guitarists and two drummers. Their catalog during the 1971-1975 period was evenly split between the no-nonsense rock of Tom Johnston and the more folk/country material by Patrick Simmons. Coming close on the heels of two superb albums (1972’s “Toulouse Street” and 1973’s “The Captain and Me”) came the wryly titled “What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits,” which featured the group’s first #1 single (“Black Water”). This LP is every bit as consistent as its predecessors — fine acoustic tunes like “Spirit,” “Tell Me What You Want” and “Another Park, Another Sunday”; and hard-driving rockers like “Eyes of Silver,” “Road Angel” and “Daughters of the Sea.”

“Pretzel Logic,” Steely Dan

The songwriting duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker had reached the Top Ten twice on their debut LP, then stretched out with longer tracks on their 1973 follow-up, “Countdown to Ecstasy.” Beginning with “Pretzel Logic,” Steely Dan ceased being a working band and became more of a studio outfit featuring as many as 20 different guitarists, keyboardists, bassists and drummers appearing on the various songs. And what infectious, well-crafted songs they were! “Parker’s Band,” “Night By Night,” “Barrytown,” “Charlie Freak,” “With a Gun” and the bluesy title track offered fascinating lyrics and Fagen’s immediately identifiable voice. I never much cared for the overplayed single “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” but it wasn’t for nothing that it became their highest-charting hit (#4 on US charts). As satisfying as this album is, the best of Steely Dan was yet to come.

“Mother Lode,” Loggins and Messina

In 1970, Jim Messina had left Poco and been hired as a producer at Columbia Records, where he was assigned to work with newcomer singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins. Messina contributed so much to the debut effort that it ended up being titled “Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina Sittin’ In,” and the two men became a best-selling duo over the next six years. Messina’s country rock leanings juxtaposed beautifully with the more emotional songs Loggins was writing, and by 1974, they reached what is arguably their peak on the aptly titled “Mother Lode.” Incredibly, there were no hit singles (whose fault is that?!), but track after track features brilliant musicianship and stellar vocals. Messina’s “Be Free,” “Move On” and “Changes” were memorable, but Loggins’ songs were even better, especially “Brighter Days,” “Time to Space,” “Growin'” and “Fever Dream.”

“Souvenirs,” Dan Fogelberg

Illinois-born Fogelberg got his start as a session musician and songwriter in Nashville, and the debut album he recorded there (“Home Free”) offered appealing folk rock with a strong country influence. His next move was relocating to Los Angeles, where he was taken under the wing of the great Joe Walsh, whose sharp production gave “Souvenirs” an immediate vitality in its rockers and ballads alike. Walsh played electric guitar on most tracks and brought in members of his band, The Eagles and Crosby and Nash to participate. But it was Fogelberg and his material that were the real attraction. While “Part of the Plan” was the upbeat single, “As the Raven Flies,” “Illinois” and “There’s a Place in the World for a Gambler” competed for attention. Meanwhile, softer tunes like “Song From Half Mountain,” “Changing Horses” and “Souvenirs” cemented his reputation as one of the better balladeers of the ’70s.

“Bad Company,” Bad Company

The early ’70s saw the formation of countless “supergroups” comprised of survivors of other bands who teamed up with great hopes for superstardom. Most of these failed to find the necessary personal and musical chemistry necessary to find a big audience. The exception, though, was England’s Bad Company, which brought together vocalist Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke (both formerly with Free), guitarist Mick Ralphs from Mott the Hoople and bassist Boz Burrell of King Crimson. Launched on Led Zeppelin’s new Swan Song record label, Bad Company’s self-titled debut album took the rock world by storm in 1974, reaching #1 on US album charts as the first of five Top Ten albums. “Can’t Get Enough” and “Movin’ On” were hit singles, but you could hear songs like “Ready For Love,” “Rock Steady,” “Seagull” and the moody title track all over rock radio stations that year.

“461 Ocean Boulevard,” Eric Clapton

The unrequited love that Clapton felt for George Harrison’s wife Pattie may have led to some of the most anguished blues songs in rock history (especially “Layla”), but it also sent him spiraling into heroin addiction that almost killed him in 1971-1973. With the help of friends like Pete Townshend, Clapton found recovery, and began writing more spiritual lyrics and melodies. The result was the noticeably understated LP “461 Ocean Boulevard,” named after the Miami house he rented while the album was being recorded. Low-key tunes like “Give Me Strength” and “Please Be With Me” featured Clapton on Dobro, while shimmering synthesizers highlighted “Let It Grow.” The fiery electric guitar solos Clapton had built his career on were evident only on the closing track, “Mainline Florida.” Perhaps most unexpected was his cover of Bob Marley’s reggae tune “I Shot the Sheriff,” a surprising #1 hit single.

“Feats Don’t Fail Me Now,” Little Feat

The late great guitarist/singer/songwriter Lowell George formed Little Feat in 1970 with keyboardist Bill Payne, drummer Richie Hayward and bassist Roy Estrada. Their first two albums were critically praised but failed to chart, precipitating Estrada’s departure and the arrival of second guitarist Paul Barrère, bassist Kenny Gradney and percussionist Sam Clayton, all of whom added vocals as well. This new lineup still featured George’s slide guitar and vocals, but the songs now took on a New Orleans-style funk, and their first LP, “Dixie Chicken,” attracted a wider audience. It wasn’t until the release of “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now” in 1974 that the band reached the high 30s on the US album charts, thanks to killer tracks like “Oh Atlanta,” “Rock and Roll Doctor,” “The Fan,” “Cold Cold Cold/Tripe Face Boogie” and the title song. I played the hell out of this album that year and became a huge fan from then on.

“Crime of the Century,” Supertramp

Named after the 1908 book “The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp,” this British prog-rock band was led from their founding in 1970 by two singer-songwriters, Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies, who had different backgrounds and musical influences. Hodgson had gone to boarding school and preferred pop rock, while Davies was working class and leaned toward blues and jazz. While they co-wrote a lot of the band’s catalog, they more often wrote separately, each taking lead vocals on their own songs. They first hit paydirt in 1974 with their third LP, “Crime of the Century,” a Top Five album in the UK and Canada and cracking the Top 40 in the US. Hodgson’s light, airy voice took center stage on “Dreamer” and “School,” while Davies meatier, gruff vocals carried “Bloody Well Right” and the title track. Five years later, they had an international #1 album with “Breakfast in America.”

“Slow Dancer,” Boz Scaggs

While in high school in Dallas, William “Boz” Scaggs met Steve Miller, eventually following him to San Francisco, where he joined The Steve Miller Band as its second guitarist, singer and songwriter. After two albums, Scaggs chose to go solo, and his 1969 debut LP, recorded with the famed Muscle Shoals studio musicians in Alabama, also featured a young Duane Allman on the legendary 12-minute blues track “Loan Me a Dime.” He began developing a “blue-eyed soul” sound over his next three releases, and by 1974, his LP “Slow Dancer” received broad critical praise. Motown producer/writer Johnny Bristol co-wrote much of the album with Scaggs, including standout tracks like “Angel Lady,” “You Make It So Hard,” “Hercules” and the title cut. The album gave strong hints of what was to come on his phenomenal “Silk Degrees” album in 1976.

“Walking Man,” James Taylor

I never understood why Taylor’s fifth album, “Walking Man,” was so underrated and underplayed on radio. Critics said it was “listless” and “unremarkable,” but that’s not the way I saw it upon its release in June 1974. Looking for something a little different, Taylor moved from L.A. to a New York studio, employing a different producer and a raft of new backing musicians to support his latest material. The title tune and “Let It All Fall Down” (a diatribe against then-President Nixon), both strong songs, failed to chart as singles, and although the album reached #13, it simply didn’t get the attention it deserved, which is a crying shame. I strongly urge you to check out appealing tracks like “Hello Old Friend,” “Me and My Guitar,” “Ain’t No Song,” “Rock and Roll is Music Now” and Taylor’s cover of Chuck Berry’s “The Promised Land.”

“Dragon Fly,” Jefferson Starship

Jefferson Airplane singer/songwriter/guitarist Paul Kantner, a science fiction buff, put together a remarkable “solo” record in 1970 called “Blows Against the Empire,” which was partially credited to something called Jefferson Starship (actually members of the Grateful Dead and CSNY). When the Airplane broke up a couple years later, Kantner and paramour Grace Slick decided they liked the name Jefferson Starship, recruited guitarist Craig Chaquico and others to the lineup, and released “Dragon Fly,” the first of four strong LPs that charted well in the ’70s. Songs like “Ride the Tiger,” “All Fly Away,” “Devil’s Den” and “That’s For Sure” put the spotlight on the soaring Kantner/Slick vocal blend, while the welcome surprise track “Caroline” featured the return of Airplane founder Marty Balin, who became a mainstay in the group’s lineup for the “Red Octopus,” “Spitfire” and “Earth” albums that followed.

“War Child,” Jethro Tull

After critics incorrectly labeled Tull’s 1971 LP “Aqualung” a concept album, leader Ian Anderson responded by writing “the mother of all concept albums,” the brilliant prog rock piece “Thick as a Brick,” followed in 1973 by its darker cousin, “A Passion Play,” another 45-minute song stretching out over two sides. Fans loved both, but critics pounced on the latter, calling it “difficult to absorb.” Anderson relented on the next project, returning to regular-length tracks with a more festive atmosphere. “War Child” had been envisioned as a fanciful film soundtrack, but the movie was scrapped, and ten of the 20 songs the band had recorded became the next Tull album, an accessible disc that reached #2 and spawned the lightweight single “Bungle in the Jungle.” Far better were meatier tunes like “The Third Hoorah,” “Back Door Angels,” “War Child,” “Sea Lion” and “Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day.”

“So What,” Joe Walsh

You’ve got to give Walsh a lot of credit. He was a triple threat (guitar, voice and songwriting) on the first three James Gang albums in 1969-1971, then established himself in 1972-73 as a formidable solo artist with his “Barnstorm” and “The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get” LPs. In 1974, he not only produced and made major contributions to Dan Fogelberg’s breakthrough “Souvenirs” LP (see above), but he also simultaneously used the same cast of L.A.-based musical cohorts on his third solo album “So What,” the second of three Top Ten releases. Walsh’s oeuvre was hard rock with strong melodic elements, and this album featured such career highlights as “Welcome to the Club,” “County Fair,” “Time Out,” “Falling Down” and a remake of “Turn to Stone,” first heard on the “Barnstorm” album. By 1976, Walsh became a member of The Eagles while still periodically recording popular solo discs.

“Late For the Sky,” Jackson Browne

As a songwriter, Browne was regarded as a sort of prodigy, composing quality songs like “These Days” while still in his teens. Other artists like Linda Ronstadt, Nico and Tom Rush covered Browne’s songs before he eventually won his own record deal in 1971. Right out of the gate, he found success with his debut album and its singles, “Doctor My Eyes” and “Rock Me on the Water.” The 1973 follow-up, “For Everyman,” was even better, with his own version of “Take It Easy” (a 1972 hit for The Eagles). Less than a year later, critics were falling over themselves raving about “Late For the Sky,” which offers some of the most timeless songs in his career, especially the pensive “Fountain of Sorrow” and heartbreaking ode to a lost friend, “For a Dancer.” Add the title song and the apocalyptic “Before the Deluge,” and you’ve got one of 1974’s most respected works.

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“Dave Mason,” Dave Mason; “Heart Like a Wheel,” Linda Ronstadt; “Walls and Bridges,” John Lennon; “On the Border,” The Eagles; “Living and Dying in 3/4 Time,” Jimmy Buffett; “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway,” Genesis; “Somethin’s Happening,” Peter Frampton; “Second Helping,” Lynyrd Skynyrd; “Fulfillingness’ First Finale,” Stevie Wonder; “Country Life,” Roxy Music; “Burn,” Deep Purple; “Not Fragile,” Bachman-Turner Overdrive; “Sundown,” Gordon Lightfoot; “Overnight Sensation,” Raspberries; “A New Life,” Marshall Tucker Band; “AWB,” Average White Band; “Eldorado,” Electric Light Orchestra; “Mirage,” Camel; “Bridge of Sighs,” Robin Trower.

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Bringing it all to a dramatic conclusion

Posted on by brucehhackett

When musical artists write and record songs for a new album, they often (but not always) take great care to consider the best running order. Which song would be an attention-getting leadoff track? Do the songs flow seamlessly (or at least not jarringly) from one to the next?

Putting an emphatic ending to the proceedings with the perfect closing track is a crucial consideration for the savviest of artists. On The Beatles’ stunning “Abbey Road,” they concluded a nine-song medley with “The End,” a whirlwind showcase of drums and dueling guitars before the final couplet, sung in harmony with orchestral strings, intones, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” Tying things up neatly with a bow, right? Well, actually, no. They punctured that storybook ending with a 30-second snippet called “Her Majesty” that had been removed earlier from the running order but serendipitously found its way onto the master tape after 15 seconds of silence.

A friend recently suggested I look at the best closing tracks on classic rock albums to come up with a dozen that do an excellent job of bringing an LP to a dramatic, fitting conclusion. It’s a very subjective list, to be sure. There are no doubt some fine examples of great final songs that appear on not-so-great albums, but I chose to hone in on the best closers that appear on iconic records from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. I’d be interested in hearing your comments and suggestions about songs I may have overlooked.

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“A Day in the Life,” The Beatles, 1967

Most critics through the years have concluded that this unparalleled piece of music ranks as the very pinnacle of the 215 songs The Beatles wrote, and serves magnificently as the dramatic finale on their most iconic LP, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” John Lennon brought the basic song to the studio, with lyrics that referenced a couple of newspaper items about a friend who’d died in a car accident and the number of potholes in the town of Blackburn.  Paul McCartney had a little unfinished ditty that recalled his morning routine every school day (“Woke up, fell out of bed”), and they found a crafty way of merging the two fragments into one spectacular piece. The transition between them still stands as one of the most game-changing segues ever conceived — a symphony orchestra starting on the same note, gradually moving up at their own pace, getting increasingly louder until they arrived tumultuously at the same note 24 bars later.  As McCartney put it:  “We needed something really amazing, a total freak-out.”  The result was almost frightening in its intensity, and The Beatles loved the results so much that they repeated it at the song’s denouement, capped with all four Beatles simultaneously hitting the same E chord on pianos, letting the note ring out for 40 seconds to fadeout.

“Won’t Get Fooled Again,” The Who, 1971

This hugely influential song was originally intended as the final track for “Lifehouse,” the follow-up to The Who’s 1969 rock opera “Tommy.” Pete Townshend struggled to bring the “universal chord” concept to fruition and abandoned the project, instead taking the best nine tracks he’d developed and turning them into the more traditional LP “Who’s Next,” released in 1971. Lyrically, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” was Townshend’s dismissive take on the counterculture and its revolutionary rhetoric, summarized in the line “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Said Townshend, “I wrote it as a reaction to the Abbie Hoffmans of the world. I was very cynical about whether all the demonstrating would make a difference. I was saying, ‘Nothing has changed and nothing is going to change.'” Musically, the track is an astonishing eight-minute tour de force of The Who at their best, featuring Townshend’s innovative, comprehensive integration of the then-new synthesizer into a rock song arrangement. With producer Glyn Johns manning the boards, the tune turned into The Who’s signature song, and became the show closer in live performances. Even the much shorter single version, severely edited from 8:32 to 3:36, had enormous power, reaching #9 on US charts.

“Let It Rain,” Eric Clapton, 1970

When the short-lived supergroup Blind Faith dissolved in 1969 after one album and a short tour, Clapton found himself eager to hang out and jam with the loose confederation of musicians known as Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, who had been the warmup act on the tour. In particular, Bonnie Bramlett proved to be a welcome songwriting collaborator, and she and husband Delaney urged Clapton to showcase what they felt was a very credible singing voice. Clapton was reluctant, but when the time came to record the new batch of songs that had been written, he agreed to give it a go. The resulting debut solo LP, titled simply “Eric Clapton,” featured Clapton’s vocals on every track. J.J. Cale’s “After Midnight” and Leon Russell’s “Blues Power” got a lot of airplay, but the standout track is, without question, the closer, “Let It Rain,” which began life with different lyrics and the title “She Rides.” Featuring Russell’s rollicking piano, Stephen Stills chipping in with a sublime guitar part in the middle bridge, and the guys who would become his bandmates in Derek and the Dominos (drummer Jim Gordon, organist Bobby Whitlock and bassist Carl Ladle) providing the foundational groove, “Let It Rain” boasts a lovely melody, which Clapton sings beautifully. What really makes it, though, is the smokin’ guitar solo in the two-minute outro, one of the best of his career.

“Jungleland,” Bruce Springsteen, 1975

After two fine albums that were largely ignored when first released, Springsteen and The E Street Band knew their next release might be their last if they didn’t knock it out of the park. They labored for more than a year to come up with the eight songs that comprise “Born to Run,” a seismic album that is now indelibly etched in the annals of rock and roll. It’s a “street opera” of sorts, as Springsteen explains: “‘Thunder Road’ introduces the album’s central characters and its main proposition:  Do you want to take a chance?  It lays out the stakes you’re playing for and sets a high bar for the action to come.  Then comes ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,’ the story of a rock ‘n’ soul band and our full-on block party.  Side two opens with the wide-screen rumble of ‘Born to Run,’ then the Bo Diddley beat of ‘She’s the One’ before we cut to the trumpet of Michael Brecker as dusk falls and we head through the tunnel for ‘Meeting Across the River.’  From there, it’s the night, the city and the spiritual battleground of ‘Jungleland’ as the band works through musical movement after musical movement, culminating in Clarence Clemons’s greatest recorded sax solo.  The knife-in-the-back wail of my vocal outro, the last sound you hear, finishes it all in bloody operatic glory.” No doubt about it — “Jungleland” leaves the listener feeling drained, but in awe.

“How Many More Times,” Led Zeppelin, 1969

From the ashes of The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin was born as the dream child of guitar virtuoso Jimmy Page, who recruited his friend and session musician John Paul Jones on bass, then identified vocalist Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham as the final pieces of the blues/rock band he envisioned. Page had a couple of songs he’d developed with The Yardbirds, plus two Willie Dixon blues tunes, but the rest of the debut LP was fashioned by the foursome in the studio, sometimes using songs written by others but without giving them credit (“Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” in particular). The album closer, the titanic “How Many More Times,” had been improvised around Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years,” going through various snippets of standards like “The Hunter” and “Rosie” and even a quasi-bolero passage. On this track and the other lengthy piece, “Dazed and Confused,” Page took to using a violin bow on his Les Paul guitar during the middle section, with the eight-minute piece coming together live in the studio. “How Many More Times” was a perfect way to wrap up that incredible first album, and served as the band’s show-stopping final song during their earliest tours as well.

“Brain Damage/Eclipse,” Pink Floyd, 1973

Since 1971, Roger Waters had been mulling over the idea of writing a whole album devoted to challenging themes like conflict, time, greed, madness and death. In particular, Waters said he became morbidly fascinated by the mental illness that sent Pink Floyd’s original leader, Syd Barrett, over the edge and out of the band he founded. Of the set of songs Waters wrote, the centerpiece — eventually slotted to close the album — was a mesmerizing track first known as “Lunatic.” He called it “Dark Side of the Moon” for a while until that became the album title, and he finally settled on “Brain Damage.” The creepy nature of the lyrics (“You lock the door and throw away the key, there’s someone in my head, but it’s not me…”), complete with maniacal laughter, was perfectly complemented by a ghostly vocal and hypnotic arrangement. Early in the sessions, Waters knew he wanted to have “Brain Damage” segue directly into another piece called “Eclipse,” a two-minute song that would wrap up the album with a heartbeat and a disembodied voice that observes, “There is no dark side of the moon, really; matter of fact, it’s all dark…” Released in 1973, it’s one of the best-selling albums of all time.

“Burn Down the Mission,” Elton John, 1970

The remarkable “Tumbleweed Connection” album was an ambitious song cycle that attempted to capture the mood of the American Wild West, which had always fascinated John’s lyricist, Bernie Taupin. Songs like “Ballad of a Well-Known Gun,” “Country Comfort” and “Talking Old Soldiers” are vignettes with detailed character sketches Taupin came up with based on novels he had read describing the late 1800s in the Western U.S. The most richly rewarding and enduring track of them all is “Burn Down the Mission,” the finale which tells the sad tale of a bitter man from a poor community oppressed by a rich and powerful landowner. The man is driven to rally the townsfolk to take revenge by torching the buildings on the property, but the attempt fails and he is taken away to face the consequences. Musically, it’s one of the most complicated works of Elton John’s entire career, with abrupt tempo shifts and four key changes. The track opens with John alone on piano and vocals, eventually building to a faster, jazzier middle bit with fuller instrumentation, then repeating that contrast in the song’s second half. He often included it in his concert setlist, and was one only two non-singles performed on his 2022-23 Farewell Tour.

“Gold Dust Woman,” Fleetwood Mac, 1977

As acclaimed as the 11 tunes are that make up “Rumours,” the stories behind the making of the album are the stuff of legend. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had broken up and were taking vicious swipes at each other in the lyrics of their new songs; Christine McVie had begun a new relationship in the wake of her divorce from John McVie; and Mick Fleetwood’s marriage to Jennie Boyd was hanging by a thread. After a year-long tour in support of their 1975 “Fleetwood Mac” album, the LP had finally reached #1, so expectations were high and the pressure was on to deliver a blockbuster. Complicating matters further was the easy availability and amped-up daily use of cocaine before, during and after the sessions. Nicks chose to write about this insidious influence in the evocative, foreboding “Gold Dust Woman,” which closed the album. The take selected for the finished record was recorded at 4 a.m. in a darkened studio with Nicks’s head wrapped in a black scarf to veil her senses to tap deep emotions. The instrumentation and vocals built slowly from quiet beginnings to an all-out frenzy as the track faded to black. “Everybody was doing coke regularly,” she recalled. “It was always around, and I had a real serious flash of what this stuff could be, of what it could do to you, and I imagined that it could overtake everything, never thinking in a million years that it would overtake me.”

“The Circle Game,” Joni Mitchell, 1970

Mitchell’s first two LPs, “Song to a Seagull” and “Clouds,” offered just a hint of what was to come in her unparalleled songwriting and recorded output. The arrangements were as sparse as they get — generally only Joni singing and accompanied by one instrument (guitar, piano or dulcimer). That began to change on her remarkably mature third album, “Ladies of the Canyon,” which featured other players using cello, clarinet, flute, sax and percussion. The songs were more challenging as well — the sprightly “Conversation” and “Big Yellow Taxi,” the gorgeous melodies of “Morning Morgantown” and “For Free,” her haunting electric-piano version of “Woodstock.” Perhaps most eye-opening was the album’s finale, “The Circle Game,” a simple, philosophical gem she had written four years earlier at just 22. She has since revealed that the song focuses on her Canadian friend Neil Young, who had turned 21 and was no longer welcome to play a favorite club that catered to teens. “He felt terrible that he was now ‘over the hill’ in his mind,” she remembers, “and so he wrote ‘Sugar Mountain,’ a lament for lost youth. I thought, God, you know, if we get to 21 and there’s nothing after that, that’s a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself, just to give me some hope.” The words tell a gentle tale of a boy who is “captive on the carousel of time,” but she reassures him, and all of us, that “There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams, and plenty / Before the last revolving year is through.”

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” The Rolling Stones, 1969

As they were working on the songs that would become their celebrated “Let It Bleed” album at the end of 1969, Mick Jagger mentioned, “I like the way The Beatles used orchestral instruments as something extra to prolong the ending of ‘Hey Jude.’  We may do something like that.”  Sure enough, The Stones experimented with French horn and the London Bach Choir, which ultimately gave “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” an anthemic quality as the album’s final track.  What started as a simple song Jagger had written on acoustic guitar in late 1968 evolved into an extraordinary elegiac hymn set to a rock arrangement.  Violent songs like “Gimme Shelter” and “Midnight Rambler” set the tone of the album, and some critics interpreted the lyrics as a comment on “the end of the overlong party that was The Sixties.” Desperate lines like “I went down to the demonstration to get my fair share of abuse…” fit that overall mood, but there’s an undeniably uplifting quality to the band’s fine recorded performance and the sense of optimistic realism inherent in the philosophy of the song’s main idea:  “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you’ll get what you need.”

“The End,” The Doors, 1967

There may not be a darker closing track on a rock album than this shattering 12-minute piece that concludes The Doors’ brilliant self-titled debut. Considered a precursor of the “gothic rock” genre that became popular in some circles in the 1970s, “The End” uses guitar, organ and Jim Morrison’s menacing vocal delivery to provide a bold take on the “Oedipus complex” that was a key part of Freudian psychology at the time. As keyboardist Ray Manzarek has said, “Jim wasn’t actually saying he wanted to kill his father and rape his mother. He was re-enacting a bit of Greek drama. It was theatre!” Indeed. In 1970, Morrison said in an interview, “When I sang, ‘My only friend, The End,’ I was saying sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate. That doesn’t make it evil, or necessarily dangerous. But people fear death even more than pain, which is strange, because life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. So I guess it is a friend.” Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola regarded the piece as sufficiently harrowing to use to dramatic effect during the introduction of his 1979 Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now.”

“Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide,” David Bowie, 1972

When Bowie first dreamed up the song cycle that would become “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars,” he devised a narrative in which an androgynous, alien rock star comes to Earth before a looming cataclysmic disaster to deliver a message of hope. However, after accumulating a large following of fans and being worshipped as a messiah, Ziggy eventually dies as a victim of his own fame and excess. The character, as portrayed by Bowie in live performances throughout 1972 and 1973, was meant to symbolize an over-the-top, sexually liberated rock star and serve as a commentary on a society in which celebrities are idolized. “Starman” and “Suffragette City” stole the spotlight as the two featured tracks on radio, but the entire album ranks as one the most complete and concise concepts ever committed to vinyl. The album’s closing number, “Rock and Roll Suicide,” details his final collapse, not in blood, but as a doomed figure who requests that the audience “give me your hands” before self-imploding. It was the last of the album’s 11 numbers to be recorded, using strings and horns to give the track a majesty and a grand sense of staged drama not previously seen/heard in rock music.

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The Spotify list below includes 11 of the 12 closing tracks discussed above, but frustratingly, Joni Mitchell refuses to give permission for her songs to be played on the Spotify platform, which is the one I’ve always used here at “Hack’s Back Pages.” My apologies for the omission of her rendition of “The Circle Game”; instead, I dropped in Tom Rush’s fine cover version so it could at least be represented.