On "repeat and fade"

The all-purpose conclusion for recorded songs

One of my pet peeves in songwriting is when a song ends with “repeat and fade.” I understand why it happens: across a variety of art forms, endings are hard. But I can't think of a counterpart to repeat and fade that exists in any other art form.

If you want to end a TV show, you come up with an ending. If you want to end a movie, you come up with an ending. End a poem? Come up with an ending. End an essay? Come up with an ending.

The ending may not be very good. It's certainly legitimate to criticize any piece – like this essay – for not having a good enough ending. But it is a little weird that in songwriting, and in songwriting alone, there's the opportunity to avoid writing an ending by instead falling back to repeat and fade.

Of course, not all songwriting has this character. Some songs (like church hymns) simply end after a certain number of iterations, with no special ending at all. At most, there may be an idiomatic ritard and/or emphasis in the last few measures, depending on the performers. Songs in Broadway shows require clear endings, because of the way in which they're performed.

Likewise for other kinds of live performance: if you want to play a live version of a song where the recording repeats and fade, you must find some way of ending the song. I first encountered the problem of working out an ending when I started singing in cover bands, multiple decades ago. We would build our repertoire by agreeing on songs that we all liked, where everyone was reasonably confident they could handle their part. For each song, we could then work out independently how each of us would recreate that song, by just listening to the recording. But then we had to jointly invent an ending for any song with repeat and fade. We couldn't just do what was on the record, because repeat and fade in a live performance is slightly ridiculous and doesn't really work. So, instead, we had to come up with something that worked in terms of our skills, the logic of the song, and (of course) the need to wind up the song cleanly.

Not every example of repeat and fade reflects an inability to end. Intriguingly, there are even some songs that have “fake” endings, where the logic of the song ends (in at least some sense) but the song continues afterward. Linda Ronstadt’s recording of “You’re No Good” comes to mind, where the vocal portion of the song ends but the recording continues with an instrumental vamp that repeats and fades. I love the recording, and it wouldn’t be improved by cutting out the repeat and fade. That said, if I ever had to perform the song live, I feel confident I wouldn’t keep the repeat and fade: especially as a vocalist, it would be weird to wind up with a final-sounding “You’re no goo-oo-ood” and then stand around while the rhythm section grooved for a while.  (This example has two endings, which seems to be the limit. The Rick James song “You and I” is semi-famous for having three introductions in a row, but I’m currently unaware of any popular recording that has more than two endings.)

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if other media had a counterpart of repeat and fade, a shortcut for ending a piece. What would be a consistent, workable fallback for ending (say) a play, even at the risk of seeming cheap or cheesy? The closest analogy that occurs to me is an ending that is arbitrary, abrupt, and slightly baffling. The play simply ends.

In somewhat the same way as for repeat and fade, an abrupt ending can leave an impression that the author couldn't figure out anything better. But it’s notable that with repeat and fade, there is at least a clear signal to the audience that it is really the end, and that it is as the artist intended. The problem with an abrupt or semi-baffling ending is that it’s hard to distinguish from a mistake. The audience doesn’t experience closure so much as confusion. A non-ending ending can also leave open the possibility that it's not really the ending, and that the show will resume after a brief pause, making its way to a real ending.

I recognize that artistic creation is hard, so maybe I should not complain about any specific creative strategy. After all, a good song with a bad ending is better than a bad song with a good ending. It would even be possible to view repeat and fade as a profound artistic choice. It captures an aspect of how some lives end: just kind of fading away while doing pretty much the same thing over and over.

Just kind of fading away while doing pretty much the same thing over and over.

[Repeat and fade]