History Main / SwanSong

* ''VideoGame/{{Segagaga}}'' also qualifies as a swan song for the Platform/Dreamcast. In essence, it represented the point where Sega accepted they were bowing out of the console industry, and thus, stopped giving a shit and decided to go [[QuirkyWork balls-to-the-wall]] with this light-hearted SelfParody.

* ''VideoGame/SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague'' marks Creator/KevinConroy's final performance as Batman before his passing from colon cancer on November 10, 2022 and will be released posthumously. The reveal of his role in the game at the 2022 Game Awards was also an InMemoriam.

* ''Manga/ReincarnatedAsASword'''s anime adaptation's first ending theme, "more＜STRONGLY" ,was singer Music/MaonKurosaki's final song before her February 2023 death.

* ''Manga/ReincarnatedAsASword'''s anime adaptation's first ending theme was singer Music/MaonKurosaki's final song before her February 2023 death.

* Although the last piece Music/LudwigVanBeethoven completed before his death was the shorter finale that replaced the Grosse Fuge in his String Quartet No.13 in B-flat (the Grosse Fuge is now more usually performed as a standalone work), the last full-length work he completed was his String Quartet No.16 in F. The finale is subtitled "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß" ("The difficult decision") and features a slow motif marked "Muß es sein?" ("Must it be?") and a contrasting faster motif marked "Es muß sein!" ("It must be!"); while the meaning of these questions is the subject of much debate, the theory that Beethoven was reflecting on his mortality is one of the more popular.

** As far as music videos go, [[Music/{{Innuendo}} "These Are the Days of Our Lives"]] was the last time Freddie appeared. By this point, his illness had progressed to the point where he needed to wear make-up and have the video shot in monochrome in order to hide how gaunt and physically weak he had become, but he nonetheless delivered a stellar performance that belied his failing health.
* Music/DavidBowie's final album, ''Music/BlackstarAlbum'', was written and recorded while he was suffering from liver cancer, and released on his 69th birthday, two days before his death. The whole thing eerily alludes to the fact that it was the end of the road for him.
* Music/{{Nirvana}}'s [[EmotionalTorque gut-punching]] cover of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" during [[Music/MTVUnpluggedInNewYork MTV Unplugged]] was Kurt Cobain's swan song. He would take his life five months later.
* Nobody died (yet), but ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' was intended to be this for Music/TheBeatles. After the [[TroubledProduction disastrous]] ''Get Back'' sessions, they decided to pull it together for one more album before their breakup. However, Apple Records brought in Music/PhilSpector to salvage the ''Get Back'' tapes, and the result was ''Music/LetItBe'', the band's chronological final album.
* Music/JDilla's last two albums he recorded, ''Music/{{Donuts}}'' and ''The Shining'', were recorded as he was dying from both lupus and an incurable blood disease, and were consciously crafted as his goodbyes to his family and colleagues. ''Donuts'' was all-but completed while he was in the hospital (he produced 29 out of the album's 31 tracks while completely bedridden), but Dilla eventually got too sick to complete ''The Shining'', which was 75 percent complete. So he entrusted friend and producer Karriem Riggins to finish it. Dilla's ''true'' swan song, however, was something he never officially released: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6qQCjKCiY The very last beat he created mere hours before dying]]. According to Questlove, who played the beat during a Red Bull Music seminar, Dilla had gotten so sick, he couldn't speak, and instead expressed himself through music. Sampling "[[Music/GeorgeClinton America Eats Its Young]]", the instrumental's claustrophobic and heavy atmosphere reflected Dilla's thoughts during his last moments on the mortal coil.

* Sylvester's 1982 single "Do You Wanna Funk" was the final song produced by Patrick Cowley, who died of AIDS in November of that year. Sylvester himself lived for six more years before succumbing to the disease, with the posthumously-released ''Immortal'' being his own swan song.
* Music/KlausSchulze recorded his final album, ''Deus Arrakis'', in the face of chronic renal failure, which claimed him on April 26, 2022.
* Similar to ''Abbey Road'', when Music/{{Sentenced}} recorded their GrandFinale ''The Funeral Album'' no one was actually dying, but the band itself was very much falling apart due to personal conflicts as well as the lead singer Ville Laihiala's growing disinterest, but the group ultimately decided to make one last album with a limited tour and go out in a blaze of glory rather than simply fade out.
* "Heal My Broken Heart", by Solarstone featuring Elizabeth Fields, was the latter's final recording before she died of pancreatic cancer on October 18, 2020.
* Music/{{Motorhead}} released the album ''Bad Magic'' in August 2015, five months before the death of lead singer Lemmy Kilmister (and the subsequent end of Motorhead). ''Bad Magic'' featured the uncharacteristically solemn "'Til The End", where Lemmy tearfully sings about the approaching end of his life and how he's lived life to the fullest with no regrets. Coupled with this long-known health issues (revealed to be terminal brain and neck cancer after his death), this makes the intent of the album as a SwanSong pretty evident.
* Music/TheRollingStones' 2023 album ''Hackney Diamonds'' was the last with Charlie Watts as drummer, who died on August 24, 2021. He had been the only member of the group besides Music/MickJagger and Music/KeithRichards to have played on every Stones album and tour since 1963. The tracks "Mess It Up" and "Live by the Sword" are the last to feature his drumming; [[PermanentPlaceholder Darryl Jones filled in for the rest of the album, being credited as "guest drummer"]].

* ''Franchise/FullmetalAlchemist: Brotherhood'' was the last anime title (and perhaps the last production ever) to be dubbed in Portuguese by the Brazilian dubbing studio Álamo, which used to be a long-time client for the [[NetworkDecay primarily]] anime-focused channel Animax and dubbed ''[[ArchivePanic a bunch]]'' of anime shows for such channel. Animax was shut down in the country in 2011, and the dubbing studio in question also shut down in the same year, while ''FMAB'' went into broadcast in its successor (Sony Spin) [[EndOfAnAge and was the last anime ever to be broadcast there]].

* ''Franchise/FullmetalAlchemist: Brotherhood'' was the last anime title (and perhaps the last production ever) to be dubbed in Portuguese by the Brazilian dubbing studio Álamo, which used to be a long-time client for the [[NetworkDecay primarily]] anime-focused channel Animax and dubbed a ''[[ArchivePanic bunch]]'' of anime shows for such channel. Animax was shut down in the country in 2011, the dubbing studio in question also shut down in the same year, while ''FMAB'' went into broadcast in its successor (Sony Spin) [[EndOfAnAge and was the last anime ever to be broadcast there]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Segagaga}}'' also qualifies as a swan song for the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast. In essence, it represented the point where Sega accepted they were bowing out of the console industry, and thus, stopped giving a shit and decided to go [[QuirkyWork balls-to-the-wall]] with this light-hearted SelfParody.

* ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoFever'' was Sega's swan song as a first-party developer. It was the last game they have ever released for the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast, and by extension, their own consoles.[[note]]It wasn't, however, the final non-homebrew game on the Dreamcast, period. The ''actual'' final game to officially come out for the Dreamcast would be the vertical scrolling ShootEmUp ''Karous'', developed and published by [=MileStone=] Inc. in 2007.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoFever'' was Sega's swan song as a first-party developer. It was the last game they have ever released for the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast, and by extension, their own consoles.

* ''VideoGame/{{Segagaga}}'' also qualifies as a swan song for the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast. In essence, it represented the point where Sega accepted they were bowing out of the console industry, and thus, stopped giving a shit and decided to go [[WidgetSeries balls-to-the-wall]] with this light-hearted SelfParody.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}} 8'' was the swan song for its developer, Creator/SirTech Canada, who closed its doors soon after its release, ending the twenty years-old series with a bang--unlike [[VideoGame/{{Ultima}} many other]] [[VideoGame/MightAndMagic classic series]] of the the GoldenAge of {{Western RPG}}s. ''W8'' can also be considered a swan song of the Golden Age itself, as it was the last great game to exemplify the design paradigms and virtues typical for this period of the genre's history.

* ''VideoGame/PowerRangersBattleForTheGrid'' marks Creator/JasonDavidFrank final performance as Tommy Oliver before his death in 2022.

* Music/LadyGaga's "The Edge of Glory" was the last work contributed to by saxophonist Clarence Clemons, who died from complications of a stroke two days after the release of the music video. Gaga dedicated the song to him at her June 2012 concert in Sydney, Australia.