The Beatles were fond of this trope. Even some of their most cheerful songs end with a bit of creepiness at the end.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- The laughter at the end of "Within You Without You", which some think sounds more like crying or someone choking to death. George Harrison insisted on it being there because he thought it would be a light touch after the heavy song. It isn't.
- "Lovely Rita" ends with Paul making some really weird yelping sounds, and increasingly dissonant piano notes before someone says "I'm leaving!" and the song ends on a Scare Chord.
- "Good Morning Good Morning" ends with animal sounds and a shrill horn solo that is completely at odds with the rest of the song.
- The final chord of "A Day in the Life" fades out so long you can almost (?) hear the air conditioner.
- And then, seconds after the last vibrations of the chord have faded, there's the sudden discordant loop of distorted, randomly-spliced-together studio chatter. In the original British LP pressings, this was placed in the record's "run-out" groove so that listeners with manual turntables would hear it indefinitely until they lifted the needle. (If you're a dog, you'll experience your Last Note Nightmare a few seconds before this, as Paul McCartney added a 15 kHz tone, inaudible to most humans, specifically for his sheepdog Martha.) It helps to know that this loop, played backwards, sounds remarkably like, "I'll fuck you like Superman! I'll fuck you like Superman! etc." Paul McCartney said in his autobiography Many Years from Now that he never knew this (they certainly didn't plan it) until someone played it backwards for him and he yelled, "Gaaaawwwwd!" Later, Paul-Is-Dead mongers heard this as "Will Paul be back as Superman? Will Paul be back as Superman?..." (More benignly, it could be heard as "We'll all be back here soon"...that is to say, "we'll be on your turntable again soon with our next album.")
- Retro novelty act Big Daddy, whose schtick was to redo popular hits (mostly 80s and 90s, but also the entire SPLHC album) in 1950s Rockabilly and Doo Wop arrangements, performs "A Day in the Life" in the style of Buddy Holly. At the end of the track the air conditioner hum is replaced by the steadily increasing sound of a small airplane engine, the jarring chord is replaced by the inevitable crash, and the jabber of voices is replaced by a recording of a radio newsman reading the announcement of the deaths of Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper. Now imagine listening to that late at night.
- "Strawberry Fields Forever" is the canonical example. It fades out with a gorgeous swarmandel before fading back in with a dissonant mellotron, vicious drumming, trumpets that sound like ambulance sirens, and (most disturbingly) John Lennon's slowed-down voice saying "CRANBERRY SAUCE". Even worse for fans who think it's "I buried Paul", in which case that song's end is the sound of death.
- The end of "I Am the Walrus," complete with buried dialogue from King Lear. This one helped fuel the "Paul Is Dead" rumors...
- A version of "Penny Lane" on the The Beatles Anthology 2 album has a Strawberry Fields-like ending, which begins with a short trumpet fanfare, and segues into a strange guitar and piano coda, accompanied by someone breathing heavily into the mic. It's subverted at the end, with Paul cheerfully proclaiming "What a suitable ending, I think!".
- The dissonant swirling effects at the end of "Blue Jay Way".
- "Glass Onion" ends rather abruptly on a discordant, depressing string section that doesn't so much "end" as it just dies out...
- George Harrison in particular seemed to like this a lot. ("One more time..." from "Piggies")
- "Helter Skelter" is a different sort of Last Note Nightmare, as it finishes with Ringo throwing his drumsticks across the room and screaming "I GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS!!" The version that wound up on The White Album was the 18th take of the day. That explains the blisters.
- The best (or worst?) example would have to be "Long Long Long." It really doesn't help that the song itself is played at a lethargic pace that makes it seem as though it's slightly disconnected from the real world in the first place...
- "Cry Baby Cry" is already a haunting track, but then out of nowhere comes a creepy coda with Paul singing "Can You Take Me Back?", which is a reprise of "Honey Pie" two tracks earlier, but here it just sounds as if he is fading away out of existence. Made worse by the fact that the next track is "Revolution 9", which is a last note nightmare from beginning to end. (Unless you're a sound collage/experimental audio devotee, in which case it's just really funny.)
- Most of the above examples were intentional, and even meant to be funny or just innovative, not scary. The ending of "Good Night" probably isn't intentional. Once you've been lulled half to sleep by the song's dreamy structure, Ringo's stage-whispered "Goodnight everybody, everybody everywhere" will make you jump ten feet, especially if you're using headphones.
Other
- "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" from Abbey Road is a dark and heavy song in itself, but its ominous ending with the bass chords and static is still a Last Note Nightmare, even compared to that — especially since it cuts off in the middle of that last note. The Beatles: Rock Band actually visualizes the nightmare by blacking out your TV just as the song ends.
- And of course this is inverted with "A Hard Day's Night," which is the first song on the entire album A Hard Day's Night and kicks off with an in-your-face, dissonant Dm7add11 chord on the guitar, at the same time as a piano chord courtesy of George Martin.CHUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGG...
- "It's All Too Much" from Yellow Submarine also starts with a loud, dissonant guitar chord, which is quite unwelcome if you aren't expecting it. Right before that, John is cut off while yelling what sounds like either “To your mother” or "To Jorma," the latter being a tip of the hat to Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane. It's creepy.
- The Beatles used a Picardy third in "And I Love Her," which uses a D-MAJOR chord at the end if the song, which is in C# minor and D minor.
- There was an ABC radio program called Ringo's Yellow Submarine, which featured Ringo playing various Beatles songs and commenting on them. At the end of "Good Night", he added a whispered, "Hope everybody had a good time on Ringo's Yellow Submarine this trip!", which likely had the effect of making listeners who were already used to hearing the song jump ten feet. (Can be heard in this video
around 49:30.) - "Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite" from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which was already rather eerie to begin with) suddenly cut into "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on the LOVE album. The whole "song" became a Last Note Nightmare. AND it has the creepy organ from "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite", AAAAND snippets of the vocals from "Helter Skelter". And creepy laughing, which seems to be a theme in love. PLUS after the infamous cutoff, there are weird swirly wind sounds. Then it cuts to "Help!" and scares the piss out of you.
