History Bookends / Music

** ''Viva La Vida'' begins with "Life in Technicolor" and ends with "The Escapist" which are both built around the same sample of music by Jon Hopkins.

* Music/IsaoTomita's album ''The Planets'' begins and ends with an abridged version of the "I Vow To Thee, My Country" (aka "Thaxted") section of "Jupiter".

* Music/TheFall's ''This Nation's Saving Grace'' begins with "Mansion" and ends with "To NK Roachment: Yarbles"; the former is an instrumental version of the latter.

* The first Music/TransSiberianOrchestra album begins with "An Angel Came Down", and the story (there are a few non-"story" instrumentals afterwards) ends with "An Angel Returned." The songs have the same tune.

* Music/KyaryPamyuPamyu's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NLy4cvRx7Vc music video]] for the song "Tsukema Tsukeru" starts and ends with a book.
%% (ZCE) * A couple songs by Music/PanicAtTheDisco. Namely "Camisado" and "Time to Dance".
* Alan Parsons' solo album "On Air" begins and ends with the track "Blue Blue Sky". The opening piece features fewer lyrics and abruptly ends, where the ending track rises to a crescendo and then fades away.

** ''Music/WishYouWereHere1975'' has Part I of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" start the album with a G minor chord fading in. Part IX fades out on a G major chord to end it.

* Arias in Baroque opera (especially Italian) often used this format (A-B-A) both in music and in text. A tragic aria, for example would go something like this: "Everything is horrible,just let me die!(A) - but maybe there's still hope left (B)- No, everything is horrible, I want to die.(A')".

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXEq7WiINa4&feature=related "Such Great Heights"]] by Music/ThePostalService both begins and ends with a rhythmic beeping sound.

* Music/{{Twice}}'s "Music/CheerUp" video begins with the Twice members in the kitchen and ends with them back in the kitchen but goofing around in costume.

** ''Music/ADayAtTheRaces'' starts and ends with the same instrumental bit.

* Music/{{Madness}}' ''The Liberty Of Norton Folgate'' plays with this - the same melody as used in its Overture can be heard in the final song (the title track), but is not used at the very end of the song. The song itself, however, contains its own example - the second verse is "With a little bit of this, And a little bit of that, A little bit of what you like does you no harm, And you know that...". This is repeated at the end of the song.

* Music/{{Switchfoot}}'s song, "Learning to Breathe", begins and ends with the lines, "Hello good morning/ How 'ya do?"

* The last of Creator/EdvardGrieg's Lyric Pieces, "Remembrances" (Op. 71 No. 7), is a waltz arrangement of the very first, "Arietta" (Op. 12 No. 1).

* Music/{{Queen}}:

* "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five", the closing song of Music/{{Wings}}' 1973 album ''Band on the Run'', ends with a reprise of the album's opening song - the title track, "Band on the Run".

* Music/{{Rush}}:

[[BookEnds So the song ended...]]

* The CD version of Music/SkinnyPuppy's ''Remission'' has "Glass Houses" as the second track and "Glass Out" as the second-to-last track. The former also has book-ends of its own, beginning and ending with the sample "The beauty of their souls, the sweetness of their characters lives on with us forever" from the film ''Shadow of a Doubt''.

* Music/SuzanneVega's ''Solitude Standing'' is book-ended by versions of "Tom's Diner" - one a cappella, one instrumental arranged for keyboard and guitar.

* "In the Ghetto", written by Mac Davis and later remade by various artists including Music/ElvisPresley, starts and ends with a baby being born in the Chicago ghetto. The song was originally titled "The Vicious Circle", providing further reinforcement of its Bookend nature.

[[BookEnds And the song will begin again...]]

** ''Music/TheWall'' begins with pianist Richard Wright saying "--we came in?" and ends with someone saying "Isn't this where--", both over the instrumental of "Outside the Wall", the final track on the album.

** ''Music/TheWall'' begins with someone saying "...we came in?" and ends with someone saying "Isn't this where...", both over the instrumental of "Outside the Wall", the final track on the album.

''Some BookEnds are spoilers, so beware.''

* Clock[=/=]tower bells are the first and last things heard on [[Music/JanetJackson Janet Jackson's]] ''[[Music/RhythmNation1814 Rhythm Nation 1814]]'' (Interlude tracks "Pledge" and "Livin...In Complete Darkness", for the record).
* The music video for Music/MidnightOil's "Beds Are Burning" begins and ends with a shot of a windmill leaning close to the ground.
* [[TropeCodifier No one does it better than]] Music/PinkFloyd: Their concert film ''Live at Pompeii'' begins with Part 1 of Echoes and a long zoom-in shot of the band playing. The film ends with Part 2 and a long zoom-out shot of the band playing.
** ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon'' begins and ends with a steady, [[HeartbeatSoundtrack heartbeat-like thumping fading in/out]].
** ''Music/WishYouWereHere1975'' has Part I of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" start the album with a G minor chord fading in. Part IX fades out on a G major chord to end it.
** ''Music/{{Animals|1977}}'' opens and closes with parts one and two of "Pigs on the Wing", which are significantly lighter in tone than the other songs, and serve as a framing device of sorts for the main narrative.
** ''Music/TheWall'' begins with someone saying "...we came in?" and ends with someone saying "Isn't this where...", both over the instrumental of "Outside the Wall", the final track on the album.
** GreatestHitsAlbum example: ''Echoes'' opens and closes with the first and last tracks of the band's debut album, ''Music/ThePiperAtTheGatesOfDawn'' ("Astronomy Domine" and "Bike").
* Earlier than Pink Floyd is Music/TheDoors, with their song "The End", starting and ending with the words "This is the end."
* Music/{{Alphaville}}'s ''Afternoons in Utopia'' does something similar to ''Music/TheWall''. The first track is an echo of the word "night". The last track is the limerick "There was a young lady named Bright / Whose speed was much faster than light / She departed one day / In the relative way / And returned on the previous....."
* [[Music/JourneyBand Steve Perry's]] "Oh Sherrie" begins and ends with the same eight-measure synth passage.
* The first and last tracks of the Kleptones' mashup album ''[[http://www.kleptones.com/pages/downloads_24h.html 24 Hours]]'' are "Still Start" and "Still Ending". The latter is a more-developed version of the former.
* Phantasma's album ''The Deviant Hearts'' ends with a snippet of the main melody from the first song of the album.
* Some songs in ''[[VideoGame/ExaPico Ar tonelico]]'' video game series began and end the same, most notably the tragic song of Salavec Rhaplanca.
* Several Music/{{Genesis|Band}} albums do this. ''Music/SellingEnglandByThePound'' ends with a short piece that is basically a reprise of the opener, "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight". ''Music/ATrickOfTheTail'' opens with "Dance on a Volcano" and ends with "Los Endos", which both have many of the same riffs and melodies. The live album ''Seconds Out'' plays around with them: It opens with "Squonk", which also has similarities to the other two songs mentioned, and ends with medley of "Dance on a Volcano" and "Los Endos".
* ''Mirrored'' by experimental rock group Music/{{Battles}} begins with a song called "Race: In," which features a recurring xylophone theme. The last song, "Race: Out" sees a brief return of the same theme just before the last repeating guitar pattern.
* Both Gnarls Barkley's ''St. Elsewhere'' and Friends of Dean Martinez's ''On the Shore'' start and end with the clicking of a film-projector. This is pretty much all they have in common.
* The track "Close to the Edge", from the Music/{{Yes}} album of the same name, begins and ends with the sound of bird-calls over wind and running water.
* Music/MeatLoaf's song "It Just Won't Quit" from ''Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell'' begins and ends with the line "And I never really sleep anymore."
* Music/CoheedAndCambria's second album, ''In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3'' does this (sorta).
** It begins with "The Ring in Return", which consists of an intro, then a short musical interlude, and then a male voice saying "Hello, Apollo, where should I begin?". In the lyric book, the last line of the last song (excluding the hidden one) is "Pray for us all...my dear Appollo(sic) I'll be burning Star IV" (the actual line that is sung is just "Pray for us all" over and over.)
** Also, the first album, ''Second Stage Turbine Blade'', has the song "Devils in Jersey City" (not the first song, but close to the beginning), which has a line towards the end--"Why won't you drive me home?". Towards the end of the album, we have "Junesong Provision", which has a line "To drive down...where's Wednesday? Where's Wednesday?". The last song (The End Complete V: On the Brink) of the last album (No World for Tomorrow) has the last line "so long, amory...please drive me home one last time..."
** In ''Good Apollo Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness'', at the end of the first and beginning of the second track (the first song of the album's narrative) one can hear children making animal noises. As the music fades away in the final track, one of the children starts chiming in, saying, "I love you!" a few times.
* In Music/{{Rush}}'s ''Caress of Steel'', the final song has multiple parts. The first and last of which are very similar in both the musical style and (respectively) the first and last lines sung.
** Also, Rush's "The Manhattan Project" begins and ends with the same riff on guitar and drums.
* Music/FallOutBoy's album ''Infinity on High'' begins with chatter and ends with applause, as though it were a live show.
* A couple songs by Music/PanicAtTheDisco. Namely "Camisado" and "Time to Dance".
* Music/MarilynManson's ''Music/AntichristSuperstar'' album begins and ends with the same spoken line. In addition, a different phrase bookends the final "act" of the album.
** Specifically, the beginning of "Irresponsible Hate Anthem" and the end of "Track 99 (Empty Sounds of Hate)"
** Also, from ''Music/HolyWoodInTheShadowOfTheValleyOfDeath'', both the opening and final tracks open with metallic noises and a gun theme - in the first, "[=GodEatGod=]", a key noise, a door opening, footsteps, and a revolver being armed; the closer, "Count to Six and Die (The Vacuum of All Space Encompassing)" opens with that revolver cycling through empty chambers , while also ending in an acoustic RussianRoulette alluded by the title (not only the chambers cycle, but the hammer is heard hitting the empty space; when it gets to the sixth round that would be the bullet, only the arming happens - while the footstep noises of "[=GodEatGod=]"'s intro return).
* Music/SystemOfADown's double-ConceptAlbum, ''Music/MezmerizeHypnotize'', begins with a short introduction called "Soldier Side (intro)", and ends with a song of 3-4 minutes called "Soldier Side."
* A more unconventional example: Music/{{Mayhem}}'s second album ''Grand Declaration of War'' is a sequel to their earlier EP ''Wolf's Lair Abyss''. The saga as a whole is divided into three sections: I ("Wolf's Lair Abyss"), II (the first half of "Grand Declaration of War") and III (the second half). A riff appears at the very end of "Symbols of Bloodswords", the last track from "Wolf's Lair Abyss", and the album fades out. "A Grand Declaration of War", the first track of part II of the saga fades in with the same riff shifted up a semitone. The riff appears for the third and final time at the start of the track "View from Nihil (Part II of II)", followed by some spoken word vocals and a sample of a nuclear bomb detonating. This concludes part II of the entire saga.

* Music/{{Queensryche}}'s ''Music/OperationMindcrime'' {{concept album}} begins and ends with the line "I remember now".
* Music/BrandNew's "Daisy" begins and ends with a woman singing the same gospel passage.
* Music/DeathCabForCutie's ''Transatlanticism'' begins and ends with a sound much like a car running.
* Creator/MCChris's first album ''Life's a Bitch and I'm Her Pimp'' begins with Chris' answering machine. This same answering machine message is the last thing you hear on his third album ''Eating's Not Cheating''.
* Music/IronMaiden do this on their seventh album, ''Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'', which opens and ends with the excerpt quoted in Quotes/SevenDeadlySins.
** For songs, "When the Wild Wind Blows" opens and ends with the wind blowing, and "Fear of the Dark"'s lyrics are reversed for intro and outro:
-->"I am a man who walks alone\\
And when I'm walking a dark road\\
...\\
And when I'm walking a dark road\\
[[LastChorusSlowDown I am a man who walks alone]]"
* On ''[[Music/LinkinPark Reanimation]]'', the introduction is a minute long orchestral track. By the time the end of the disc comes around, it's revealed that the electronic-based remix to "Crawling" is built around that.
** ''Music/HybridTheory'' starts with the song “Papercut”. ''One More Light'', which would be Chester’s last album, ends with “Sharp Edges”.
* Music/{{Coldplay}}:
** ''Viva La Vida'' begins with "Life in Technicolor" and ends with "The Escapist" which are both built around the same sample of music by Jon Hopkins.
** "Spies" has the refrain "Spies hide out in every corner, but you can't touch them, 'cause they're all spies." But at the end of the song, "we" get over their control, and song ends "...but they can't touch you, cause they're just spies."
** A minor example is ''Music/ARushOfBloodToTheHead'' - both the first and last song are 5:19 minutes long.
* Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart's "Requiem" begins with the "Requiem aeternam" and "Kyrie" movements, and (at least as completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr, before his death) ends with "Lux aeterna" set to the same music with different words. Alois Schmitt's more controversial completion of the unfinished "Great" Mass in C Minor (K. 427) takes a similar approach, basing the concluding "Agnus Dei" movement on the extant "Kyrie."
* Music/{{Supertramp}}'s ''Crime of the Century'' album starts with a harmonica solo on "School", which is later found in the fade-out of the title track, which ends the album. Many of their concert setlists played off this as well.
** For a more obscure Supertramp example, their self-titled debut offers two versions of the song "Surely": a 30-second one verse clip at the beginning, and a more fleshed-out two verse, three-minute version at the end that centers more on their instrumental talent.
** Roger Hodgson's solo DVD ''Take the Long Way Home'' has him playing "Give a Little Bit" twice, once at the beginning and again at the end. The second time, of course, with more feeling (and [[AudienceParticipationSong audience participation]]).
* Music/ElectricLightOrchestra's ''Music/{{Eldorado}}'' opens with a spoken monologue. The final line of this, "High on a hill, in Eldorado", is looped over the album finale.
** The first song ("Prologue") of their album ''Music/{{Time}}'' also starts with the same snippet of sound that the last song ("Epilogue") ends on.
* Music/BraveSaintSaturn's ''The Light of Things Hoped For'' begins with "Prologue," a spoken-word piece played over ambient electronic music. This electronic music is reused as the intro to "Daylight", the last track of the album.
* Music/HavalinaRailCo's ''The Diamond in the Fish''. The first track is an instrumental song, "The Theme from the Diamond in the Fish". The final track is "The Diamond in the Fish", a longer song that ends with the riff from "Theme".
* Music/SufjanStevens:
** ''Music/{{Illinois}}'' opens with a squeaking piano stool and two short intro tracks. Its first full EpicRocking, two-part song is "Come On, Feel the Illinoise". It begins with a piano riff and is in UncommonTime. Its final full EpicRocking, two-part song is "The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders". It begins with a piano riff and is in UncommonTime. It closes with two short outro tracks and a squeaking piano stool.
** ''Music/TheAgeOfAdz'': The album begins and ends with acoustic, folky songs, while nearly everything in between is electronic and bombastic.
* The intro and outro of Music/PearlJam's ''Music/{{Ten|PearlJamAlbum}}'' album, "Master[=/=]Slave": a short, eerie instrumental that fades into opening song "Once", and comes after the final song, "Release".

* Music/DonMcLean's "Castles in the Air" closes with the same stanza with which it opens: "And if she asks you why / You can tell her that I told you..."
** The first verse of "American Pie" contains the line "And maybe they'd be happy for a while". The last verse contains "And [I] asked her for some happy news", which [[http://understandingamericanpie.com/ as at least one site about understanding this song points out]], is a sad counterpoint to[=/=]echo of the first verse. (The first verse is about the optimism of TheFifties until Buddy Holly's death, the last verse is about how the dreams of TheSixties have turned sour.)
* Michael Murphey's "Wildfire" begins and ends with the same piano interlude.
* The Music/{{Momus}} album ''Ocky Milk'' begins with a single, isolated guitar note a few seconds before the first song starts, and ends with the same guitar note a few seconds after the last song ends.
* Music/TheMarsVolta's album ''Frances The Mute'' begins the first song, Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus with the short acoustic piece Sarcophagi, and ends the thirty-two minute song Cassandra Gemini with a reprise of Sarcophagi, in which the song is much louder and clearer and the vocals are much more defined.
* The Music/RedHotChiliPeppers video "Otherside" starts and ends with a man lying on the ground.
* Music/TheNotoriousBIG's album ''Music/ReadyToDie'' starts with his birth. The last song "Suicidal Thoughts" ends with [[HarsherInHindsight his death]].
** His verses on Puff Daddy's song "Victory" begin and end with the verse "In the Commission".
* Music/GreenDay's album ''Music/TwentyFirstCenturyBreakdown'' begins with an introduction track that is echoed on the second last track, "American Eulogy". The second track on the album, "21st Century Breakdown", is echoed in the final track, "See the Light".
** An almost case is ''Revolution Radio'', where the first track is "Somewhere Now" and the penultimate is "Forever Now".
* Music/{{Yellowcard}}'s album ''Lights and Sounds'' begins with the instrumental track "Three Flights Up". The final minute and a half of the final track "Holly Wood Died" is much like the first track, but with different instrumentation.
** The bonus track version more accurately mirrors this with "Three Flights Down".
* There are a ridiculous number of Country music songs featuring this.
* The Music/{{Queen}} album ''Music/ADayAtTheRaces'' starts and ends with the same instrumental bit.
** As "We Will Rock You" is an AgeProgressionSong, both the "boy" and the "old man" have mud on their faces.
* Music/BrianMay's "Driven By You" begins and ends with Brian singing "Everything I do, I do for you" a cappella.
* The first Music/TransSiberianOrchestra album begins with "An Angel Came Down", and the story (there are a few non-"story" instrumentals afterwards) ends with "An Angel Returned." The songs have the same tune.
* The performance of the so-called [[Music/TheBeatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]] opens and ends with a self-titled song. This doesn't end [[Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand the album]], though (it's hard to know if "A Day in the Life" qualifies as an encore).
* Sting's album ''Mercury Falling'' has its title as the very first and very last words.
* "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Music/GordonLightfoot begins and ends with lines about "the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee,'" and how she "never gives up her dead."
* Damn near every single Dierks Bentley puts out.
* Altar of Plagues ''Sol'' EP starts and ends with very similar-sounding ominous electronic noises
* After a very experimental album, the last song on Music/LedZeppelin's ''In Through the Out Door'', "I'm Gonna Crawl", is a blues song, much like the style of their first album. This would be the last album Led Zeppelin would record (''Coda'' was a collection of outtakes).
* Not counting a [[HiddenTrack 40-second outtake reel]] at the end, Music/BarenakedLadies' ''Gordon'' ends with the song "Crazy", which suddenly crashes into a short reprise of the opening "Hello City" in the fade-out.
* Music/EltonJohn's ''Empty Sky'' goes through an unusual one of these. The last track is a medley of "Gulliver", a ballad, "It's Hay-Chewed", a jazzy instrumental jam, and a rough patchwork of the songs from the album, starting with "Empty Sky" (which opened the album) and ending with the scream that ended "Gulliver" (this section appropriately titled "Reprise").
* Kitananx does this with his third album "The Story Of The Beard & The Music" where he has the first song of the album as "Starting The Beard", the song in the middle as "Growing The Beard" and the final song as "Harvest the Beard"
* [[Music/{{Wire}} Graham Lewis]]' wracked scream both begins and ends Dome's "The Red Tent I & II" on ''Dome 2.''
* Alan Parsons' solo album "On Air" begins and ends with the track "Blue Blue Sky". The opening piece features fewer lyrics and abruptly ends, where the ending track rises to a crescendo and then fades away.

* Music/SteelyDan's title track to (final track of) ''The Royal Scam'', begins and ends with the line, "And they wandered in from the city of St. John without a dime."
* Music/{{Sky}}'s third album begins with "The Grace", a 30-second statement of a theme on solo guitar. The final track is "Keep Me Safe and Keep Me Warm, Shelter Me From Darkness", which is a triumphant fanfare built around the same melody.
** Interestingly the songs (as with all Sky songs) are instrumentals, but the melody in question is very clearly based on the title of the second piece.
* Music/{{Ween}}'s ''The Mollusk'' starts with "Dancing In The Show Tonight" and ends with "She Wanted To Leave (Reprise)" - the "reprise" alluded to in the title is a short instrumental version of "Dancing In The Show Tonight".
* ''Music/RustNeverSleeps'' by Music/NeilYoung and Crazy Horse starts with "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" and ends with "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)", a more aggressive, electric-guitar-based rearrangement of the same song.
* ''Double Nickels on the Dime'' by the Music/{{Minutemen}} begins and ends with the sounds of starting cars.
* The first track on Christopher Tin's ''Calling All Dawns'', "Baba Yetu", begins with a woman's voice quietly humming a four note phrase. The last track, "Kia Hora Te Marino", ends with that same phrase.
* Music/DreamTheater's album ''Octavarium'' begins and ends with the same note, with an octave difference. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d with the last line of the last song (also titled "Octavarium"): "This story ends where it began." ''Systematic Chaos'' begins and ends with parts one and two of "In the Presence of Enemies". ''Metropolis Pt 2'' begins and ends with the Hypnotherapist speaking. The final song on that album, "Finally Free" even has its own; it begins and ends with [[spoiler: the words "Open your eyes, Nicholas"]].
** The song "The Great Debate" begins with a singe synth riff, and instruments are added gradually, along with spoken samples. The song ends in pretty much the same way, but in reverse, as instruments are gradually removed until only the original synth riff remains.
* Norwegian "{{black|Metal}} [[RockAndRoll n' roll]]" band Music/{{Kvelertak}}'s debut SelfTitledAlbum begins and ends with the same word: Kvelertak.
* Music/{{Lifehouse}}'s song "You and Me" opens and closes with the lines ''What day is it? / And in what month? / This clock never seemed so alive...''
* The first track on the first album of ''Music/{{Ministry}}'''s anti George Bush trilogy opens with a sample of Carl Orff's O Fortuna. The last track on the last album in the trilogy closes with the same sample.
* Music/FatboySlim's ''Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars'', where the end of the last song ("Song For Shelter") is a more echoey reprise of the beginning of the first ("Talking Bout My Baby").
* ''Music/{{Flobots}}'': "Handlebars" begins and ends with the simple "I can ride my bike with no handlebars", signifying that things eventually [[AfterTheEnd go back to normal.]]
* "In the Ghetto", written by Mac Davis and later remade by various artists including Music/ElvisPresley, starts and ends with a baby being born in the Chicago ghetto. The song was originally titled "The Vicious Circle", providing further reinforcement of its Bookend nature.
* Music/TheFall's ''This Nation's Saving Grace'' begins with "Mansion" and ends with "To NK Roachment: Yarbles"; the former is an instrumental version of the latter.
* Music/{{Danielson}}'s ''Tri-Danielson!!! (Alpha)'' opens with a crowd shouting "Tri-Danielson!" and then cheering. The followup album, ''Tri-Danielson!!! (Omega)'', ends with a crowd cheering and then shouting "Tri-Danielson!"
* Music/FunkerVogt's ''Blutzoll'' ends with a reprise of "Arising Hero", the first track.
* Gearwhore's ''Drive'' begins and ends with different mixes of "Passion".
* The first track of Music/{{Cascada}}'s ''Everytime We Touch'' is the title track. The last track is an unplugged version of the song. Same for DHT's ''Listen To Your Heart''.
* The CD version of Music/SkinnyPuppy's ''Remission'' has "Glass Houses" as the second track and "Glass Out" as the second-to-last track. The former also has book-ends of its own, beginning and ending with the sample "The beauty of their souls, the sweetness of their characters lives on with us forever" from the film ''Shadow of a Doubt''.
* {{Music/Madness}}' ''The Liberty Of Norton Folgate'' plays with this - the same melody as used in its Overture can be heard in the final song (the [[EpicRocking title]] [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic track]]), but is not used at the very end of the song. The song itself, however, contains its own example - the second verse is "With a little bit of this, And a little bit of that, A little bit of what you like does you no harm, And you know that...". This is repeated at the end of the song.
* The Music/SimonAndGarfunkel album ''Bookends'' begins and ends its A-side with the instrumental "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Bookends Theme]]". Inside the themes are the story of a lifetime, much in the same vein as ''Music/PetSounds''. Do we have the {{Trope Namer|s}} here?
* "Blue", the last song on Music/{{REM}}'s ''Music/CollapseIntoNow'', eventually turns into a reprise of "Discoverer", the first song on the album. Additionally, the last song on the concurrent retrospective compilation ''Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011'', which features the last three songs R.E.M. wrote, is "Hallelujah", which makes a prominent reference to "the radio," which not only invokes an {{arc word|s}} common throughout their work but also nods back to their debut single, "Radio Free Europe".
* Local H's ''As Good as Dead'' starts with "Manifest Density, Pt. 1" and ends with "Manifest Density, Pt. 2". It may or may not be a LampshadeHanging that the last line of "Manifest Density, Pt. 1" is "...And it'll be back soon".
* ''Sonic Sunrise'' by Mars does this with "Pachelbel 8000", a trance version of Pachelbel's Canon.
* ''Speak Now'' by Music/TaylorSwift opens with Taylor singing "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah", before the accompaniment to "Mine" begins. It ends with Taylor singing the last line of "Long Live", "We will be remembered", with no accompaniment.
** On the previous album, ''Fearless'', the song ''Love Story'' begins and ends with the line ''"We were both young when I first saw you..."''
* "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five", the closing song of Music/{{Wings}}' 1973 album ''Band on the Run'', ends with a reprise of the album's opening song-- the title track, "Band on the Run".
* Music/BlindMelon's ''Soup'' starts with an unlisted intro (officially called "Hello Goodbye") featuring Shannon Hoon singing over a brass band. The closing song "Lemonade" is based around a very similar melody to this intro, and at the very end of the song the same brass band comes in, playing a faster improvisation this time. In fact, originally the album intro was supposed to be the beginning of "Lemonade" itself instead.
* Music/{{Deltron 3030}}'s SelfTitledAlbum begins and ends with the same spoken monologue by Damon Albarn - the second time it's a [[StylisticSuck deliberately poor quality recording with intentional playback errors]].
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NLy4cvRx7Vc This music video]] for Music/KyaryPamyuPamyu's song "Tsukema Tsukeru" starts and ends with a... well, book.
* ''Casanova'' by The Divine Comedy starts with a spoken "hello" and ends with a sung "goodbye"
* ExecutiveMeddling led to Music/{{Deftones}} recording a shorter, heavier version of "Pink Maggit" called "Back To School (Mini-Maggit)" and making it the first track on a reissue of ''White Pony'': Thus that version of the album begins and ends with different versions of the same song. It actually works pretty well for an accidental example, especially because the first two and a half minutes or so of "Pink Maggit" sound absolutely nothing like "Back To School".
* "This Is Love", the last song on Mary Chapin Carpenter's album ''Stones on the Road'', ends with the melody of the first song "Why Walk When You Can Fly" played on the piano.

* Music/ArcadeFire's album The Suburbs starts and ends with tracks of the same name.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXEq7WiINa4&feature=related Such Great Heights]] by The Postal Service both begins and ends with a rhythmic beeping sound.
* The second SelfTitledAlbum by jazz-pop band Blood, Sweat, and Tears begins and ends with a rendition of Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie".
* Music/DavidBowie's ''Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps'' opens with "It's No Game" (Part 1) and closes with "It's No Game (Part 2)", both of which are naturally different versions of the same song. Furthermore, the first sound heard on the album is a film reel being started up, and the last is a film reel running out.
** Similarly, his later album ''Black Tie White Noise'' begins and ends with the sound of wedding bells in "The Wedding" and "The Wedding Song".
* J Dilla's Donuts starts with a song called "Donuts (Outro)" and ends with "Welcome To The Show", also known as "Donuts (Intro)".
* The first song that Music/BrooksAndDunn ever performed together was their debut single "Brand New Man". It was also the closing number at their 2010 farewell concert at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
* The first track on Music/{{Nightwish|Band}}'s 2007 album ''Dark Passion Play'' begins with the words "The end" and ends, fourteen minutes later, with the words "the beginning".
* The George Jones and Tammy Wynette song "Golden Ring" opens with a couple looking at a wedding ring in a pawnshop. He buys the ring for her and they get married, but eventually they break up and she throws the ring on the floor as she leaves. In the last verse, another couple is in a pawnshop looking at a ring; presumably the same one from the first verse.
* Music/TheAvalanches' ''Since I Left You'' album has this. The eponymous first track has the lines, "[[TitleDrop Since I left you]], I found a world so new." The last song, "Extra Kings" has these lines at the end: "I try but I just can't get you... ever since the day I left you..."
* Music/AfroCeltSoundSystem's album ''Release'' begins with the title track, then ends with its instrumental remix "Release It".
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCL94-MsxYc The remix/cover]] by Music/LindseyStirling of music from ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' begins and ends with artificially aged footage of her entering and leaving the theatre place.
* Music/TheMoodyBlues:
** On ''Music/DaysOfFuturePassed'', the first track ("The Day Begins") concludes with the poem "Morning Glory", while the final track ("Nights in White Satin") concludes with the poem "Late Lament". The opening lines of "Morning Glory" and the final lines of "Late Lament" are the same lines regarding the moon ("Cold-hearted orb which rules the night..."), although in "Late Lament", Mike Pinder adds emphasis at the end of the reading to indicate a sense of self-determination. (The album is based on the events of a single day; as one day ends, another begins.) Moreover, "The Day Begins" opens with the sound of a gong being struck, played in reverse; "Nights in White Satin" closes with the same gong strike, now played forwards.
** ''On the Threshold of a Dream'': the first track ("In the Beginning") starts with a howling-wind sound effect, which also ends the last track ("Have You Heard? Part 2").
* Music/GoodCharlotte's album ''Cardiology'' begins and ends with "Cardiology". The album begins with a 47-second version of the song, and will end with the full-length version.
** A lyrical example in the song "The Chronicles of Life and Death" explains this trope as it often applies to people in RealLife. Also, the song starts and ends with the beeping of a lifeline. When the song ends, it goes flat.
-->"You come in cold, You're covered in blood, They're all so happy you've arrived"\\
"But now you're old, Cold covered in blood, Right back to where you started from"
* Music/IsaoTomita's album ''The Planets'' begins and ends with an abridged version of the "I Vow To Thee, My Country" (aka "Thaxted") section of "Jupiter".
* Music/SuzanneVega's ''Solitude Standing'' is book-ended by versions of "Tom's Diner" - one a cappella, one instrumental arranged for keyboard and guitar.
* Music/NoDoubt's "Don't Speak" video opens and closes with Tony Kanal taking a peach from a tree and then putting it back on there.
* Music/MichelleBranch's ''Hotel Paper'' album opens and closes with 40s-style horn music.

* The Music/EricChurch song "Like Jesus Does" begins and ends with the line "I'm a long-gone [[Music/WaylonJennings Waylon]] song on vinyl."
* Music/{{Aerosmith}}'s ''Music from Another Dimension'' opens and ends with a ''[[Franchise/TheTwilightZone Twilight Zone]]''-like narration adequate to the album title.
* Music/{{Switchfoot}}'s song, "Learning to Breathe", begins and ends with the lines, "Hello good morning/ How 'ya do?"

* Music/DevinTownsend's concept album ''Ziltoid the Omniscient'' starts with Ziltoid demanding that the Earthlings make him the perfect cup of coffee. The ending reveals that [[spoiler:Ziltoid is actually a daydreaming cafe employee who is brought back into reality by a customer demanding that he make him a very specific cup of coffee.]]
* The final passage of Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer's ''Tarkus'' suite includes a reprise of part of the opening passage. When [[Music/PorcupineTree Steven Wilson]] was given the task of remixing the album, he was stumped when he couldn't find the reprise on the multitrack master - until he realised that the reprise was actually taken ''from'' the opening passage.
* Music/NineInchNails ended the last show of their farewell tour with each member leaving the stage one-by-one after they played their last part of the last song ("In This Twilight") ending with Trent Reznor onstage alone playing a keyboard. When they played the first show of their comeback tour several years later, Reznor first came out onto the stage alone playing a keyboard and each member came out one-by-one to play their first part of the first song ("Copy of A").
* The video for Music/DavidGuetta's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVzljDmoPVs "She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)"]] both begins and ends with a women standing naked, with her back facing the camera.
* Music/GustavMahler's Eighth Symphony, after the final choral cadence, has the triumphant return of the opening "Veni, creator spiritus" theme on the "isoliert postiert" trumpets and trombones.
* Music/AFlockOfSeagulls' ''The Story of a Young Heart'' starts off with the title track and ends with a slight reprise of the song at the end of "Suicide Day".
* Music/ThePolice's last song live, as played in the 2008 reunion, was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g8b6Q2Fono the very first song of their debut album, "Next to You"]].
* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt87bLX7m_o video]] to Music/PeterGabriel's [[Music/{{Us}} "Steam"]] begins with the view of space and stars with Earth closing in and ends with zooming in on somebody's skin, brief glimpse of cellular structure, DNA, individual atoms and inter-atomic space [[RecursiveReality which becomes the interstellar space]]. Unfortunately, most broadcasts and websites cut the first 10-20 seconds.
** His song [[Music/{{So}} "Big Time"]] begins and ends with him saying "Hi there!" (This is only in the video, though; on its own, the song only has it at the beginning.)
* The first and third verses of Music/TanyaTucker's "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane" are nearly identical, with only one word ("eighteen" to "eighty-three") changed. The single change in word recontextualizes the end of said verse ("It's just a matter of time / 'Til they spread their wings and fly").
* The last of Creator/EdvardGrieg's Lyric Pieces, "Remembrances" (Op. 71 No. 7), is a waltz arrangement of the very first, "Arietta" (Op. 12 No. 1).
* Music/ModestMussorgsky's ''Pictures at an Exhibition'' begins with the "Promenade" theme (which recurs throughout the first half of the piece, as it represents Mussorgsky walking from one picture to the next). This theme returns as part of the ending of the last piece, "Great Gate of Kiev".
* Jack Ingram's breakthrough album, ''Live: Wherever You Are'', features a studio track at either end: "Wherever You Are" and "Love You". These also happened to be the two singles from it.
* The beginning and ending of Music/ChildishGambino's ''because the internet'' are similar-sounding; the start swoops upward, while the end swoops downward.

* ''Songs In The Key Of X'', a ''Series/TheXFiles'' tie-in album, opens with an extended version of Mark Snow's title theme for the series. The last track is a remix of the theme by PM Dawn.
** The soundtrack to [[Film/TheXFilesFightTheFuture the first film]] does something similar, if you don't count a HiddenTrack: It begins with "TubularX", a piece by Music/MikeOldfield combining elements of the show's theme and the most famous section of ''Music/TubularBells'', and ends with Music/TheDustBrothers' remix of the theme.
* Music/{{Radiohead}}'s ''Music/OKComputer'' starts and ends with the lyrical depiction of a crash; "Airbag", the album opener, is through the eyes of a man celebrating his survival of a crash. "The Tourist", the album's closer, shows a bystander spectating the events leading up to the crash.
* The video for Music/TomPetty's "Into the Great Wide Open" starts with Eddie (Creator/JohnnyDepp) getting a heart-shaped tattoo before rising and falling from fame as a rock star, and ends with Eddie returning to the same tattoo parlor to find another rock musician (Matt [=LeBlanc=]) getting the same tattoo, who'll presumably rise and fall from fame like he did.
* The hymn ''I Know That My Redeemer Lives'' both begins and ends with that phrase.
* Music/GymClassHeroes' album ''The Papercut Chronicles'' as well as the sequel album ''The Papercut Chronicles II'' both have a robotic voice providing a [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} rather odd]] narration at the beginning and end of the album, complete with analogies that don't make sense, {{Lampshade Hanging}}s, and random tangents about something-or-other in order to introduce and close off the album.
* The coda of "An Alpine Symphony" by Music/RichardStrauss returns to the gloomy B-flat minor "Night" the symphony opens on.
* Carl Orff's masterwork Music/CarminaBurana begins and ends with its most well-known segment "O Fortuna".
* The album ''Ever After'' by Music/MarianasTrench provides a literal example, where the first track starts with "Once upon a time..." and the last track ends with "... and happily ever after we lived. The end."
* The last number from Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music to ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'' (Op. 61) is a slightly expanded version of the first theme of the overture (Op. 21) WithLyrics. Both overture and finale begin and end with the same four-chord progression.
* The final track on the Music/{{Candlemass}} album ''Tales of Creation'' closes with the same opening riff as the album's intro.
* Video for ''Kygo's'' featuring '' Ella Henderson'' [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tBESAFzAzw8 Here for You]]. Looping commences.
* Music/{{ODESZA}}'s album ''A Moment Apart'' begins with the (edited) audio of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOU0JhkHY3w cosmonaut scene]] from ''Film/AnotherEarth''. Its last track, "Corners of the Earth", fades out to just the tapping from that scene.
* Side two of the [[Music/JohnMcLaughlin Mahavishnu Orchestra's]] ''Birds of Fire'' album begins with a fade-in drumroll on "One Word" and ends with a fade-out drumroll on "Resolution". The band would often play these two songs as a medley despite being separated by other tracks on the album.
* The last verse of the song ''No exit'' by Russian rock-band ''Splean'' is similar to the first, but the verbs are in future tense and the line "Someone just has to melt" changes to "If only we both woke up in the same bed".
* Music/MariaMena's "You're the Only One" starts and ends with the same lyric.

* Music/VisionDivine's album ''Stream of Consciousness'' begins and ends with the main character asking what's the meaning of life.
* Lukas Graham's breakout song, "Seven Years," begins with a film reel starting up and ends with a film reel winding down, similar to a previous example. Lyrically, it also starts and ends with a TitleDrop ("once I was seven years old")
* Walk Off The Earth's "Gang Of Rhythm" begins and ends with the main singer playing an acoustic guitar and singing the same lines of lyrics:
** ''I got this old guitar. The strings are rusty, but it's all I need..."
* Arias in Baroque opera (especially Italian) often used this format (A-B-A) both in music and in text.( A tragic aria, for example would go something like this: "Everything is horrible,just let me die!(A) - but maybe there's still hope left (B)- No, everything is horrible, I want to die.(A')")
* Rina Aiuchi did this on most of her albums with the song titles - the first track would often be the title track, with the final track on all but two of her studio albums being something very similarly titled, that often included the album's title. To wit:
** ''Be Happy'' starts with "be happy?" and ends with "be happy."
** ''POWER OF WORDS'' starts with "POWER OF WORDS" and ends with "Can you feel the POWER OF WORDS?"
** ''PLAYGIRL'' starts with "PLAYGIRL" and ends with "GIRLS PLAY"
** ''DELIGHT'' starts with "DELIGHT" and ends with "I'll be delighted"
** ''TRIP'' starts with "TRIP" and ends with "A DAY TRIP"
** ''THANX'' starts with "THANX" and ends with "thankful for the birthday"
* NamieAmuro did this with her album ''PLAY'' - opener "Hide & Seek" and closer "Pink Key" both have a lively, marching feeling to their beats, which was done deliberately as Amuro wanted the album to open and close with a similar sound, as though the listener was marching "into" and then, eventually, "out of" the album.
* Paul Hindemith's ''Ludus tonalis'' frames its twelve fugues and eleven interludes by a "Praeludium" and a "Postludium," the latter being a complete retrograde inversion of the former (in LaymansTerms, the same music played backward, with all pitches inverted).
* Music/GustavHolst's ''Planets Suite'' begins with a FadeIn and ends with a FadeOut; probably one of the first times (if not ''the'' first) these techniques were heard.
* Music/{{Moby}}'s reworking of the Film/JamesBond theme begins and end with Creator/PierceBrosnan saying "Bond... James Bond" .

* Music/TheMegas:
** ''Get Equipped'' (discounting "The Beginning of the End", which is a 17-second instrumental) begins and ends with songs in-character as Franchise/MegaMan to show his CharacterDevelopment - "I Want to Be the One" is about his desire to be a hero, "Lamentations of a War Machine" is about his conclusion that WarIsHell and how much he regrets having to kill the Robot Masters.
** Taking ''History Repeating'' as a single large album, the first song is about how Mega Man is tired of being the hero, the last is about how he has inspired Proto Man to [[HeelFaceTurn choose to become one]].
* Music/JohannSebastianBach's ''Magnificat'' reprises the music of its opening number at its very end. Meaningfully, the lyrics for this reprise begin with "Sicut erat in principio" ("As it was in the beginning").
* Music/BarbraStreisand's 1991 box set ''Just For The Record...'' (a history of her singing career through more than two decades) begins with her 1955 recording of "You'll Never Know," sung when she was 13. It closes out four discs later with then-current Barbra singing a duet of "You'll Never Know" with 13-year-old Barbra.
* Dmitri Shostakovich's monumental 13th Symphony begins and ends, 65 minutes later, with the exact same bell chime.
* The first and final tracks of Music/ThankYouScientist's ''Stranger Heads Prevail'', "Prologue... A Faint Applause" and "Epilogue... And The Clever Depart" both feature just vocals and a piano.
* Music/{{Cornershop}} do this on a couple of albums:
** ''Woman's Gotta Have It'' opens with "6 a.m. Jullandar Shere" and ends (barring the inevitable HiddenTrack) with the more upbeat version "7:20 a.m. Jullandar Shere".
** Again disregarding the bonus track, ''Handcream for a Generation''[='=]s AlbumIntroTrack “Heavy Soup” is also reprised as the outro.
* Music/{{Sentenced}}'s seventh album ''The Cold White Light'' opens with the calls of eurasian cranes, and ends with them [[DisturbedDoves flocking away in panic]].

* The intro to the final song on Miracle Musical's album ''Hawaii: Part II'' mirrors the lyrics and melody to the first song.
* ''The Songs of [[Literature/PaddingtonBear Paddington]]'' begins and ends with the song "P-A-D-D-I-N-G-T-O-N".
* Music/AnaisMitchell: "Young Man in America"'s lyrics begin with the young man's birth, and end with him "climbing in the bed [his mother made him] in".
* Music/{{Sabaton}}'s album ''The War to End All Wars'' begins with "Sarajevo", about the outbreak of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, and ends with "Versailles", which is about its end, and is a subeverted TriumphantReprise of "Sarajevo". "Versailles" begins hopeful that the treaty will bring lasting peace before about 2/3 of the way through, the chorus is replaced with that of "Sarajevo" before finally asking if a war ''can'' end all war and if this war will only bring another. Spoiler alert: [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII It did.]]
* Music/OrigamiAngel:
** ''Music/SomewhereCity'': "[[AlbumClosure The Air Up Here]]" re-uses a verse from "[[AlbumIntroTrack Welcome to...]]" In addition, both songs include the line "the city never lets me down."
** ''Music/GamiGang'': The last track, "gg", incorporates parts of the opening instrumental, "#GAMIGANG", towards the end.
* Music/{{Melvins}} released a loose "trilogy" of albums between 1999 and 2000: In chronological order, these were ''The Maggot'', ''The Bootlicker'' and ''The Crybaby''. ''The Crybaby'' has a HiddenTrack which is simply a slowed down, barely audible sample of "amazon", the opening track of ''The Maggot'', followed by a {{Jumpscare}} shriek of "Again!". This also references how the other two albums had hidden tracks that worked as teasers for the first song on the next album in the series.

* Music/{{Jhariah}}'s ''A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO FAKING YOUR DEATH'' has its first track include the line "He found the man before him had died," referring to how he's finally gone through with his plan to [[FakingTheDead fake his death]] and start life anew. This lyric is repeated again in the final song, after he fully goes through with [[DrivenToSuicide committing suicide]].

** Both the first and last tracks of ''Hawaii: Part II'' include the line "alone at the edge of a universe humming a tune".