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Last Note Hilarity

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You've just heard a really rocking song, and at the end, when you think it's over, the track surprises you. Maybe you hear something that sounds like the engineer forgot to stop the recording and someone in the band says something funny. Maybe the genre of the song all-of-a-sudden changes. Maybe the last line of the song is just so ridiculous sounding, that you fall out of your chair. That's the kind of thing that goes in this trope!

This can be compared to Last Note Nightmare and a Musical Funny Moment.


Examples:

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    Music 
  • In 8-bit Duane's Super Mario Land song, after a heartwarming verse about Princess Daisy, he ends the song with a belch.
  • AC/DC
    • "Night Prowler" ends with Bon Scott saying "Shazbot. Nanu nanu."
    • "The Jack" ends with Bon Scott thanking an unappreciative audience.
  • "The Real Thing" by Alice in Chains ends with Layne Staley randomly yelling out "Sexual Chocolate, baby!"
  • Arctic Monkeys have this in some songs.
    • "Library Pictures" has one in the beginning where lead singer Alex says "I'm in a vest".
    • "Put Your Dukes Up John" (the cover) ends with Alex saying, "sweat? What are you doing to be sweating that much?" followed with the other band members laughing.
  • The Beatles'
    • "Strawberry Fields Forever" has a Stop and Go segment, where the song returns with a weird minute of weird sound after the song, featuring John saying "Cranberry sauce!" (the Conspiracy Theorists think it's "I buried Paul"). Another take featured in Anthology goes "I'm very bored", and Ringo plays an extended solo, at the end of which John can be heard saying, "All right, calm down, Ringo.")
    • The Studio Chatter featured in Let It Be has some moments, such as John's childish voice after "Dig It", and "Get Back" featuring "I'd like to thank you all on behalf of ourselves and the group, and I hope we passed the audition."
    • Whether it's funny or startling is up to you: at the end of "Helter Skelter", Ringo shouts out "I've got blisters on my fingers!". This is because the band had been working on the song for several hours in a row.
    • "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill"'s funny coda, with trombone sounds and applause, culminates in John screaming "Hey oh!"
  • The Outside Agency have this trope as Signature Style. In a lot of their songs there is a Stinger quote from a film or TV show or even merged quotes from different media, for comedic effect. Often used as a direct answer to the song that preceded them. Here’s an example
  • The Scottish indie band Bis has several:
    • "Mr. Important". The song is really upbeat, then at the very end of the song, it cuts to a country variation of the song with acoustic guitar and the singer going "Mr. Important, yeah yeah yeah yeah!"
    • Another song ends with a recording of someone asking a woman what she thought of a concert, the woman responds with: "It was shit, really. I had the worst time in my life! I thought the performers were arrogant assholes, and... I want to go home now actually."
    • Yet another song, Ninja High Skool, ends with random sequences of squealing in German about ten seconds apart from each other.
  • blink-182:
    • "Family Reunion" is already funny to begin with but ends with "I Fucked Your Mom! And wanna suck your dad and my mommy too! oh, is this thing on?"
    • "I'm Sorry", for whatever reason, ends with a skit involving someone peeing in a toilet, and their dog coming in and drinking from the toilet for a very, very long time.
  • Blueshift Signal's Seven Natural Scenes, a dreamy shoegazing album, randomly ends with the Road Runner going "Meep-meep!" after the final song.
  • The brief Can instrumental "Pnoom" ends with an abrupt crashing sound.
  • D12's song "My Band" ends with the beat switching to a Latina-inspired melody and style, with Eminem rapping over it about his "salsa", (parodying "Milkshake" with "My Salsa").
  • The Devin Townshend Project’s song, “March of the Poozers” ends with one of the Poozers making Beaker-like noises before tooting. Then it goes back to the album’s hammy audio drama.
  • GWAR’s already ribald song, “Fucking An Animal” ends with Dave Brockie flatly saying “I’m not going to spend anymore time on that song.”
  • Liquid Tension Experiment's "When the Water Breaks" is a serious Progressive Rock instrumental throughout most of its nearly 17-minute run. The last minute or so, however, is a quirky honky-tonk piano solo. "Universal Mind" is similarly epic... until the last 30 seconds, which is circus music.
  • Maximum the Hormone
    • "Koi No Megalover" is easily the coolest song ever written. Then at the end, one of the members screams something in Japanese followed by the other members laughing.
    • The end of "What's Up People!?" the second Death Note opening. The singer screams "WHAT'S UP PEOPLE!?" about five times, then starts babbling something in Japanese which sounds like "I'M SORRY ABOUT THE BROKEN GLASS! AND THE TOILET AS WELL! WOAH! WE'RE IN TROUBLE! Cough cough..." This is already listed as a Last Note Nightmare as well.
  • Primus's "Over The Electric Grapevine" ends with a long instrumental riff... which is followed by "Vive la France, Vive la France!"
  • Roy Wood's "Are You Ready to Rock" randomly puts in bagpipes at the end.
  • They Might Be Giants:
    • "She Thinks She's Edith Head" ends after what could almost be called a Last Note Nightmare with John Flansburgh screaming "SHE'S LOST HER MIND!!!" Afterwards, if we listen very closely, Flansburgh says "Let's listen!" followed by John Linnell announcing "I ate a bug." Flansburgh then says "I can't hear you at all!"
    • "Spy" is a catchy, jazzy song that ends with a few bars of comically discordant trumpet music that seem to go on for way too long. Live performances tend to extend the gag even further.
  • The end of South Park's main theme (written and performed by Primus) ends with a fart. In the cartoon's intro, this sound plays when Mr. Hankey hits the South Park billboard.
  • "Life's Been Good", by Joe Walsh: "Uh-oh, here comes a flock of Wah-Wahs", followed by the sound of people going "wah-wah" like quacking ducks.
  • Queen:
    • In "One Vision", we get a very awesome and invigorating anthem full of ripping guitars, badass drum beats and complex harmonies (in typical Queen fashion)... and the last line is "just gimme, gimme, gimme FRIED CHICKEN!"
    • "Seven Seas of Rhye" ends its grandiose, vaguely egomaniacal lyrics with the band singing the refrain from "I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside"

  • Mozart's Musical Joke ends with each instrument playing a cadence in different wrong keys (except the horns).
  • Them Crooked Vultures' "Mind Eraser, No Chaser" is a Hard Rock song that ends with a completely random tuba riff.
  • Avenue Q's "My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada"
    "She's my girlfriend // My wonderful girlfriend // Yes, I have a girlfriend, who lives in Canadaaaaa!"
  • Supertramp's "Asylum" ends with a faint cuckoo noise.
  • Jethro Tull's A Christmas Song: "'Ey, Santa, pass us that bottle, will ya?"
  • "Kohle Metal", a remixed Minecraft-themed song by German Let's Player Gronkh, ends with the sound of a creeper being hit, accompanied by Gronkh laughing.
  • "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson. "That's the end?"
  • The Who's "Happy Jack" at the end has Pete Townshend yell "I saw ya!". On one song from Live at Leeds, at the end he yells "Put away your girly magazines!" and Keith Moon replies "Sorry!".
    • To clarify - during The Who's recording sessions, Keith Moon enjoyed ruining takes by making the other band members laugh. Because of this, while recording "Happy Jack" they banished Moon from the studio (there are reports that they tied him to a chair) and he made many attempts to sneak back in. Townshend's proclamation of "I saw ya!" is because he caught sight of Moon making one of these attempts.
  • Inverted and overlapping with Studio Chatter with Humble Pie's "30 Days in the Hole" which begins with the lead vocalist starting both too soon and off-pitch. The entire band to burst into laughter before starting the song proper.
  • Sting's "Shadows in the Rain" (from the album The Dream of the Blue Turtles) starts with a musician asking, "Wait! Wait! What key is it in?" The instrumental title track of the same album ends with background laughter apparently from one of the musicians.
  • Edguy's Catch of the Century ends with the vocalist going on a rant about all of the achievements and swag he's going to have in the future, while another band member tries to calm him down.
    • The song "Standing in the Rain" is a quiet, sad song about the vocalist all alone in the rain. At the very end, he suddenly says the word "umbrella" in a funny accent and laughs.
  • French singer Renaud made a few over the years. One of his songs ends with "The studio is on fire, do I continue?". Another one ends with him talking to himself about how the song he just made is so great that it will top the chart. Then he goes on explaining that he will artificially make it top the chart by buying a lot of his own disk, then, as he is a best-seller, he will obviously get huge media coverage and of course, it will sell millions. Meanwhile, the overly long guitar solo still goes on, and he comments on the quality of the sound. He ends by announcing the next song, proclaiming he likes it because he dies at the end. Overall, the Last Note Hilarity is almost half as long as the actual song and is a Take That! to the music industry.
  • The album version of "Sssnakepit" by Enter Shikari finishes with a low-pitched, wobbling "Yeahhh" sound, which guitarist Rory starts laughing at, saying it "Sounds like Louis Armstrong". The final drumbeat continues with the band still giggling, before cutting the song off with another "Yeahhhh".
  • In Citizen King's Better Days, every chorus has a part where there's five notes that don't fit in with the rest of the song (those five notes wouldn't sound out of place in an old video game). At the end, an extended version of those five notes plays without the chorus.
  • The music video for The Cardigans song "My Favorite Game" has four different uncensored endings. Here is a link the music video with all four of the endings. All of these endings have the girl wrecking her car into a large van, and then a dummy (supposed to represent the girl) reacting to the crash. In order of the endings in the linked video, the first ending shows the dummy bounce over the van, and then it shows the girl dead. The second ending shows the dummy bounce over the van, and then it shows girl getting up before a rock comes in and bounces off her head and cartoonishly knocks her out. The third ending shows the dummy bounce over the van, and then it shows girl walk away like it was only a mild car crash. The fourth ending the dummy doesn't bounce over the van, but the dummy loses its head, it then shows a mannequin head (supposed to represent the girl's decapitated head) land on the road.
    • There is also a censored version of the music video with not only the final crash removed, but all of the other crazy things she does in the car are also removed.
      • Watching the censored version first then later watching one of the uncensored versions without knowing about the crash that happens at the end makes the trope even more effective.
  • The Replacements' "Androgynous" ends with Paul Westerberg comically flubbing a note on the piano and abruptly stopping the song.
  • Goldfrapp's remix of Marilyn Manson's "This Is The New Shit", which could almost be considered more of a Cover Version since Alison Goldfrapp sings most of the song herself: For the last 45 seconds or so, it suddenly switches from stomping electroclash to a mock-cabaret ballad, with Allison Goldfrapp adopting a Marlene Dietrich-esque German accent.
  • The Adventures Of Duane And Brando:
    • Their Dragon Quest song ends with the protagonist losing the final fight...and then Duane groans at getting a game over, while Brando does the audio equivalent of a Face Palm, to which Duane explains that he purposefully lost the final battle in order to end the song dramatically.
    • Duane's solo work, Action Adventure World, has his Super Mario Land song end with a love song from Mario to Daisy, capping it off with a belch.
  • The ending of the last song on Bruce Dickinson's album Chemical Wedding, the Alchemist, is a long pause of over two minutes, and then a voice speaks about a 'vegetable world on his left foot that forms a sandal' — it can still scare listeners.
  • Psychostick's "Beer" is silly to begin with, but the ending takes the cake — the music stops, but the singer goes on quietly, "I am drunk, drunk is me, I am drunk, wheeeee!"
  • "One More Night" by Maroon 5 ends with Adam Levine nonchalantly saying "I don't know, whatever" and a scratching sound is heard.
  • Aerosmith's "Eat The Rich" is a fairly serious hard rocker that ends with... a loud belch. Appropriate, given the subject matter.
  • The Smiths' track "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" ends with lead singer Morrissey asking producer Stephen Street "Hey Stephen, can we do that again?"
  • The Counting Crows song "Hanginaround" ends with the band members singing like they've had a few too many drinks, and the piano going off on its own tangent.
  • The hidden track on Matchbox Twenty's More Than You Think You Are album ("So Sad So Lonely") ends with the band discussing how lame they thought that last track was. "I can't believe we spent so long on that." "It's lame, man, it's LAME!"
  • Alestorm's cover of "You Are a Pirate" from LazyTown ends with the softly spoken line "You are a pirate... ya gobshite".
  • Steve Earle: "Snake Oil" ends with "I knew there was a first-taker on this album somewhere".
  • Metallica's version of "Blitzkrieg" ends with, in order, an atonal guitar squeal, someone belching loudly, someone giggling, and Lars informing everyone that he "fucked up in one place."
  • The King Crimson song "Indoor Games" ends with vocalist Gordon Haskell breaking into fits of laughter because of the strange lyrics.
  • Kyuss' "Yeah" from their 1992 album Blues for the Red Sun is an example that closes out an album: after the rather chaotic and noisy "Mondo Generator", the last proper song on the album, what follows is a three-second outtake of John Garcia apparently testing the mic and nonchalantly uttering that very word.
  • Girls Aloud's "Live in the Country" ends with a gaggle of pigs squealing and other assorted animal noises, including a lion roaring.
  • Cledus T. Judd, a Country Music parodist, does this frequently:
    • On "Please Take the Girl" (Tim McGraw's "Don't Take the Girl"): "Is it Tim McGraw or John Anderson I'm trying to imitate?"
    • He deliberately mangles the last note on "Skoal (The Grundy County Spittin' Incident)" (John Michael Montgomery's "Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)"), then exclaims, "That was horrible!"
    • "Cledus Went Down to Florida" ("The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band) ends on Shave And A Haircut.
    • "How Do You Milk a Cow" ("How Do You Like Me Now?!" by Toby Keith) ends with "Old McDonald Had a Farm" and the first few notes of the Green Acres theme.
    • "Just Another Day in Parodies" ("Just Another Day in Paradise" by Phil Vassar) ends with a few bars of Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer".
    • "My Voice" ("One Voice" by Billy Gilman), which artificially deepens his voice at the end, has the song end with the "oom papa mow mow" from "Elvira" by The Oak Ridge Boys.
    • "Tree's on Fire" (Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire") ends with the riff from "Smoke on the Water".
    • "Man of Constant Borrow" ("I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" by The Soggy Bottom Boys) ends with Diamond Rio's backing vocal getting the Broken Record treatment.
    • The guitar riff at the end of "Hell No" keeps going higher and higher and higher, exaggerating the actual riff of the source song ("Hell Yeah" by Montgomery Gentry).
  • Relient K's "Mood Rings" ends with a rather awkward attempt at a final lyric, followed by Matt commenting "...Huh. That was terrible."
  • "The Greatest Show On Earth", by Nightwish, is given an instrumental in the deluxe version. The "Narrator", which commented the normal version of the album, shows up one more time at the end of the 24 minute long song.
    "It may not occur to some people that a man would just want to write a piece of music!"
  • Late Of The Pier's "VW" ends with the band shouting random phrases like "Cabbage!" and "Can you smell snacks?"
  • Lemon Demon's Knife Fight. Most of the song is an intense and serious (well, as serious as a Lemon Demon song can be, anyway) buildup to the actual fight between the two singers, until the climax, when both singers back out after remembering that knives can hurt you and are bad and decide to have a tickle fight instead. The rest of the song is a lighthearted ukelele ditty about how much fun tickle fighting is. Then, quietly, one of them inquires as to where their knife has gone.
  • Inverted in Next's "Too Close", which begins with the singer musing "I wonder if she can tell I'm hard right now? Hmm..." Well, it sets the tone for the song, at least...
  • Steely Dan's "Jack of Speed" from the album Two Against Nature is a typical Dan groove-fest. When they performed it for the DVD, they couldn't do their usual long fadeout. Instead, it ends with a bizarrely out-of-place Shave-and-a-Haircut sting.
  • In The Yardbirds' unreleased track "Spanish Blood" (from the compilation Cumular Limit), drummer Jim McCarty deadpans the words "that was the wrong fucking verse" right after speaking the song's final verse.
  • Prince Whateverer's song "Destabilize" ends with him screaming "SET PHASERS TO HUG!" and laughing afterwards.
  • Iron Maiden's "The Thin Line Between Love and Hate" ends with drummer Nicko McBrain saying "Aw, fucking missed it!" and having a brief argument with the producer regarding said missed beat.
  • Led Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying" has, right before the song ends, John Bonham coughing and Robert Plant saying "Cough!" in response.
  • Brazilian comedy rock band Mamonas Assassinas ended their Country Music parody "Bois Don't Cry" ("Bois" being Portuguese for bulls, as in Cuckold Horns) with the famous five-tone sequence of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
  • Jim Morrison was the lone holdout from The Doors on an offer by Buick to license "Light My Fire" for a car ad. He would ridicule the rest of the band members for this by singing "Stron-ger-Than-Dirt!!" over the last four brass notes of the album version of "Touch Me" from The Soft Parade, a reference to cleaner company Ajax's slogan.note  The words were mixed out of the single version, though.
  • Katy Perry's "Ur So Gay". After making fun of the subject throughout the song with the line "You're so gay and you don't even like boys", the final chorus changes the very last word to PENIS.
  • The vocals for Kolana i już (by Polish gothic metal band Closterkeller) are sung in a rabid, aggressive fashion. A short moment after the song's ending, the other band members start singing the chorus with campy, teasing voices, eventually descending into laughter.
  • Sigh's "Requiem - Nostalgia" is a sombre, stately Power Ballad (or as close as avant-garde Black Metal can get to such), and then, out of nowhere, it transitions to an excerpt of Fryderyk Chopin's Minute Waltz overlaid with hundreds of samples of giggling babies.
  • Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel" ends with drummer Bobby Columby saying "That wasn't too good," followed by laughter from the group.
  • Rush's "Chain Lightning" ends with a deep voice remarking "That's nice.", followed by the absolute final note.
  • "Fairweather Friends" by Queens of the Stone Age ends with the music suddenly stopping and Josh Homme cutting himself off on the last refrain.
    Fairwea—I don't give a sh** about 'em anyhow.
  • Foo Fighters' "Concrete & Gold" has a few moments of silence and then Dave screams "Fuck you, Darrell!", complaining to the guy in the sound booth.
  • The Breeders' cover of The Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun" ends with faint banter.
    Britt Walford: Josephine, do you think you're going bald?
    Josephine Wiggs: You asked me that before and the answer was "no" then.
  • Sarcófago's I.N.R.I. album is an almost half hour of extremely violent and obscene lo-fi proto-black metal, which ends with what sounds like sped-up carnival music and... toilet noises.
  • "Asi mit Nivoh" by German rocker Zeltinger ends with a toilet flushing (at least in one remix). Since in the lyrics he reads lyrics on the toilet.
  • In Waterparks' cover of Green Day's 'Hitchin' A Ride', at the end, Awsten says, "Wow, not as good as the original," jabbing the people who'd say just that. You can look in the comments section of this upload of the cover for proof on that. Doubles as a Take That!.
  • Freezepop's "Lose That Boy": the singer spends the whole song speculating as to why a nice, pretty woman she once met was apparently dating a rude man who spent his time ignoring her and hitting on everyone else in sight, eventually imploring her to dump him. After the music stops, there's this shrug of a spoken word conclusion:
    In all fairness, maybe you're a crappy girlfriend too. I dunno, I just met you...
  • Incubus' song "Throw Out The Map" (and by extension, the entire 8 album) ends with singer Brandon Boyd shouting, "Chaka Khan, motherfuckers! Snap!".
  • "Guilty By Association" by Steve Taylor is kind of a goofy track in general, and ends with the band sort of messing around while Steve intones, "I think it's gonna be a big, big hit" in a very dry way. The lyrics of the song pick a fight with a certain televangelist, and one gets the idea he was getting ready for the worst...
    • Similar screwing around characterizes "Am I In Sync?" which ends with Steve arguing with his synthesizer artist in a very meta way. "I hear Bowie is doing this on his next album" indeed.
  • In "The Happy Song" on Fox Amoore's 'The Dreamcatcher' album, the singer can be heard asking, "What is this song about, again?"
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic:
    • If you turn up the volume at the end of "Don't Download This Song" (a satire of Digital Piracy Is Evil) as it fades out, you can hear Al scream "JUST BUY IT! YOU CHEAP BASTARD!"
    • The final note of "Albuquerque" is a horrendously off-key chord, followed by guitarist Jim West's audible laughter.
    • As "Phony Calls" is fading out, if you turn up your speakers, you can hear Al sing "But you're just a pain in the a—" before the song completely cuts off.
    • The end of "eBay" has Weird Al trying to stretch out the "y" in eBay at the closing of the song for as long as he could.
  • XTC::
    • "Living Through Another Cuba" nearing in the latter half of the song Andy Partridge goes totally crazy and lyric start getting really weird until ending it with "Living through another Cu... BA!!" He screams the "BA!!" such emphasis, it could be a one syllable example of Punctuated! For! Emphasis!
    • In XTC's side project, The Dukes Of Stratosphear, their song "My Love Explodes" features a very unusual one. It's what sounds like a phone message, where the following is said by somebody with a Woody Allen-imitating voice:
    "That was the most... obsceeenne...Abominatiiooon! Of a song that I- that I- That trash, that is - that is filth, that is dirt, What possessed you to write such a disgusting, degeneratized song as that? And I'm complimenting you by considering it a song..."

    Film 
  • Used as a Running Gag in the The Naked Gun series. The end credits are always finished off by what sounds suspiciously like the entire brass section of the orchestra taking a fart.
  • The legendary theme from The Pink Panther combines this trope with Letting the Air out of the Band for maximum hilarity.
  • Done in-universe in The Sound of Music during the kids' first rendition of "So Long, Farewell" as Kurt's line finishes with an impossibly (for him) high note that is actually being sung by one of the girls behind him.

    Live-Action TV 

    Theatre 

    Web Animation 
  • In the Overly Sarcastic Productions "Animal Brides" episode, this is how Red reacts to a guitar string snapping (she plays guitar and sings over the end credits)
    Red: "Oh f-!"

    Web Video 
  • In part seven of To Boldly Flee, The Nostalgia Chick and Oancitizen have to infiltrate Zod's spaceship by posing as two friends from Krypton. They're trying to distract him so Marzgurl and Angry Joe can take the ship and Chick and Oancitizen do this by singing the 1983 Kryptonian hit single, "Distraction" with Zod. Only problem? Oancitizen really wants to sing, but he's playing mute and doing so would blow his and Chick's cover. He spends most of the song trying to wrest the microphone out of Chick's hand, and then cuts in on the last note (his voice lives up to the hype) giving them away.
    Zod: Destroy that fantastic tenor!
  • CollegeHumor is fond of this trope. See for instance Awkward Rap. Several other songs end in similar ways.
  • An I'm on a Boat Parody, "I Found a Dog" the song is about someone who was lonely and found a dog who can literally do anything. However, this turns out to be more about the narrator's personal issues rather than the actual dog and eventually gets completely off point. (the video description includes the lyrics)
    Lead Singer: I miss my dad!
    I miss my dad!
    I wish he was around so I wouldn't be so sad!
    T-Pain: Daddy! Daddy! Yeah Yeah Yeah.
  • The Nostalgia Critic: Discussed. The [The Nostalgia Critic S 6 E 14 crossover episode]] reviewing Les Misérables (2012) spends a not insignificant part mocking Colm Wilkinson's previous performance as Valjean, where he sings the last note of "Bring Him Home?" in such a way that makes his voice sounds like a dog's whine.
  • Nearing the end of Cristina Vee's version of "Let Me Be With You" the Chobits opening, everything is normal - except in the background, Cristina can be heard saying in absolute monotone: "Underpants."

    Western Animation 

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