The Age Old Question: A Podcast for Music Fans · Rich Price and Clint Bierman

What Song Has The Best Closing Lines In Music History?

January 7, 2024·48 min·3 clips

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make” is the Beatles’ closing line on Abbey Road.

They pick up where an old question left off. Rich and Clint revisit their December 2020 opening-lines episode, then use that memory to kick off a new debate about which song closes with the strongest final line. It feels like a friendly sequel, not a reset. The mood stays loose. They trade New Year greetings, joke about 2024, and keep things moving with the easy back and forth of people who have done this before. The conversation wanders in a good way. As they work through possible answers, they move between facts, reactions, and the little side notes that make a ranking feel like an actual conversation instead of a checklist. Dawes comes back early. A Little Bit of Everything brings them back to their earlier opening-lines debate and the way a single phrase can carry a lot without much explanation. Hamilton gets a mention too, as part of that same memory. Eminem enters the mix. They admire the craft of his internal rhymes and treat him as a writer who can make language snap into place at speed. Harry Mack gets a shout-out as well. That turn reminds them that improvisation can still feel like magic when somebody really knows what to do with words. Then the Eagles take over. Rich and Clint defend Hotel California with the sort of certainty that comes from knowing a song can be overplayed and still be undeniable, especially when the whole thing, from lyric to solo to final line, keeps working. The ending is the point. They treat You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave as the kind of closing line that changes how you hear the song. The conversation never loses its social feel. By the time they wrap, it has become a compact case for anyone who likes music history, lyric nerdery, and two hosts building an argument in real time.

As heard by us

A loose, lively argument about the lines that make songs stick.

The episode takes a plain fandom question and stretches it into a spirited argument about how a song earns its final line. Rich Price and Clint Beerman keep the pace up with memory, trivia, and a little friendly pushback, which gives the discussion an easy, conversational feel…

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Why you'd press play

You want a music argument where the ending matters more than the chorus.

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