I'm fascinated by words for the ending parts of things - conclusion, finale, resolution, coda; sometimes I like to argue that there are no true synonyms in English. Each and every word for a basic concept, like end, has a raft of words that mean almost the same thing but are different enough that a good writer can use them to create different images in a person's mind. Sometimes it's through the context around a word and sometimes it's through the origin of the word itself so that when we see finale paired with t.v. or grand it attains a celebratory nuance, or, as in resolution, which suggests that a problem or situation has been resolved rather than merely ended.
I'm also fascinated by pop-culture and pop music, which brings me back to the synonyms du jour: coda and swan song.
Coda
Pop music is full of great codas. Perhaps the most famous one is found in Derek and the Dominoes' Layla. That part about four minutes into the song, when the main song is starting to feel done and the piano comes in - everything after that is the coda. Or in the Beatles' Hey Jude, all those "nah nah nanana" refrains? Coda. And my personal favorite coda, from a personal favorite song, is the one found in Guns 'n' Roses' Rocket Queen. The song is a tight three minutes of punk, then a bridge that just builds tension, and then, finally, a short, sweet verse about friendship that stands in sharp contrast to everything that came before - the perfect coda.
To me, it's this last case that really makes coda non-synonymous with end. A coda doesn't just finish the song, it either repeats and builds (Layla, Hey Jude) or refudiates and contrasts (Rocket Queen) everything that came before.
Swan Song
Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt is rightly regarded as a masterful cover - a truly different take on a good song that re-contextualizes and adds to the original while finding something new to say. It is the video, however, that serves as Johnny Cash's elegy and swan song.
Legend had it that a swan would live its life in silence. Then, feeling Death draw close, it would open its throat and sing out a graceful, beautiful song, a last gift to the world before dying. Although completely untrue, at least as far as known biology, this legend has given us the idiom swan song, a last act of creation or performance before death (or, you know, just retirement). As such, this idiom's nuance, and difference from end is in the supposed beauty of the swan's final song.
And while not all pop culture swan songs are beautiful, there are an incredible number, like in Cash's case, that are. Cash's final album, the one on which Hurt appears, is American IV: The Man Comes Around is lauded as a masterpiece and its songs appear all throughout the pop culture landscape. (And, to be clear, there are a number of other Cash albums that were released after this one, but posthumous and swan song are not even near-synonyms!)
Let me end this week's rambling by talking, again, about Led Zeppelin. Two years after the death of John Bonham in 1980, the band put out a collection of rarities and out-takes called Coda. They did so on Swan Song records; back in the record library, we had most of Zeppelin's collection on vinyl. There was (and is) a magic to vinyl records that digital recordings lack. It's something to do with the lack of tactile connection, I think, combined with the loss of 12" record sleeves that were as much a part of a band's message as the music itself.
On each of Zeppelin's later records, the label's mascot, an angelic figure seemed to be falling from the sky; I've always imagined that the image was meant to evoke the myth of Daedalus and Icarus as they made their escape from Crete, and the swan song was that of Icarus himself, his final performance an act of hubris from which we should all learn.
Definition(s):
Coda
The concluding passage of a piece or movement, typically forming an addition to the basic structure.
Swan Song
The final performance or activity of a person's career.
Notable Events of 1982:
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Sidetracks: Swan Songs
Call it a cop-out, but there is too much good stuff connected to the idea of a swan song to let it go by without sharing, so, here are seven of my favorite swan songs from recent history:
Next time: Epilogue. That's it. Stay strong, stay curious. Learn something.