The Song Is Over
| "The Song Is Over" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by The Who from the album Who's Next | ||||
| Released | 14 August 1971 | |||
| Recorded | 11 May 1971 at Olympic Studios | |||
| Length | 6:13 | |||
| Label |
Decca (US) Polydor (UK) |
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| Writer(s) | Pete Townshend | |||
| Producer(s) | The Who, Glyn Johns | |||
| Who's Next track listing | ||||
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| 9 tracks |
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"The Song Is Over" (or "Song Is Over") is a song by the English rock band The Who, appearing on Who's Next. It was originally to be the ending song on Lifehouse. It takes place after the police invade the Lifehouse Theatre and the concert goers disappear.
"The Song Is Over" is one of the tracks on Who's Next with lead vocals by both Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey and piano work by Nicky Hopkins. According to Pete Townshend the song provides "a mixture of being sad and wistful but at the same time a high point." The mixture of the song is achieved by Pete Townshend's vocals taking a sense of the end: "The song is over, It's all behind me", and Roger's taking a sense of continuing: "I sing my songs to the wide open spaces..." Who biographer John Atkins remarks that the two singers' "contrasting voices" "work wonderfully well. Atkins considers Daltrey's vocals to be the song's strongest feature, but he also praises Keith Moon's "superbly controlled" drumming, John Entwistle's "expressive" bass and the "beautiful, rich synthesizer chords on verses. The music is based on an E flat major 7 chord progression, that Segretto is "sad and hopeful" and "guaranteed to jerk tears."
According to Mike Segretto, with metaphors about singing his farewell song to "wide open spaces," "sky high mountains" and "the infinite sea," the song "poetically indicates that a heart may break but it will endure as nature does." Atkins interprets the song as being about the "concept of song" itself, and forming the climax of the Lifehouse concept by being about "the power of song being finally harnessed as a unifying strength." Indeed, Atkins identifies "The Song Is Over," "Getting in Tune" (also released on Who's Next) and "Pure and Easy" (later released on Odds and Sods) as being the three songs that are most central to the Lifehouse concept in that they "reflect the central idea of music as a source of social and spiritual power." The song also features quotes from "Pure and Easy" in its final bars.
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