Famous Last Lines

As I flicked through my Twitter feed yesterday morning, I spotted this tweet from @fourfoot:

Now listening to Martha by Tom Waits.

Nobody comes close when it comes to crushing final lines in recorded music. Nobody.

— Fourfoot (@fourfoot) November 20, 2016

I too revisited Martha recently (along with the other 13 songs on the excellent Asylum Years compilation), and Fourfoot is totally right about that last line. If you haven't heard it before, do yourself a favour and have a quick listen now:

"And I remember quiet evenings, trembling close to you"

Fourfoot's assertion about Tom Waits and his talent for devastating final lines got me thinking, not just about the last lines of songs but about the last lines of albums. A good last line leaves you reeling long after the song has ended, and that impact is magnified tenfold when there's not another song straight after it.

Remembrance Day

Today is Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom (and numerous other countries, apparently). In case anybody's reading The Album Wall in some nook of the globe that's unfamiliar with this tradition, allow me to explain: Remembrance Day is observed on the 11th of November each year, and it serves as an annual opportunity for us to collectively remember and mourn the countless people who died in history's bloodiest wars. The occasion is marked by the wearing of small paper poppies, poppies being native to the fields in France and Belgium where so many lost their lives during World War I.

Unfortunately - and having never spent the 11th of November abroad, I can only speak for the UK here - Remembrance Day has, in recent years, become kind of problematic. Every year, we hear of more instances of 'poppy fascism': people being forced to wear those symbolic floral badges against their will, or being criticised for refusing to do so. Failing to wear the poppy - particularly during a television appearance - is taken by many to signify a lack of respect for the dead, or even as a slight against Great Britain herself.

But that, for me, is exactly the problem: Remembrance Day shouldn't be an excuse for nationalism. This is a day on which we're told to think long and hard about the losses and the atrocities endured during times of war, and yet it seems that a few too many people see it as a time to fondly remember those times when we gave Jerry a good kick up the bum and proved once again that Britain was best. Wahey.