You can get off to a fast start. You can sustain your opener with the main course, not filler. But can you end on a high note? Sometimes I wonder if recording a strong closer is the most difficult thing to pull off when it comes to album rock. When it comes to the cream of the crop in music, I can think of more strong openers than strong closers. Nonetheless, I still have my favorites which I’ll be featuring on Mental Jukebox all month.
Start strong. End strong. This simple concept worked wonders for Houses Of The Holy – an album that kicked off with one banger, “The Song Remains The Same”, and then closed out with another in “The Ocean”. A bit of nostalgia, this is one of the Zeppelin anthems that made me a fan for life. It was like a loaded shot of testosterone for me as a teen. I remember hearing it for the first time in my friend Scott’s pickup truck. And, boy, was it a pick-me-up. I’ll go as far as to say I think it’s a bit underrated and underappreciated among the band’s heavy hitters.
“The Ocean” takes the rulebook on time signatures and throws it out the window with its iconic two-bar guitar riff from the riffmaster Jimmy Page. It’s also a track of excess – but I consider that a strength in this case. The lack of restraint serves the song well with a key turning point in the song: a baptism by doo-wop at the 3:17 mark where everything – the drums, guitar and bass – suddenly go rollicky and the wheels come off. A powerful statement of a closer if I ever heard one.
“Singing about good things and the sun that lights the day. I used to sing on the mountains, has the ocean lost its way?”