Today, I ask you folks to name your picks for the best closing song in a movie.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
This time around, I’m looking to see what your pick is for the best movie closing credits song, the song that plays at the end of the movie heading into the credits (not songs that only play when the credits are running, I mean songs that are going while the movie is still playing, so leading into the credits. Just making sure I’m not confusing anyone with the terminology). It doesn’t have to be a song written for the movie.
Some famous examples includes Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” at the end of The Breakfast Club
Simon and Garkfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” at the end of The Graduate
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “If You Leave” at the end of Pretty in Pink
and The Sons of The Pioneers’ “The Searchers from The Searchers
What is your pick?
Feel free to suggest other topics for future Pop Culture Theme Times to me at brian@popculturereferences.com.
Somehow, When in Rome’s “The Promise” manages to sell the warmth in the final scene of Napoleon Dynamite and the movie itself.
Hmm, Ethel Merman blasting out There’s No Business Like Show Business at end of All That Jazz but it follows the zipper as screen goes black.
So I will go with the March/Throne Room at end of Star Wars A New Hope.
“Where Is My Mind?” starts as the buildings start exploding at the end of Fight Club, and it’s the perfect choice for the end of the movie. That’s a solid one, but my favorite is the end of Real Genius when “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” plays as everyone plays in the popcorn in slow-motion. (Great sum up of how these geniuses would rather enjoy life and the world rather than try to rule anything.)
Also, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Life of Brian. Perfectly irreverent and cheerful, and the swaying backup singers on their crucifixes always crack me up.
There’s so many good ones. Back in Time from Back to the Future, Mad World from Dinner Darko, In the City from the Warriors.