The Beatles and the Extended Coda

I love extended endings to rock songs. The kind of codas you never really see coming and aren’t exactly “needed” at first glance, but just add so damn much upon the listening.

“Layla” is often acknowledged as the king of the extended coda, and with good reason. And often times “Free Bird” and “Hotel California” are right up there when talking about it. Not that the topic arises all that often. (NOTE: It should!)

Mind you, I’m not talking about the kind of long play form you would often see in progressive rock, where songs by bands like ELP and Genesis and Yes and even Pink Floyd would have those multi-level movements and entirely different parts and sections that often landed a discordant and very advanced nature to those recordings. This is not those. Although I love so many of them (“Supper’s Ready,” “Starship Trooper,” “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and such). 

What I'm talking about is a fairly simple pop song structure, which follow that standard three minute or so length that so many pop songs would, with a fairly basic (but by no means simplistic or lacking) rock/pop standard during that length of time. But then! All of a sudden, they veer into something entirely different at the end, often out of the blue in ways that can be jarring up upon first listen. Or even 10th. Like what Jim Gordon does on the piano for the final few minutes of “Layla,” or Allen Collins does in his epic solo that encompasses four-plus minutes of “Free Bird” or what Don Felder and Joe Walsh similarly do for the back half of “Hotel California.”

And it is here, with these extended codas that add brand new layers to the songs, that I say with a fair amount of confidence that the Beatles were once more the pioneers. 

Because I don’t ever recall it happening much before John Lennon decided to throw the backwards loop onto the outro of “Rain” in the summer if 1966. And after they did it one time, they just kept doing it. Which is fascinating. And odd for a band that, before that time, had I think only three of their first 100 songs (“She’s a Woman,” “Ticket to Ride” and “You Won’t See Me”) which tracked longer than three minutes. Because think of what came next over the three years that followed. It didn’t happen every time but…

“Tomorrow Never Knows”

“Strawberry Fields Forever”

“A Day in the Life”

“Magical Mystery Tour”

“I Am the Walrus”

“Hello, Goodbye”

“All You Need Is Love”

“Hey Jude”

“Helter Skelter”

“Cry Baby Cry”

“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”

All employed some form of these song extenders, some lasting just a few seconds (the lounge lizard slink at the end of “Magical Mystery Tour”), some just going on and on in brilliant and tuneful cadences (hello “Hey Jude!”) and some veering way into the “Where the hell did that come from” category (“Strawberry Fields Forever,” “I Am the Walrus,” “Helter Skelter”). 

And everytime? Lord  it worked!

Take “Hey Jude” as a perfect example. Known as one of the band’s greatest songs ever, which means it is one of the greatest songs ever, it held the record for the longest song ever to hit #1 (before “American Pie” and later Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” seized that title). The song clocks in around 7:11, depending on which pressing you choose to believe, and only about three minutes of that is the brilliant and indelible melody Paul and the boys created. The rest is that inimitable “Laaa la la la la la laaaa…” ending that they tacked on and kept going with, augmented by Macca’s insane scatting that honestly should be talked about some more.

And they knew it would work. Which is why they plowed ahead with the Lewis Carroll-infused acid trip at the end of “I Am the Walrus,” or the tribalistic trip that back-ended “Strawberry Fields Forever,” or the wild-eyed mayhem that painted the final corners of “Helter Skelter” (“I got blisters on my fingers!”) or the looping jam that carried “I Want You” up into the heavens before shocking us with a sudden stop. 

So it wasn’t every time they did this. And there may indeed have been others I am not thinking of. But it was just one more pristine example of being ahead of whatever the hell curve they wanted to be. And of how they would basically tell fans, “Don’t worry…it doesn’t end until we want to it. Check this out.”

Pretty heady stuff once more from the Fabs, and as the above list indicates, I think it happened a little too often for it to be considered aberrational.