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{{trope}}
So you're listening to a nice, pleasant song about bunnies and rainbows and running in the rain with your best girl by your side. Then the final note of the song falls and, instead of a nice soft, resolution, it's a heavily played [[Sting (music)|Sting]] note in a minor [[Scare Chord]]. Then the music fades into a series of dissonant arpeggios with a creepy mechanical voice muttering some nonsensical gibberish that sounds like Satan reciting an [[Edgar Allan Poe]] story. It's surely not the ending you expected this particular song to
Last Note Nightmare can be very comparable to a [[Jump Scare]], especially of the [[Screamer Prank]] variety. The opposite of a Last Note Nightmare is [[Last Note Hilarity]].
(Music geeks might be interested to [[Incredibly Lame Pun|note]] that there is an opposite technique, the "Picardy third," or "Tierce de Picardie" in which when a song that has been in minor the whole time goes into major on the very last chord.)
=== Music ===▼
{{examples}}
== Pop ==▼
* [[Madonna (Music)|Madonna]]'s "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A1UjzeMRgw Act of Contrition]." While the whole song is pretty ominous, the last four seconds will make you jump out of your seat.▼
▲=== Pop ===
* Another: [[Michael Jackson (Music)|Michael Jackson]]'s "Another Part of Me" begins with an [[Ominous Pipe Organ]] note, but becomes a normal MJ song after that.▼
▲* [[
▲* Another: [[
** The singles "Dirty Diana" and the much more well-known "Smooth Criminal" begin with similar noises. The video for the former ends with the same noise, which acts as a very effective soundtrack to the video's [[Downer Ending]].
** "Stranger In Moscow", a slow, moody ballad, ends with a man whispering menacingly in Russian over the end. Chills right up the spine. Allegedly this is a KGB agent interrogating us, but ''why'' is he whispering? ''Why???''
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* Inverted with the extended mix of Simple Minds song "Jungleland". It starts out with heavy breathing, with starts getting louder, and louder, AND LOUDER! The rest of the song is just awesome though.
* "Somehow" by Drake Bell is ostensibly about a battered wife who eventually decides she's had enough, weighs her husband down and throws him into the lake, and is now pondering how to cover it all up. This is creepy enough, but the slow, dark, acoustic guitar-y song ends with a snippet off cheerful piano music, which suggested that the woman snapped entirely and is now in a state of cheerful, giggling insanity.
* The end of "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by [[The Monkees (
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi9sLkyhhlE "Spinning Wheel"] by Blood, Sweat and Tears is a fairly mellow jazz-rock fusion song, often used as an example of the genre. However, after the lyrics end comes a Last Note Nightmare that spans a ''quarter'' of the song. The music continues repetitively, but is interrupted - twice - by some frankly demented carnival music. On the third interruption, the carnival music mixes with the "normal" music and slowly overwhelms it before grinding to a halt (at which point the band members can be heard chuckling and admitting that "That wasn't too good.") Can also lead to [[Fridge Brilliance]] if one only then realizes that the 'spinning wheel' is {{spoiler|a merry-go-round. Duh}}.
* Dave "Not The One From Eurythmics" Stewart and Barbara Gaskin have two notable examples.
** "Busy Doing Nothing" is a quirky, happy song, but immediately after the final lyric, when the song sound like it should end, it suddenly segues into a minor chord and a sound resembling a ticking clock, with a children's choir softly repeating the final line.
** More noticeably, "Trash Planet" is a chaotic but upbeat song, with [[Anvilicious|a bit of social commentary about pollution]], but at the end the key abruptly changes, a high-pitched whistle occurs, and then the piece gradually collapses into a random cluster of noise and the sounds of people coughing/vomiting. After about half a minute of this, there is suddenly an explosion, and then in the silence a childlike voice says "Bye-bye!"
* The radio edit of "Head Over Heels" by [[Tears for Fears]] differs from the album version in that it does not [[Fading Into the Next Song|fade into the next song]], "Broken (Live)". This makes Roland Orzabal's final wail of '''"TIIIIIIIME FLIIIIIIIIIIIES!!!"''', which already had little to do with the rest of the song, ''much'' more unsettling and out of nowhere.
=== Rock ===
* [[The Beatles (
** Upon hearing it on take 7 of the song (from volume 2 of ''Anthology''), John says "I'm very bored" twice.
** The best (or worst?) example would have to be from their White Album song "Long Long Long." It ''really'' doesn't help that the song itself is played at a lethargic pace that makes it seem as though it's slightly disconnected from the real world in the first place...
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*** George Harrison in particular seemed to like this a lot. ("One more time...")
** The final chord of "A Day in the Life" fades out so long you can almost (?) hear the air conditioner.
*** And then, seconds after the last vibrations of the chord have faded, there's the sudden discordant loop of distorted, randomly-spliced-together studio chatter. In the original British LP pressings, this was placed in the record's "run-out" groove so that listeners with manual turntables would hear it indefinitely until they lifted the needle. (If you're a dog, you'll experience your
**** Actually,
**** It helps to know that this loop, played backwards, sounds remarkably like, "I'll fuck you like Superman! I'll fuck you like Superman! etc." Paul McCartney said in his autobiography ''Many Years from Now'' that he never knew this (they certainly didn't plan it) until someone played it backwards for him and he yelled, "Gaaaawwwwd!"
** The end of "I Am the Walrus," complete with buried ''[[King Lear]]''. This one helped fuel the "Paul Is Dead" rumors...
** "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is a dark and heavy song in itself, but its ominous ending with the bass chords and static is still a
** Said last note appears at the beginning of "Her Majesty", which starts a full minute after "The End" and was unlisted on the original vinyl. This means that the first note of "Her Majesty" is a reverse example as well as being a [[Brick Joke]].
*** "Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite" (which was already rather eerie to begin with) suddenly cut into "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on the LOVE album. The whole "song" became a
**** AND it has the creepy organ from "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite", AAAAND snippets of the vocals from "Helter Skelter". And creepy laughing, which seems to be a theme in love. PLUS after the infamous cutoff, there are weird swirly wind sounds. Then it cuts to "Help!" and [[Scare Chord|scares the piss out of you]].
*** ''The Beatles: [[Rock Band]]'' actually visualizes the nightmare by blacking out your TV just as the song ends.
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*** He was saying "To Jorma," a tip of the hat to a member of Jefferson Airplane.
** The Beatles used a Picardy third in "And I Love Her," which uses a D-MAJOR chord at the end of the song, which is in C# minor and D minor.
* The [[Rolling Stones]]' "She's A Rainbow" has a good driving beat, Mick sings the praises of a girl who dresses up in colors, underlined with a cheerfully inane 'la la la' chorus, he alternates verses with a sprightly Baroque piano playing the tune...then it ends with strings in a shrill chittering discord with a low-end chord of doom under it bursting through everything else! Gives me chills to this day.
** "Cool, Calm, and Collected" on their "Between the Buttons" album has a jolly, jaunty music-hall vibe to it - then after the last verse, the beat starts quickening, slowly at first, getting more and more reckless as the piano gets more and more frantic, until it all collapses into a big reverberating noise.
* "Jeremy" by [[
** With ''Release'', around the six-minute mark, the song segues into a reprise of the album's cacophonic intro.
* The CD release of Patti Smith's ''Horses'' ends with a cover of "My Generation." It's loud, all right, but it appears to stop... only to end on a note a good twenty decibels louder than anything else on the album.
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* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a82arE0JSQ "The Bewlay Brothers"] by [[David Bowie]], starting at 4:09.
** The cacophonic ending of "Space Oddity".
* For most of its length, [[
** "They come here every night...I see them, don't you see them? Hm, that's ''odd'', isn't it? You seem tired...winding down...''YOU HAVE TO GO NOW IT'S BEDTIME''"
*** "[[Creepy Child|Steven...]]"
** [[
* Would you believe "Wonderwall" by [[Oasis]]? After the vocals are done, the song segues into a beautiful lush strings-and-piano piece and ends with a few acoustic guitar chords with birds chirping in the background. But between these two pleasant interludes, the piano fades, leaving the violin and bass viol to hold one last note. And then even the bass stops, leaving a single violin note which gets less and less melodic until it finally climaxes with a hideous, almost voice-like "BLLLLLEEEEEAAAAAGGHHHH" sound. If you're not expecting it, it's a real Penultimate Note Nightmare.
* The nightmarish strings at the end of Supertramp's "If Everyone Was Listening", from ''Crime Of The Century''.
* "Metal Machine Music" by [[Velvet Underground|Lou Reed]] is 64 minutes of nothing ''but'' a
** The track "The Bed" from album ''Berlin'' is a dream-like song with a final moment of pure nightmare.
** What about "The Kids", also from Berlin, another quiet song that in this case ends with the voices of children hollering for their mother, sounding for all the world like they have just been told she is not coming home ... ever.
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* "A Season In Hell (Fire Suite)" by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, off the ''Eddie and the Cruisers'' soundtrack. It's a pretty generic Springsteen-ish tune in a minor key until after the last chorus. Then the guitar line ascends...and ascends...and ''ascends''...and then CRASHES with a deafening low chord accompanied by chimes and bells that sound like glass shattering.
* Not quite as blatant as many, but the Tom Waits song "Johnsburg, Illinois" from the ''Swordfishtrombones'' album. The first minute of the short song is a tender piano piece about a sweetheart, but towards the end of the song there is a missed note, and then a couple; the tune eventually grows into a series of dissonances that make for a somewhat creepy ending.
* "Fire on High" by ELO is a FIRST note nightmare. It begins with a [[Scare Chord]], segues into a backmask (intended to parody accusations of Satanic backmasking) that, when played forward, says "The music is reversible, but time is not...turn back, turn back, turn back!" and then builds into Psycho strings...before mellowing into a catchy, toe-tapping jam.
** Bonus points if you listen to the backmask part knowing what's being said when, and realize the [[Scare Chord]] is played right when the voice says "time is not."
* The Cherry Poppin' Daddies' album ''Ferociously Stoned'' features "The Lifeboat Mutiny", which is mostly mellow, if cynical - but near the end, the song starts breaking down, and a woman's voice starts repeating "please turn off the lights" in the background. It's terrifying.
* Inverted by the Posies with Coming Right Along, where the tune of the song is a little unnerving, but ends with a major chord... However it's still a sort of [[Downer Ending]] because it seems so out of place in the context of the song
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** This actually touched off a "Louie, Louie"-esque moral panic that got it banned from radio play, until a cut version without the psychedelic interlude was released.
* While [[The Doors]]' epic "Not To Touch The Earth" is already fairly creepy on its own with a low, driving bass and some unsettling imagery ("Dead president's corpse in the driver's car"), the end features the low hum of an organ as Jim Morrison utters, "I am the lizard king. I can do anything." The immediate stinger is a quick bang on the organ.
* [[Queens of the Stone Age]]
** "I Think I Lost My Headache" probably fits the bill. It starts with a slow, kinda creepy riff, gets a little bit more upbeat in the verse and chorus and right at the end, goes back to the creepy riff. And then, the creepy riff is repeated by wind instruments while the song fades. For 3min. And one of them, the high-pitched one, slowly starts to go offbeat, improvising (or to put it more correctly, sounding like a goddamn screech). A Last Note Nightmare that goes on and on and on and on.
** "Make It Wit Chu" is a pretty mellow, upbeat song that ends with a series of strange and sinister keyboard notes, which are the main riff from "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CwKplZn11A Era Vulgaris]."
* Motorpsycho's "The One Who Went Away" ends with muffled laughter and a deep voice which says; "and listen, we are here to help you". The way it's said makes it sound more like a threat than anything else.
* The album version of [[Lordi]]'s "Blood Red Sandman" ends with the sound of a knife being sharpened.
* "Are You Experienced?" by [[Jimi Hendrix]] can easily classify as psychedelic horror by itself. But eventually the shiver-inducing backmasked guitar, bass, and drums fade into silence with Jimi's meandering solo on top...and then a sharp, blaring guitar chord surges at you and fades out just as suddenly. And it really doesn't help that said chord ''never sounds the same twice, even though it's the same recording''.
** Also, "Wild Thing" on ''Jimi Plays Monterey''. The song ends with Hendrix setting his guitar on fire and smashing it to pieces - cue howl of feedback as the bits o' Strat burn merrily. Eventually it fades out and goes quiet for a few seconds... and then just when you start relaxing there's a last, impossibly loud shriek as (presumably) someone unplugs what's left of the guitar.
* "Mystic Rhythms" by Rush. A final deep, long, eerie synthesizer note can be heard right at the very end of the song. Chilling.
* "Child in Time" by [[Deep Purple]] ends with eerie groans that build up to screams, some of which [[Careful
* Subverted by ''Lucifer'' by The Alan Parsons Project, which begins with a nightmarish sounding string ditty, followed by rapid morse code. Then the song fades I to a typical APP instrumental.
* "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues ends with a series of ominous string and brass chords, followed by a loud gong. The album version also includes keyboardist Mike Pinder reading a short, somewhat eerie poem by drummer Graeme Edge near the end of the song.
** Makes sense in context, although the context is often lost these days. The song and poem was originally the final track on the ''Days of Future Passed'' album, and the ending serves as a coda to the entire album. Since only a couple of songs from the album receive any significant airplay now, most people don't know about this.
* "White Hammer" by [[Van
** Don't forget "Man-Erg"! Probably ''the'' example of a [[Vd GG]] song that exemplifies this trope more than any other - starts with a calm, soothing simple piano & organ progression, that suddenly descends into honking cacophonous Saxophone blasts, with Hammil shrieking "HOW CAN I BE FREE? HOW CAN I GET HELP? AM I REALLY ME, OR AM I SOMEONE ELSE??". It soon abruptly changes back to the simple piano, not before long doing pretty much the same thing again. "Lemmings" from the same album (''Pawn Hearts'') is similar, to a lesser degree. And "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers"?, well...
** From the same album, the track "After The Flood", after veering from pastoral reflection to skronky jazz-rock, climaxes with Peter Hammill screaming 'Total Annihilatiiiiiiioooooooooon!' through a [[Doctor Who|Dalek]] voice filter. Beyond nightmarish.
* The last minute and a half of [[Pink Floyd]]'s "Bike" is made up entirely of discordant mechanical sounds and cartoonish laughter.
** "Jugband Blues" finishes with a cacophony of a brass band each playing random notes and background distortions, but then at the very end, it fades out into Syd Barrett softly singing the last few lines in a ghostly voice. Even creepier considering that this essentially marked the tragic end of his unraveling involvement with Pink Floyd. The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTtXVrANEhU live version] adds visuals that take it straight into horror territory.
** [[The Dark Side of the Moon|"Speak to Me"]] closes with screams ([[Fading Into the Next Song|which then segues into the opening of "Breathe"]]).
** Pink Floyd tends to really like this trope. There's the creepy bridge toward the end of the jolly folksy "The Gnome" ("look at the sky, look at the river, isn't it gooooooood?") and then the maniacal screaming at the end of the somewhat calm "Careful With That Axe, Eugine."
* The old Cog song "Just Visiting" spools up into increasingly discordant machine noise at the end, culminating in a sound like the [[Futurama|Hypnotoad]] squared. Thirty-odd seconds of silence later, the drummer screams '''FUCK!''' as if from the end of a long corridor. And then continues incoherently screaming curses of the "Fucking fuck! Who the fuck? What the fuck? Where the fuck?!" variety, sending the whole thing into possibly-intentional [[Narm
* Inverted in Todd Rundgren's "Saving Grace", in a similar manner to the Gorillaz example: It's an optimistic slightly jazzy soft-rock song that incongruously starts off with a low bass note and a short burst of slowed down unintelligible [[Black Speech]].
* [[The Mars Volta]]'s song "Asilos Magdalena" begins with a loud, high pitched guitar and keyboard combo, then segues into a quiet, mournful acoustic ballad. Then in the song's final two minutes, the last verse is sung over and over again while the vocals become increasingly and disturbingly distorted until they're nearly incomprehensible. The general creepiness of the lyrics themselves don't help much, either.
** There are a number of Mars Volta songs which could fall into this category, especially the first three tracks off of Frances the Mute: "Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus," "The Widow," and "L'Via L'Viaquez." All of these tracks degenerate into creepy distortions at their end, degeneration which involves unnecessary slow-downs of the otherwise pleasant rhythms of the songs while throwing in a few distorted and incomprehensible voices (sometimes speaking in Spanish) for good measure. But the worst is at the end of "L'Via L'Viaquez" when there's nothing left but an electronic distortion where the strong rhythms once were and the demonically-distorted voice of the singer over top, repeating the chorus of the song. Granted, it's not like the Mars Volta normally sings about anything bright and happy or even that understandable.
** TMV just ''loves'' this trope. "Goliath", "Illyena", "Ouroboros", and "Wax Simulacra" all end with noisy freakouts. (Though the last one is a bit more mild, it's just an unexpected sax solo)
* "The Talking Drum" (or its pale copy "Dangerous Curves") by [[King Crimson]]
** Most of King Crimson's work qualifies for this trope- they were well known for it. "Lark's Tongues In Aspic (Part 1)", "21st Century Shizoid Man", "Lament", "Starless", etc. King Crimon improvs (live or recorded) pretty much always did this.
* [[Peter Gabriel]]'s "Moribund the Burgermeister" tells the story of [[The Virus|a mysterious and disastrous plague]] taking a medieval city by storm. The song is pretty creepy to begin with, but the last few seconds have Gabriel repeating "I WILL FIND OUT" in a [[Evil Sounds Deep|deep, echoing voice]] over a ''very'' strange, minimal melody. As the song begins to fade out, he begins to address his mother, telling her "when I say I will, I '''will'''!" and "You'll be sorry. I'll make sure of it!" When you consider that plague can be interpreted to transform its victims into [[Zombie Apocalypse|zombies]]...
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* The Fall of Troy's song "Chapter V: The Walls Bled Lust" consists of [[Epic Rocking]] for approximately the first five minutes. Then the instruments start playing without any rhythm at all, then the music completely cuts out except for some guitar feedback, then you get a ridiculously exaggerated breakdown where every third note is so high it literally brings pain to your ears.
* "Radio" by the Dutch group Supersister is a classic bait-and-switch. The first half is a disarmingly cute and upbeat piano/celeste pop tune with soft, low-key vocals. Then it shifts gears suddenly and transforms into a frantic circus music section comprised of discordant fuzz-organ chords and wordless baritone choral singing over which flute player Sacha van Geest narrates a surrealistic tale.
* The last chord in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgqm8g95wwI "Jordan Speaks"], Jordan Rudess's "thoughts" about Mike Portnoy leaving [[
* "Abandoner" by Steven Wilson. A mellow (if not exactly cheerful) ballad ending in a series of dissonant chords.
** "Get All You Deserve" ends similarly. In the album booklet, Wilson is credited with "vocals, piano, electric guitars, mellotron, glockenspiel, bass, [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|total]] [[Precision F-Strike|fucking]] [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|noise.]]"
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** The last song on Entropia has a bit of a Last Note Nightmare as well... in an otherwise upbeat song that encourages the listener to practice non-violence, act on their conscience, and overall be a good person, finishing with the line "if death is but a dream, then don't let me... fall asleep..." is pretty jarring, especially considering the fact that Daniel whispers the last two words in an almost fearful tone.
** There's also two occurrences at the end of Be-one where {{spoiler|the last man on Earth shoots himself,}} at the end of an otherwise upbeat and hopeful song, and another occurrence similar to the one listed above where, after a good amount of silence, there's a sudden burst of sound right at the end of the last song. However, this is offset by a fairly cutesy recording of a little girl saying "There's room for all of god's creatures... right next to the mashed potatoes," while a bunch of people, possibly the band members, laugh hysterically like the terrible human beings they are.
* Another song with no "nice" parts is [[
* Kaleidoscope's "(Further Reflections) In The Room Of Percussion" is a fairly whimsical, lighthearted number like the rest of the band's psychedelic catalog... until it abruptly ends in the middle of what would normally be a verse. The effect of leaving the melody hanging and unfinished is rather disorienting, and the lyrics it ends with only make things worse: [[Spiders Are Scary|"My God, the spiders are everywhere"]].
* Both "Religion Song (Put Away The Gun)" and "Untitled" by [[Everything Else]] feature such endings.
* [[Gentle Giant (
* The ending of "Entangled" by [[Genesis (
* "November Rain" from [[Guns N' Roses]] has one of these, and it's also made worse by the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbUC-UaAxE&ob=av3e music video], but in more of a [[Tear Jerker]] way then a scary way.
=== Metal / Alt-Metal ===
* [[
* The last second of [[Slipknot]]'s "Disasterpiece". The song ends with the sound of a telephone receiver being hooked up...which implies that Corey Taylor had spent the last five minutes screaming the lyrics down the phone line. It's either oddly hilarious, rather creepy, or the crowning moment of [[Narm]]. [[Your Mileage May Vary]].
* [[
** "The Memory Remains" has a creepy old-lady voice singing wordlessly over the music, which cuts out at the end as the old lady sings "ladadada-dada, ladada-dadada over and over while everything else is completely silent...''*shudder*''
*** Worse still, as that sequence ends, you hear another voice say "Say yes, at least say hello" over it. TWICE.
* Subverted-though no less scary-in "Stupify" by [[
{{quote|
'''RAAAH!!'''." }}
** ''Enough'' follows a standard progression (opening verse, chorus, second verse, chorus, bridge etc.) and appears to fade out with the tune it'd been following: fast drum beat and bass/guitar riff ending in a power chord. Until at the last second after fully quieting down, the band threw the power chord in at full volume, then an abrupt end. Even when expected this one isn't easy to go unnerved to.
* Subverted by Blaze Bayley's tune "Waiting For My Life Begin", which begins with an alarm clock and then segues into a metal tune.
* The last chords of [[
** Also, "Children of the Grave" ends with a quivering note that fades in and out that lasts for a good forty-five seconds and is accompanied by an echoing whisper.
** "Am I Going Insane (Radio)", which is otherwise one of their poppier songs, has multi-tracked psychotic laughter slowly fade in as the song fades out - and then demonic growls can be heard in the distance. .
* "Eyes of a Stranger" by [[
** The end of "Anybody Listening?" off of the album ''Empire'' is the sound of rain, and you can hear in the background the sounds of some people arguing. Then, BAM! A door slams, and the song, and album, end.
** The transition from "Breaking the Silence" to "I Don't Believe In Love" features whispered, "We know you did it? Why'd you do it?" overlapping with Nickie screaming, "No! No! [[Big No|NOOOOOOOOO!]]"
* [[X Japan]]'s "Jade". It's a loud song to begin with, but the chorus is quite uplifting and melodious, and at the end it sounds like it's going to fade out gently. And then the guitars come crashing back in and Toshi goes for a giant ''screeching'' high note. Yikes.
* A variant appears in [[
* The song "Disgustipated", on Tool's ''Undertow'' has an extended version of this. After about 10 minutes of nothing but chirping crickets, a recorded message that may or may not be about a serial killer plays, cutting off just before the end. Said message was alleged to have been [[Throw It In|left on the band's answering machine]] by someone called 'Bill the Landlord'. Let the speculation commence.
** "Faaip de Oiad" ('Voice of God', in Enochian) is the 'last note' of [[Tool]]'s ''Lateralus'' album, and consists of mad, inspired drumming overlaid by a sample of a caller to Art Bell's talk-radio show. He's panicked, and describes things, hints and rumors, he's discovered while working at an Air Force base near Groom Lake, Nevada (Area 51). If you do your homework, you might find out that it's (most likely) a hoax, but before you do, or if you doubt the hoax story, the fear in the man's voice is genuinely terrifying.
** "Lost Keys (Blame Hoffmann)" is an odd song, but not hideous. Then, on the way out, it takes a turn for the... suggestive.
** The track "Intermission" from ''Aenima'' is a sort of peppy organ
** ''10,000 Days''' song "Viginti Tres".
* [[System of a Down]]'s "Temper," which goes from a laidback funky groove in the verses to a grindcore chorus. And more notably, their song Mind which starts off in a very creepy fashion with quiet instruments and subdued vocals before the music fades out and a few seconds later Serj screams "GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!" and the music goes into what is easily the heaviest part of the album. Later in the song, the song returns to the quiet section that began the song. This section fades out.
** "Lonely Day"'s last note is horrifyingly depressing, as it segues into "Soldier Side".
** "Question!" may also count, if only on a small scale. Just when you think it's over... '''LA,LA LA, LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!'''
** Toxicity opens with a [[Inverted Trope|first note nightmare]]. The first track "Prison Song" opens with a very, VERY quick low C power chord, which is so quick you doubt you actually heard it. Similarly enough, after the last track, Aerials, ends, a few seconds pass before a hidden track fades in, but unlike most albums, there's only 10 seconds of silence, thus givingyou no time to prepare. Following the ten seconds, a duduk solo fades in before some tribal percussion and chanting fade in as well. The song is a rendition of "Der Voghormia", a traditional Armenian song.
* "Eleven Regrets" by Manic Drive is a beautiful, if sad, song. But toward the end, there is a sudden refrain of slightly dissonant voices singing a haunting tune wordlessly in the background, that seems to get louder and more chaotic as it continues. It doesn't last very long, but it ''will'' give you nightmares.
* The last nineteen minutes or so of [[Fantomas]]'s untitled album-length song from Delìrium Còrdia is the looped sound of a needle being lifted off a vinyl record - save the last four seconds, in which someone suddenly yells out "1-2-3-4" while hitting together drumsticks and the sound of a record being scratched plays. Not exactly a Last Note Nightmare in its own right, but certainly very surprising.
** Worse, though, is the section at about 54 minutes through. Some ambiance and sounds of machinery plays before everything turns to chaos and someone breathes frantically over the top. Considering the album is supposed to be a soundtrack to a non-existent horror film about surgery without anaesthetic, this is particularly horrifying.
* Strapping Young Lad's "Home Nucleonics" ends with razor-sharp low-quality recording of random people screaming. Not to mention the whole track "Info Dump".
* "Dead Winter Days" by Agalloch ends in totally uncalled for piano chords.
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* On the subject of first note nightmares, grindcore band Pig Destroyer have a lovely little song called "Towering Flesh". The whole song is heavy, but the instantaneous, ear-splitting scream in the first second will seriously scare the shit out of you if you accidentally have the volume up full. In fact the same song has a last note nightmare about halfway through. Things become calmer and the singer is no longer screaming and is singing in an echoed lullaby tone. "Her lips are wet with venom. Her posture serpentine. She touched my arm and flowers grow, they're hideous and OBSCEEEEEEEEEEENE."
** Not to mention the album's intro. First track is about a minute of quiet echoing footsteps ending in a sudden inhumane scream, which abruptly opens the next track. Pig Destroyer's music is mostly like this, there are many examples, among which the end of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmJVXFA9cQQ Hyperviolet] (which bleeds away into a wailing siren-like drone), but their creepiest closing ever has to be the end of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koWAEe-B4FM Piss Angel], where a computer-generated voice recites a disturbing story about two girls, and an extremely distorted woman voice starts to sing (but not on tune with the already creepy music, it also sounds like she's crying while singing).
* [[
* "VITRIOL" by Eths. A few seconds after the song fades out, a woman starts screaming.
** Happens again in "Samantha". And "Bulemiarexia" ends with the sound of someone being violently sick. Eths like this trope.
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* "Event Horizon" by [[Stratovarius]] combines this with [[Talky Bookends]]— alarms go off as an automated voice warns about approaching a black hole, and in the end, the last seconds before entering the event horizon itself are counted.
* [[Opeth]]'s "Burden" ends with a mellow acoustic guitar outro, during which, {{spoiler|the guitar slowly '''untunes'''}} and then you hear {{spoiler|a looped laughter which transforms into some mechanical knocking}}, which finishes the song. "Black Rose Immortal" also shows a very good example by ending with a whisper ''"At night I always dream of you..."'' after which there is a {{spoiler|'''EEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH''' growl and scary echoing riffs which then dissolve.}}
* [[
** The iTunes version cuts the sing off at the last piano note, as does the live version.
** At the end of "Finally Free," the last track on the story album ''Scenes from a Memory,'' {{spoiler|Nicholas, the main character, arrives at his house, satisfied with the apparent end to the mystery of his past life. He plays some triumphant music when his hypnotherapist, the reincarnation of his past murderer, barges in and murders him... the song ends to the sound of the record player's static.}} The live rendition of the song-at least, the "Scenes from NY 2000" version-cuts this section out and, instead, plays a reprise of an earlier song's epic opening bridge, only to end it with a pair of nice, long [[Scare Chord|Scare Chords.]] Similarly, "In the Presence of Enemies Part 2" ends with a long sequence of Scare Chords. (It's also fun to listen to the latter song live, because the lead singer repeatedly yells "come on" as the sequence starts, lightly lessening its impact.)
*** Also notable is that the static that ends "Finally Free" is the ''very same static'' that begins "The Glass Prison", the first track on the following album, ''Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence''. So, if you lined those songs up, the creepy chimes in the opening of "The Glass Prison" would complete the effect.
** "Pull Me Under", much like "I Want You" above, just seems to cut off at the last note (Not in the middle of a note, but you get the gist of it).
* Nevermore's "This Godless Endeavor" is actually more of a "Last verse nightmare", but Dane sings most of the song in his general mid-range - until the very last line, when he unexpectedly belts a blood-curling "THE SKY...HAS OPENED!" shriek in a hateful, shrill voice. Given the tense mood of the entire song, it's just the thing to send shivers down your spine.
* Devin Townsend, famous for being the frontman of extreme metal group Strapping Young Lad, released more albums as a solo artist that, for the most part, contrasted the sound of his band. His first album Ocean Machine ends with a calm and tranquil acoustic song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j--lwDc0DY\] that sounds much like the ocean itself. At the end, it fades out, and then after about 10 seconds of silence, Devin comes back with a BLOODCURDLING, distorted scream, sure to [[Jerkass|punish]] anyone who falls asleep with headphones on.
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] by the Melvins' "The Fool, the Meddling Idiot": An oppressively dark grunge song that near the end turns into upbeat electronic pop.
* "At The Base Of The Giant's Throat" by Battle Of Mice. The whole song is quite aggressive, but the last three minutes is a horrific 911 call that will scar you for life and have you crying like a baby in the fetal position. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1CkdF7uoKk Try listening from 7.00 onwards]
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=== Punk / Alternative / Indie ===
* "Pink Flag" by the late-70s punk/post-punk group Wire actually has two Last Note Nightmares. After about three minutes of a song that's already a bit morose, the band erupts into a painful minute-long cacophony highlighted by repeated screams of "How many?" Then, just when you think it's over, there's one more stinger.
** Wire were big fans of this trope early on. The first song on the album ''Pink Flag'' ([[Captain Obvious|of which the above is]] [[Exactly What It Says
*** "Indirect Enquiries" on ''154'' takes this to the border of [[Narm]]. "You've been defaced..."
** See also Dome and Colin Newman.
* Siouxsie and the Banshees made a cover of "This Wheel's on Fire" (the song most famously used as the opening theme to ''[[
** Playground Twist is already a pretty scary song, but this is [[Captain Obvious|Siouxsie and the Banshees for cryin' out loud!]]. However, the song ends with the sound of children in a playground as the rest of the song fades out. The B-side of the single is called "Pulled to Bits", which is easily one of the most wrong things ever recorded has this looped throughout the whole. Friggin. Song.
* "L.A. Blues", the closing number from [[The Stooges]] 1970 classic ''Fun House'', consists of screeching guitar and saxophone and [[Iggy Pop]] screaming unintelligibly like a madman. Ironically, the most eerie part is in the last couple of seconds with Iggy mumbling over a brief feedback loop.
* Calibretto's "American Psycho" is a pretty energetic horror-punk song. Then the last organ note holds and turns into an ominous drone, and then one of [[American Psycho|Patrick Bateman]]'s confessions is played over it. It then segues into the [[For Doom the Bell Tolls|ominous bell]] that begins the next song. The result is far creepier than it has any right to be.
* "Death Sex" by The Distillers does this, ending with manic laughter and even more distortion than normal, of course this is pretty much par for course.
* Most of [[They Might Be Giants]]' song, "S-E-X-X-Y" is played out like a 70's-era funkadelic groove
** There's also "Fibber Island", a gentle folk-rock song from one of their kids albums, which after a false ending, jumps into an outro with some jarringly dissonant flutes, possibly as a nod to "Strawberry Fields".
** And then there's "Employee of the Month", an upbeat song about making crumbs at (what else?) a crumb factory. In and out, fun nonsense, the end. But one instrument keeps going on in a haunting, almost [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ot4uLkYvI droning whistle].
** The most striking one I've heard from them is "Hide Away, Folk Family," whose genuinely beautiful instrumentation closes with a noise that I can only describe as ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'' going into catatonic shock.
** Inverted with [[Istanbul (Not Constantinople)]], the beginning features creepy and wild violin playing, then the song starts.
** The version off Severe Tire Damage is even worse! Creepy organ playing, and eerie trumpet. *Shudder*
** "See The Constellation" from Apollo 18 fades out to reveal a creepy, out-of-place, Middle Eastern-sounding song playing in the background, which also fades away after a few seconds. (This mystery song is actually "Side Two," a Dial-A-Song exclusive.)
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** The noises at the end of "The Archers Bows Have Broken". It sounds like a horrible wail.
** The song "Vices" from the album "Daisy" is a perfect example. It starts out with an old hymnal sung by a soft female voice. The vocals trail off and seconds later you're hit with wailing guitars and screaming lyrics for the remainder of the track. (The album closes with the rest of that hymn).
* A few seconds after pop-punk band Goldfinger's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko8SDv0CsiM cover] of the [[Cold War]] anthem "99 Red Balloons" seems to fade out at the end (at about 3:28 to be exact), a man with a deep, eerie voice can be heard saying [[Nightmare Fuel|"Goodnight children, everywhere."]]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH5-qCmpCJU "...A Psychopath"] by [[Lisa Germano]] is an inversion. It's an incredibly creepy song about a [[Stalker
** Someone commenting on the video above noted that, at the 2:10 mark, it sounds like the woman says "Bundy," making the song that much creepier...
* [[Muse (
** Same could be said of the last minutes of "Space Dementia" and (much, much more so) "Megalomania" on one of their earlier albums. "Megalomania"... The circus-style keyboard line could not possibly be any more sinister, and just when you think "Space" is over, it kicks back in with this monstrous, threatening coda. Still, "Megalomania" is the best closing song on any of their albums, by far. Even the first chorus transition is tremendously startling.
** Their early B Side "Host" starts off with some creepy ringing chords and a generally eerie feel, and moves into mid tempo minor chord ballad feel. After its bridge, the tone of the song suddenly shifts into speed metal at around 45 seconds from the end. This is guaranteed to shock people hearing it for the first time, though it is an extremely satisfying solo.
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** "Razorblade" by the same band ends with about twenty seconds of increasingly-desperate yelling over demonic distorted screaming and heavy breathing, which then cuts off rather abruptly. It's not particularly jarring in context, though, because the song is ''made'' of [[Nightmare Fuel]].
* The transition between "Falls Apart" and "Forever" on Hurt's Vol. 1 album. "Falls Apart" is a pretty standard rock song, but at the very end the song ends suddenly, and is instantly replaced by static, which leads into the next song.
* [[The Flaming Lips]]' "Love Yer Brain" is a quiet piano ballad, but it ends with someone trying to ''smash'' the piano, with a very short loop of [[The Beatles (
* Inverted with [[Beck (
** Played more straight with the [[B
* Modest Mouse's song "Parting of the Sensory" ends with what sounds like someone trying to spit something up.
* "Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel" by [[Barenaked Ladies]] ends with a strange opera-esque high note. But somehow it seems appropriate as it seems to coincide with the final result of the title...
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* Thrice's "Digital Sea" is overall a calm, if a bit melancholy, tune however in the last few seconds the song takes a turn into unsettling territory as the line "here my voice goes to ones and zeros" fades into a murmur... then a distorted murmur... then sounding as if someone is underground and calling out in a guttural voice as they are fading away. All accompanied by radio static. Yeah, just a little haunting.
* "A Favor House Atlantic," by Coheed and Cambria. This otherwise upbeat song ends with the intro for another of their songs, "The Crowing," reversed. It's quite creepy.
** Also on the same album, the ending of "Backend of Forever" ends with a creepy piano melody.
** At the end of [[Coheed and Cambria]]'s "Three Evils (Embodied in Love and Shadow)", the sound of rain and a vaguely creepy piano are punctuated by sobbing and an absolutely terrifying scream.
* [[Electric Six]]'s "It Ain't Punk Rock" is a playful new wave/surf rock song that ends in about 2 minutes of feedback and distant, rumbling drums. Which is fairly long for a last note nightmare to go on for, especially considering that the whole track is 4 minutes long.
* Double-subverted in Spacehog's "In The Meantime". The song begins to grind to a halt in a spiraling flurry of ominous, spacey synth and guitar feedback...which fades away to reveal a pleasant, quiet piano interlude. The final chord of this interlude, however, is played against a thundering piano chord ''in reverse''
* The last song on [[Silversun Pickups]]' album Carnavas is "Common Reactor", which is a kind of light-hearted [[Ear Worm]] until you hit the outro, where all calm is suddenly sucked out and replaced by a good minute and a half of discordant whirring and sputtering.
* How about "Rubber Ring" by [[The Smiths]], it's a cool, upbeat tune with an awesome bassline and nice relaxed vocals, but comes to an abrupt end, leaving us with a woman repeating "You are sleeping, you do not want to believe" If you read the [https://web.archive.org/web/20100203074004/http://www.last.fm/group/The+Smiths/forum/137/_/199401 origin of those words], [[It Got Worse|it gets worse]].
** That's because "Rubber Ring" leads into "Asleep" on the original "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" 12", on every other release the songs were divided in two.
* The unearthly wailing and echoing bodhran drum that end [[The Cranberries]]' "Dreams".
* Anyone ever listen to the [[Red Hot Chili Peppers]]' album ''One Hot Minute'' when you're ''really'' listening to the music? The title track comes in towards the end of the album, and is arguably one of the most hardcore songs that the Chilis have ever written. But after the already very dissonant end, you can hear someone yelling in pain. It's presumed to be their bassist, Flea. But still after a really heavy song like that, it's a little more than unsettling.
* "Wraith Pinned To The Mist (and other games)" by [[Of Montreal]] features a stinger note that sounds like muffled audio recorded from a construction site. (The song itself is pretty weird though, so it doesn't sound all that out of place.)
** A much better example is "Id Engager," an otherwise uncomplicated dance song about a one-night
* The song "Slide" by the [[Dresden Dolls]] is mostly just a very quiet piano piece with a couple drum flourishes, then just before the end is an UNHOLY SCREAM. Granted, the entire song is full of creepy double entendres and it feels like it's building up to a bad ending, but nothing prepared me for "THE ORANGE MAN'S GOT YOOOOOOOOOOU."
** In the official songbook, Amanda has scribbled "saddest note in the world" with an arrow pointing to the final note.
** Similarly, "The Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner" is obviously not a happy song, but it is fast paced and intense. The natural ending of the song is followed by crashing drums and a scream, after which there's a little "dun dun dun" on the keyboard.
* [[Panic!
** That leads into [[Epileptic Trees|epic]] [[Fridge Brilliance]] - the song is actually about {{spoiler|a rapist and a little girl}}.
** On Panic! At the Disco's earlier album, ''A Fever You Can't Sweat Out'', there is the track "Intermission". It begins with some techno music, which abruptly cuts into static, and a voice akin to a radio announcer telling that due to uncontrolled circumstances, the dance music would have to be replaced with a piano song. Pretty normal, as the piano keeps playing. Toward the end, however, the music begins to break down, and become rather loud and very discordant, and quite a bit unsettling.
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* "Brighter Day", the last tune on the Jellyfish album ''Spilt Milk'', has a tuneful, circus-like atmosphere reminiscent of an oompah band, until {{spoiler|it breaks down into a Parisian-sounding, carousel-like melody on flutes, followed by accordions and strings, followed by a raucous, dissonant, nightmarish jumble of ringing telephones, crashing drums and cymbals, orchestral cacophony, and sound effects. It leads to an ominous high drone of arco strings (similar to that which begins the album) and outdoor noises, like birds twittering, cars passing by and dogs barking. It seems like you can verrrrry faintly hear near-inaudible female whispering, too. Sounds like waking up from a dream, which is appropriate as the first song is a lullabye.}}
* [[Starflyer 59]]'s "First Heart Attack", the final track on the album ''Old'', is an indie rock song with a space-prog guitar solo in the bridge; then the final chorus is followed by 15 seconds of a drum simulating a heartbeat, while an audio clip of a doctor operating plays over it. ''"How's the blood pressure?" "Not good... falling."'' (If you listen closely, you can hear one of the musicians say "Stop," just as the track ends.)
* [[
** Made even more stinging once you realize that the fading main guitar sounds like a typical hospital heart machine flat-lining. Of course, as mentioned above, the story going with the song's liner notes proves that this is because {{spoiler|Joe accidentally blew himself off the top of the radio tower after he placed the explosives at the end of his heroic climb.}}
* "I Was Meant For The Stage" by [[The Decemberists]] begins pleasantly enough, with an upbeat tune, and sweet, if a little depressing, lyrics...and then at about 5:37, the tune starts becoming more and more dissonant, and it gets worse and worse and worse until you're left wondering why the hell you decided to listen to this song at 1 in them morning.
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* "Lighthouse" by The Hush Sound is a sad, slow melodic piece with slightly creepy yet not outright scary lyrics. Then you reach the end {{spoiler|and it says "The door locked from the outside / Three ghosts in a lighthouse" -- and it abruptly ends. Pretty much, it suggests that the narrator and the person they're with are also ghosts along with the one ghost they've been talking about.}}
* Kate Nash's "Skeleton Song" has a verse right before the end of a fairly poppy song where she dreams of smashing her skeleton in with a hammer, complete with screeching violins as her speech gets more guttural.
* [[Mazzy Star]]'s "Into Dust" is a haunting, five-and-a-half-minute [[Drone of Dread]] in itself, but it ends with a discordant string riff that doesn't
* [[Bis]]' already creepy song "Two Million" has a fake-out-ending. But then, a slow beat starts and a new song-within-a-song starts with no resemblance to the song that preceded it. The effect makes you feel like waking up from a dream, but then realizing the dream is real.
* [[The Zutons]]' ''Oh Stacey (Look What You've Done)'' has this. It's a fairly cheerful-sounding song, albeit one about a willful girl who drives her father into an early grave and blows her inheritance on drink. And then it suddenly slows down at the end and ends in a minor key, with Dave [[Mc Cabe]] singing 'Oh Stacey, look...what you've done', followed by a drawn-out, distorted chord.
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* The weird ending to "when i was bed" from Christian Death.
* The [[Lyrical Dissonance|lyrically dissonant]] "Perfect Kiss" by New Order ends with a [[Last Chorus Slow-Down|Last Riff Slowdown]] followed by a gunshot, representing the singer's friend (Ian Curtis?) shooting himself.
* Inverted by Godspeed You! Black Emperor's "The Dead Flag Blues".
* [[Mk II]] by Madness. Throughout the song is a wonderful piano tune, at one point breaking into more of a rock song. But at the end of the song, after the vocals end, the piano starts up again, but this time is slower and ends with two notes out of place from the rest of the song. After that, we hear the distant sound of birds singing as it fades out.
* [[Reel Big Fish]] do this on the final track to their 2005 album, "We're Not Happy 'Til You're Not Happy". After an upbeat, but angry, short track called "Your Guts (I Hate 'Em)", the track ends with what sounds like a tape deck closing, then six minutes of silence. Suddenly, you hear backwards whispering, disjointed guitar and bass, loud, drums, then a snippet of an unfinished song, followed by frontman Aaron Barrett whispering "You're gonna die", then screaming and a guitar that sounds like it's being played by the Devil.
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=== Electronic / Industrial ===
* The track [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqvwxvCOSH4 "the Eve of the War"] in Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds is a pretty upbeat (and very bombastic) song about the martian invaders coming, that ends with a sound that could be a martian beacon or radar along with a pumping heart.
* The 30-minute piece "Bayreuth Return" from Klaus Schulze's ''Timewind'' album speeds up slightly for the final few minutes, then finally, an explosion abruptly ends the piece.
** Similarly, halfway through "Wahnfried 1883", the tune slowly morphs into a cacophony of [[Drone of Dread|eerie distorted organ drones]], building up to a final climax with the wind and space sound effects.
* For a [[Stupid Statement Dance Mix]], "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs65S-1o-Os One-Winged Scout]". The start is what you'd expect, ''[[
* [[Portishead]]'s "Silence" brings together
* "Encoder" by [[Pendulum]] fades out while the sound of Water splashing can be heard, and a man can be heard breathing heavily as if he just swam a long distance. Then a wham noise begins to fade , but before it does, the song abruptly cuts out. Bam, album over.
** Similar to it is the upbeat song "I'm Talking 'Bout Me" by Admiral Twin. The chorus is building up at the end and after the second to last word, cuts off abruptly.
* Portishead's ''Third'': the ending track, "Threads." The whole song is already a nightmare, but if the end of the world doesn't sound like the blasts of noise at the end of the song, I'm going to be disappointed.
** Inverted with a later track on the same album, "We Carry On". Weird oscillating, then the conga-ish beat starts.
* The first movement of [[
* The Black Bag Project's "Electric Swine" does this. The song itself is horrifiyng enough, and then you get to the last minute or so, where it disintegrates into hollow-sounding echoing harmonics and faint laughing, with unsettling chords playing... Needless to say, it really isn't something to listen to at night.
* The 1981 album ''Claro que si'' by the band [[Yello]] featured a hypnotizing instrumental track "Take It All". At the end, while the song was slowly fading away, a strange noise was growing in the background, kind of a nonsensical robot rambling, really creepy as if a weird and unpredictable robot was closing on to the listener. This immediately segued into the next song, "The Evening's Young", with the robot voice still around. A few second into the song, the robot voice started coughing and shut up.
* After the first movement of the long (28-minute) version of Orbital's "The Box", it delves into horror territory, with creaking noises, dissonant guitars and piano, ominous harpsichord, etc.
** The Diversions remix of "Impact (The Earth is Burning)" starts out mostly the same as the original, but then halfway through, an ominous buzzing 303 riff takes over the melody, emphasizing the "the earth is burning" subtitle.
* [[
** Not the first time they've done this, either. Their track [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AbtwUpURB0 "Short Circuit"] has an extended Last Note Nightmare too.
** And less than some of the other examples here, but the last note of the light & happy One More Time is [[For Doom the Bell Tolls]]. Somehow, it's put there as the song ending upruptly in the music video would be stupid.
*** The bell is cut out on iTunes. But at the end it sounds like a man screaming, but only for a nanosecond because he's cut off.
* Dome, the [[True Art Is Incomprehensible|Head-Tiltingly Arty]] side-project of Wire members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis, produced an album called ''Dome 2'' that is made of this trope. For proof, just listen to the first track, "The Red Tent". Starts off weird enough, but then it changes... [[Paranoia Fuel|You'll never look at hiking]] [[Madness Mantra|the same way again.]]
** Subverted at the end of "Madmen" on ''Dome''.
{{quote|
* John Heartson's "The Silicon Invasion" is [[Lyrical Dissonance|an upbeat techno-pop song]] about how computers are running our world. The vocals get more robotic with every verse, and by the last verse they are completely [[Machine Monotone]]:
{{quote|
Purging is complete
Only a few organics remain
The so called elite
Illogical species, faulty programming
Consume more than required
Fatal exception, self destructive behavior
It's why they expired }}
* While the whole song is rather disturbing, the lyrics being a message left on an answering machine by a man who knows his plane is going down, I think 30k Feet by Assemblage 23 qualifies. The last line runs something like "Just one more thing to tell you now before I have to go. I-*SCRIIIICH!*"
* On the US edition of [[BT]]'s ''ESCM'', the ambient outtro of "Remember" abruptly jumps to the very loud [[Scare Chord]] intro of "Love Peace & Grease (BT's Puma Fila Mix)".
* The end of "Twisted Little Star" by Bertine Zetlitz is a mass of random distortion that grows progressively louder as the song draws to a close, ending in one big distorted mess.
* All of [http://www.noxarcana.com Nox Arcana]'s albums end on these if you leave them on after the last track goes quiet. {{spoiler|''Winter's Knight'''s example was intended to be uplifting, but may very well be unsettling to some people.}}
* Vladislav Delay's album-length piece "Anima" starts with a conversation: "Danny, are you awake yet?" "No, are you"? before slipping into 60 minutes of ambiance and random, sometimes scary synthesizer noises, which finally ends with a splash and the words "I may never go to sleep again, I might stay awake forever". Try listening to it in the dark.
* [[Patrick Wolf]]'s "Wolf Song" is a folk song performed with traditional acoustic instruments. The last chord, however (together with a wolf-like howl), is digitally mutilated to be a glitchy stutter. Someone who doesn't know Mr. Wolf's other work might think there's a playback error.
* Kind of a reversal into First Note Nightmare: [[
** Then there's the song right after "Reise, Reise", called "Mein Teil", which starts loudly and suddenly after "Reise, Reise" ends, being a last-note AND first-note nightmare at the same time.
* [[Nine Inch Nails]]' "Hurt" is a quiet, melancholy song that morphs into a strangely uplifting ballad...then looks like it's going to taper off quietly. Instead, the last line is accompanied by a crashing, detuned guitar. It fades out for over a minute, followed by an ominous wind/static sound (on the album version).
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*** The last couple notes are played much clearer, however, which adds to the atmosphere.
** ''The Fragile'' taken as a whole. Granted, it's not the happiest album, but it's energetic and has tones of working towards something great. Then comes "Ripe".
** "A Warm Place" has a literal
** "Twist" ends with someone who may be Trent screaming.
* "Laser Fear" by Laserdance, from ''Future Generation'', has both a first and last-note high-octane nightmare consisting of slowed-down [[Stock Sound Effects|baby cry samples]].
* Myvoice's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8c8lp6jKPw Nosmo King], shortly after its [[Truck Driver's Gear Change]], abruptly ends with a gunshot-like sound. Did the titular character shoot himself?
* The after the fade out of the relatively mellow And One track "Sometimes", suddenly a very loud noise that sounds like a UFO crashing or something explodes out of your speakers. It can definitely make you jump.
* Depeche Mode's "Somebody" ends with what sounds like the intro to a horror movie theme.
* The song "London Town," the final song from William Control's first album, ''Hate Culture'', features a supposedly real recorded 911 call that starts playing a few minutes after it ends. The authenticity has been debated, but real or not, it's damn scary.
* The eerie whispering at the end of The Birthday Massacre's "Play Dead" is an example of this.
* "Untrust Us" by [[Crystal Castles]] is a rather soft song, which ends with the abrupt wailing of a guitar.
* The [[Abney Park]] CD ''Lost Horizons'' ends with a "ghost track". Leave the album going after the last song ends, and you might notice the distant sound of seagulls and waves, but quite possibly you won't. You WILL notice the sudden, loud and profoundly unnerving sound that follows, something like metal scraping and shuddering. Creepy.
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=== Hip Hop ===
* The last five notes of Romeo Miller's "Romeoland". If anyone could find the video...
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAjyce9thMk "Word Of Mouth"] by John Reuben ends with about 15 seconds of the narrator asking, in a whiny voice, if the listener will please like him.
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* "Stepfather Factory" by El-P is a song which is highly unsettling and depressing in itself all about domestic abuse. It only gets worse when all you hear at the end is silence and a robotic, [[Creepy Monotone]] voice repeating over and over, "Why are you making me hurt you? I love you. Why are you making me hurt you? I love you."
* "M1 A1" by [[Gorillaz]] is a strange reverse example. The song starts out with a brief clip of a heartbeat, followed by weird, dissonant tones and a creepy-sounding, crescendoing baseline while an echoing voice repeatedly (and increasingly desperately) shouts "Hello? Is anyone there?", sampled from ''Day of the Dead'', but after the first minute and a half or so, the song transitions into something more conventional and upbeat in sound.
** More recently, "On Melancholy Hill" uses this straight. It starts calm and [[Exactly What It Says
* ''Slenderman: The Album'' is already full of pretty creepy instrumental hip-hop, but two tracks, "Fighting Back" and "The Library is Flooded", stand out the most. The former is a much more upbeat, triumphant rock-style song than the rest of the album, but near the end, switches to a minor key and then finally slows down into distorted, low-pitched noise before an equally-distorted voice mumles something about "dark forces". In the latter, the song seems to end about halfway through before returning with distorted, frantic drums and threatening bursts of static and distortion.
* [[Imogen Heap]] ends ''and'' begins "Leave Me To Love" with some heavy screeching.
=== R & B / Soul ===
* [[Marvin Gaye]]'s "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" ends with a long instrumental section concluding with a haunting chorus, a dissonant horn, and some drumming. At least one station actually cuts it short.
* "Russian Roulette" by [[Rihanna]] ends with the sound of a loud gunshot. Not creepy, though, just annoying as all heck.
* [[Steely Dan]]'s "Josie" has an oddly menacing fade-out.
* Bill Withers' "Better Off Dead," a mournful but relatively smooth R&B song, has not so much a Last Note Nightmare as a sound effect nightmare: the final iteration of the chorus -- "she's better off without me/and I'm better off dead now that she's gone"
=== Jazz ===
* Pick up any jazz CD, and you're likely to find at least one track that ends with a long solo riff over sustained chord that's way more dissonant than the rest of the song.
=== J-Pop / J-Rock ===
* The last minute or so of ''Kono Daremo Inai Heya De" by Gackt is something resembling a spectral chorus singing "Hey, Jude"; he fade-out is a harsh violin crescendo.
** "Longing" plays with this. The verses are distorted and end on nightmarish notes, and the bridge changes melodies entirely, giving way to [[Ominous Pipe Organ]], more distorted screams from Gackt, a woman screaming in terror...and then it goes right back to normal.
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=== Vocaloid ===
* Alice Human Sacrifice ends on a very creepy chord.
* Black/White ward ends with the loud beeping sound of a heart monitor
* Knowledge of the Late Madness ends with the crank organ music heard in of Dark Woods Circus.
** Dark Woods Circus itself ends with the sound of an ominous cymbal, and horse hooves.
* The scream at the very end of Guilty Verse can be pretty startling.
=== Country / Folk ===
* Miranda Lambert's "Gunpowder and Lead" tells the story of an abused wife waiting in ambush with a shotgun for her husband, who is freshly out on bail. The song seems to trail off normally, only to be punctuated by a shotgun blast, followed by the metallic ring of an ejected shell hitting the ground. Somehow the merry little "ting!" of the shell just makes it worse.
* The Pete Seeger anti-nuclear song "Odds on Favorite" is creepy to start with, talking about how God designed a universe with built-in obsolescence, then gets more
{{quote|
Is several billion years away
So as philosophers all say
Why fuss, why fume, why worry?
A jillion moons will wane and wax
Sit down, make out your income tax
Enjoy your life, be calm, relax
For God is in no hurry.''
Reassuring, right? Then it ends:
''But oh, my friends, I have a hunch,<br />▼
Mankind might beat God to the punch.''<br />▼
And it abruptly ends. }}
* "Universal Soldier" by Buffy Sainte-Marie has a fairly pleasant melody most of the way through, although the antiwar message is obvious, but it's driven home when the last line ("This is not the way we put an end to war") drops into a minor key.
* Loreena [[Mc Kennitt]]'s "Never-Ending Road" (from the album ''An Ancient Muse'') is a quiet, pretty love-song - but its last few notes are underlined and followed by a few bars of a different, eerie melody.
* Jay Malinowski's Animal ends with a piano chord that fades out, then back in, gets louder and louder until it abruptly cuts out.
** Made worse by the fact that on some prints of the album, Animal is the last track.
* Simon & Garfunkel's "Richard Cory" features this with a stinger just before the final chorus, sure to startle.
{{quote|
''And they were grateful for his patronage, and they thanked him very much''
''So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:''
''{{spoiler|Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head}}.'' }}
** The lyric then continues with
{{quote|
* Harry Chapin's "30,000 Pounds of Bananas" ends in an elongated scream.
* Love's "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This": It's a mellow psychedelic folk song where every verse is followed by a horn fanfare, and the final few repetitions of said fanfare are edited in a jumpy manner to imitate a skipping record.
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* "Bowl of Oranges" by Bright Eyes is very much a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] until you get to the sinister instrumentals at the end of the track.
=== Classical ===
* The last three bars of Mozart's "A Musical Joke" are in a polytonal jumble of five different keys.
* Haydn's [[wikipedia:Surprise symphony|Surprise Symphony]] has a nice peaceful melody, but is then rudely interrupted by loud, accented notes. Haydn did it to wake up slumbering members of the audience. He was known as a prankster, and this is one of the many jokes in his pieces.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDWh9F3Vig Here it is on Youtube, for those of you who enjoy your spines 1 inch out of proper alignment in the vertical direction.]
* Haydn's [[wikipedia:Symphony No. 45
* Tom Turpin's "A Ragtime Nightmare" is actually a very cheerful upbeat ragtime work despite the name, best known for its use in the Good N' Plenty commercials of the 60s. But the last chord sounds like a bunch of random keys hit at once, but you can tell it wasn't because it's pure dissonance. A sharp contrast to the pleasant tune known for its use in candy commercials.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV6BeeoX474 "Black Angels"] by George Crumb, while the whole piece is surreal, is something of an inversion. The first section, Night of the Electric Insects, features multiple screeching violins playing loudly then softly then loudly again. It's [[Nightmare Fuel]] that will keep you up at night. [[Schmuck Bait|Not to be listened to while reading]] [[Nothing Is Scarier|the Nothing Is Scarier section]].
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=== Other ===
* [[The Residents]]' song "Elvis and His Boss" begins to end with a slide guitar/kazoo solo, back up by what's either a trombone or a Minimoog. Then the instruments become uncontrollably pitched and distorted, up to the point that the entire song sounds more like TV snow.
* The [[Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band]] number "Slush" is a variant on this. Another gentle instrumental, it is interrupted about halfway through by a manic laugh. This laugh then repeats at precise intervals for the rest of the tune to the fade-out, and beyond...and beyond...and BEYOND. Genuinely un-nerving.
** They also had "11 Mustachioed Daughters", rather unnerving all the way through, but ending with some...extremely creepy dialogue accompanied by instrumentals, creepy because it's just so strange and leaves you the impression something's really seriously ''wrong'' with the talkers. "Worship for [[Satan]]! ''(giggle)'' Glad that's over with..." "I don't remember too good, but I think [[John Wayne]] is here." "Oh yeah?" "I don't remember too good, but I think John Wayne is here." "Oh no." "I don't remember too good, but I think John Wayne is here..." "Oh my..."
* Parodied by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]], with his single "You Don't Love Me Anymore". After the song ends, there are 10 minutes of silence followed by 6 seconds of backwards drumming, guitar feedback, and Al screaming at the top of his lungs, after which, the song ends. According to Al, this "most annoying 6 seconds of audio ever recorded" was meant to scare the listener if he or she forgets toturn the CD player off. (This snippet is called "Bite Me".) This was a parody of "Endless, Nameless" by [[Nirvana]], which came on about 10 minutes of silence and was, essentially, 6 minutes of cacophony.
* "Kingdom in the Sky" by Da Vinci's Notebook ends with the guys' harmonies breaking down terribly on the final "sky" lyric, some late, some early, some just too high for their normal singing range... the lead tenor sing-says quickly at the end "We'll redo that ending."
* While it's got a little bit of a creepy undercurrent throughout, Mr. Bungle's "Pink Cigarette" is an uncharacteristically pretty, doo-wop influenced ballad... then, as it seems to be winding up to a climax, the beep of a heart monitor creeps into the mix, and the song gets abruptly cut off by said heart monitor flat-lining. Of course, the lyrics seem to be a husband's suicide note to his cheating wife, so...
** Mr. Bungle's music being nightmarish as is, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GalDgSwQrBY After School Special] is an only somewhat eerie song about a kid talking about his abusive parents. The track ends with a horrifying metallic rustling sound and a distorted mutant child-like voice giggling repeatedly saying "Stop tickling me" and then "Why are you touching me?"
*** Actually, pretty much all of the first album qualifies as this. The first song, "Quote Unquote", is about a cocaine addict who has no arms, no legs, and lives mostly in his own doped-up fantasies. "Slowly Growing Deaf" [[Exactly What It Says
* [[William Shatner]] yelling "Mister Tambourine MAAAAAAAAAAAN" at the end of his cover of that song.
== Other
=== Advertising ===
* Early commercials for Verizon's Android offerings started with [[Mo Zella]]'s upbeat, "It's Magic" to parody iPhone commercials, switching midway to a much darker theme, to establish Droid as more serious operating system.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mbS-CdNm4c&feature=related The Nissan Juke commercials] use [[Frederika Stahl]]'s [[Covered Up|cover]] of a [[Nursery Rhyme]], namely ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXZrqCZP8o4&feature=related Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.]'' Said cover begins with a melancholy wail, but that alone is not nightmarish (and therefore not even one of the cases of "First note Nightmare"). However, some versions of the commercials [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNSnve_nG1k use such an opening as their] ''ending'', thus not only coming off as mildly scary, but also just plain ''[[Tear Jerker|sad]]''.
=== Anime ===
* ''[[.hack|.hack//Legend]]'' plays background music normally and then as the Corrupted Mook is about to be summoned from the Chaos Gate, the music begins to slip.
* In ''[[Soul Eater]]'', the soundtrack 'So Scandalous' has a creepy piano playing in between the techno/hip pop/jazz number.
* "Reborn," the first ending song from ''[[Baki the Grappler]],'' is a mellow guitar song with lyrics about love and happiness, while images of the various cast members who are clearly ''not'' thinking about love and happiness float by in the
* "Amusement Park", from the ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' boxed set. The song is a creepy carnival theme that fades out into a rather loud eerie note.
* There's a version of Pachelbel's Canon in D on disc 2 of the "[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelion]] Symphony" album that is completely normal. Considering the popularity of the piece, your mind tunes it out as background music... until about five seconds before where it ''should'' end, there is a noise like a gunshot and all of the string instruments screech to a halt.
** The track "Honeymoon with Anxiety" (Fuan to no Mitsugetsu) from the ''End of Evangelion'' soundtrack is a cool bit of music that ends with an unsettling... violin... thing.
** And then from Rebuild 2.0, there's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a_Rv3zzdKw Kyou no Hi wa Sayounara] (Farewell for Today). You know, that wonderfully sweet little song that was playing {{spoiler|[[Soundtrack Dissonance|when EVA 01 ripped 03 apart with Asuka inside while Shinji begged his father to turn off the Dummy System.]]}} It's wonderful and sweet, but on the soundtrack, we get a weird little... thing at the end, which consists of a somewhat distorted repeat of part of the song... which then gets some absolutely chilling violin chords and echo effects.
* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro
** Actually, the line before that is "Yes, Hinamizawa", which is a reference to ''another'' character song that featured Keiichi (and Mr. Delicious). So, it was probably more of an "Ah crap, wrong lyrics" thing.
*** ... and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hZyoSjTPfw that song] has it's own
**** At the very end, you can hear Keiichi over the phone saying very quietly {{spoiler|"Please, someone end this case", with the last word being cut off as soon as he says it. Then you hear a quiet scream. It's a goofy scream, but...}}
** The anime gives us its own soundtrack and the track "Oyashiro Sama". It's already creepy on it's own, but its creepiness has a musical pattern... and then the final note is not what you musically expect, it goes ''lower'' instead of higher and the percussion ''vanishes'' as if it wasn't even there in the first place. Absolutely nightmarish and fits the anime incredibly well.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYcREjNUHGc "Warera Gatchaman"], the closing theme of ''[[Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
* Russia's version of [[Axis Powers Hetalia|Marukaite Chikyuu]] appropriately has the character singing the chorus cute as anything until his "Kolkolkol" chant comes out of nowhere, and then ''just goes right back into being cute again'' before you have the chance to process the horror of what you just heard. It also didn't help this was the first time the fans actually ''heard'' the chant.
** Then of course, there's the part where his voice dips to a deeper, not-so-much-cute-as-menacing tone as the end of the third repetition of the chorus.
** Then there's the ending of his character song Winter, where there's chanting for the last roughly 40 seconds, and grows louder when the music itself ends. His Hatafutte Parade starts to be this trope too with some surreal echoing, but he stops and screams about Belarus at the last second, acting as [[Nightmare Retardant]].
* ''[[
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VbCm3iTHbU&feature=channel_video_title This song] is inspired by [[
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZNvLf4kDh8 Misa's song] from [[
* Every episode of ''[[
=== Film ===
* ''[[Alien (
** Repeated with ''[[Alien vs. Predator]] Requiem''.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhEhuixplXs Something similar] happens in ''[[Speed 2 Cruise Control]]''.
* The grand opening music of ''[[Star Wars]]'' ends in a dark ominous tone once the narrative text begins to fade.
** The full theme continues the dark theme, and switches tempo and timbre several times before ending.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cdi_bKjg1U Anakin's Theme] is sweet, soft and innocent except in the last part which [[Foreshadowing|we hear the notes of the Imperial March]].
* In ''[[Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory]]'', one of the many variations of "Pure Imagination" plays as the boat starts down the chocolate river, then when it enters the psychedelic tunnel, the music appropriately turns ominous.
** Also occurs earlier in the
* A milder, but still significant example: At the end of ''[[West Side Story]]'', there is a touching reprise of the song "Somewhere," but just as the scene is ending and the music is calming down, dissonant, deep chords start playing in the background...
* The soundtrack to ''[[The Wicker Man]]'' is a great find as it includes all the Celtic folk songs featured in the movie, including the classic round "Sumer Is Icumen In," which is sung by the townsfolk at the film's climax. It takes a turn for the horror however when that track on the album ends with Sargent Howie {{spoiler|screaming, "Oh, God! Oh, Jesus Christ!" in absolute terror as he sees the wicker man.}}
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* "The Hunt Builds" from the soundtrack to ''Bram Stoker's Dracula''. Not only does it end with 4 scare chords, sad music can simultaneously be heard playing as well.
* The famous ''[[The Pink Panther]]'' [[Theme Tune]] ends suddenly loud with a jarring chord.
* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhoa7oWPPhk opening theme] for ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'' is a warm, slow and dramatic one. Then as it fades into silence...'''WHAM'''.
* After the credits of ''[[Harry Potter and
** ''The Chamber of Secrets''{{'}}
* The opening to ''[[Star Trek (
* "Furious Angels" by Rob Dougan (from ''[[The Matrix]] Reloaded'') ends with unsettlingly loud and distorted violins. The fact that Rob sounds a lot like Tom Waites doesn't help.
* The end credits piece from the ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' soundtrack. It starts out with the epic Island theme, then transitions into a soft, gentle version of the main theme. However, it ends on a rendition of the rather unsettling Raptor theme.
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* "528491" from the ''[[Inception]]'' soundtrack has a 'kick' at the end of the song, followed by the sound of a train.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' had this in "The Pandorica Opens", when {{spoiler|The Doctor is sealed in the pandorica, a beautiful score begins playing and swooping, then the camera zooms out and shows the universe exploding.. And the music suddenly stops... Mid-Note... }}
** Just as {{spoiler|the Master and the Time Lords disappear back into the Time War}} in ''The End of Time'', and the Tenth Doctor thinks he's somehow managed to avoid his own prophesied demise, we hear four knocks, and the chords played by the strings appropriately fall apart and gliss down with tons of dissonance, mirroring the Doctor's own sinking realization.
* Happens in ''[[Lost]]'' a few times, most notably at the end of the episode where Aaron is born.
** ''[[Lost]]'''s soundtrack is full of these. They can be rather jarring when you're listening to an emotional piano piece, only for it to end with some creepy twinkling followed by a loud brass note.
* In the ''[[
* BBC's ''[[Sea Monsters]]'' ends with an epic credits theme on each episode... when suddenly the final credits pop up with a loud shocking theme.
=== Opera / Theatre ===▼
▲== Opera / Theatre ==
* The Puccini opera ''Madama Butterfly'' ends with a scary, unexpected ''major'' chord (in first inversion).
* "Music of the Night," from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]].'' The Phantom has lulled Christine almost to sleep, the song's soft, everything's pleasant, then DUN! DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN loud discordant organ. Especially seizure-inducing if you're listening to the song at night in bed and do not expect the ending.
* The song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" on the ''[[Cabaret]]'' 1998 Broadway Cast Recording is already kind of creepy since it's intentionally made to sound low-quality and distorted. Then it stops and the MC harshly whispers the last two words. At least they give you a few seconds to brace yourself.
* The song "So Happy" from ''[[Into the Woods]]'' starts out nice and happy... until half way through when there's a crashing noise and the number takes a very dark, eerie turn. Then there's the blood-curdling scream that occurs after you've think the song has faded out. Something similar occurs with the bouncy, romantic "It Takes Two" abruptly switching to "Stay With Me" (which ''opens'' with a blood-curdling scream!) [[Stephen Sondheim]] loves this trope.
** Also from ''[[Into the Woods]]'', the witch's version of "Children Don't Listen" after {{spoiler|Rapunzel's}} death is a flowing albeit sad song. The last note ends with the witch's voice breaking causing the song to go very sharp.
* The song "Three-Five-Zero-Zero" from the musical ''[[Hair (theatre)]]'' is a Last/First VERSE Nightmare, combined with [[Lyrical Dissonance]]. It begins with a melancholy and gory description of war-wounds, switches to an upbeat tune about "beginning to kill", then reprises the first verse.
* The last number from ''[[A Chorus Line]]'', "One", is a [[Sarcasm Mode|joyful and optimistic song throughout]], but the final four shrieks of the word "one" over a ''terrifying'' major chord take the cake.
* The loud factory whistle that screams at seemingly random times in ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (
=== Software ===
* The [[Vocaloid]] song "Alice Human Sacrifice" is a rather creepy parody of carnival music - which ends with the music getting slower and slower, and then just one note that is creepily off key. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBgUhO-V__A See what I mean?]
** And don't forget the Nico Nico Chorus version of "Daughter of Evil". At the song's end, a few bars start to play from the sequel song, "Servant of Evil", until they're brutally cut off by a terrifying, realistic guillotine sound. ''Literal''
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LciylndQPu8 DYE] by AVTechNO! is at its loudest and busiest near the end, and then the song [[Nothing Is Scarier|ends abruptly]]. It's not as bad in this upload because of the ending credits, but on the version that can be found on ''[DYE] -synthesis-'', the sudden stop is the last thing you hear on the track.
* ''[[
▲== [[Video Games]] ==
▲* ''[[Cave Story (Video Game)|Cave Story]]'''s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrK2S5m5o44 main theme] manages to do this, even though it's used as looping level theme music in the Plantation area. It plays the very upbeat main melody twice in a row, to trick the listener into thinking the entire song's just a 44-second loop. As it starts to play for the third time, a dissonant counter-melody emerges--the song gets as dark as the [[Retraux]] soundcard lets it, eventually grinding to a halt before restarting.
* 111.mp3, "Good Morning" from ''[[Ragnarok Online]]'' starts off as a peaceful and upbeat piano tune, then at 1:06 onwards starts to slip. It makes more sense when you consider the place where this song plays in-game...
* ''[[Eversion]]'''s World X-8 theme is very creepy and filled with [[Psycho Strings]], but there are no surprises and it's actally quite calm. Then the music slowly fades out... All of a sudden, there's this really loud, startling drum. It's hard to describe, but really creepy.
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* Much of the music in ''Endgame: Singularity'' sounds like this; it starts out one place and goes somewhere else entirely. This holds particularly true for the music that plays when you win, which starts out something like the twilight zone theme and somehow manages to get ''more'' chilling.
* ''[[Spelunky]]'' has the moderately cheerful background music trick you into thinking it's just an endless loop like the title and boss music. Then, at the 2 minute mark, the music plays backwards for a second or two and then proceeds to play normally again, except that it's much lower, much slower, and bizarrely warped. You WILL jump five feet into the air the first time you hear it. With such an utterly bizarre warning music, it makes you wonder why they need an ultimate invincible enemy coming in at 2:30 to encourage you to hurry up.
* The song from the End Credits of ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'' springs to mind. As the song starts, it's a pleasant recap of how village life used to be when everything was pleasant. . . . . And then the Plagas show up . . .
* When you get a [[Time Paradox]] in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]'', the music goes on for a while until the whole screen reverses color and plays a loud noise when the letters become "TIME PARADOX".
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ofFFio-Y_g You mean this one.] Oddly enough, while most of the [[Game Over]] themes (in general) are horror, this one [[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|starts off pretty well]], regardless of how melancholy it is.
* ''[[
** Even worse is this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6NPqt2866E&feature=related remix] of the Final Hours theme, which takes an already Nightmarish piece and, somehow, turns into [[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|Awesome Music]]. Despite that, it does revert back to its hellish origins during its last few moments, wherein the music ([[Hell Is That Noise|and the Clock Tower bell in the background]]) suddenly shifts into grainy, distorted feedback, then gradually grind to a halt, simulating the moons imminent impact with Termina.
* ''[[
* From ''[[
* ''[[
** A certain note from the normally calm and quiet song that plays at 11 PM in the original (''Wild World'' for the DS and ''City Folk'' for the Wii use a different soundtrack) has a similar effect, as well as the unexpected (during the first time hearing it) and bizarre sneezing sound effect in K.K. Cruisin' (though the latter [[Your Mileage May Vary|doesn't have this effect for everyone]]).
* The track [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrV8cRMRaMo "Showdown at Hollow Bastion"] from the ''[[
** Then again, stop for a moment and consider the situation in which the song is used. ''Everything'' in the song, from start to finish, is [[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|Awesome Music]] [[Kingdom Hearts
* ''[[Pac-Man World]] 2'' features a boss fight called "Pinky's Revenge." The BGM starts out as a very upbeat piece meant to evoke happy feelings about the [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|snowy surroundings]] ... but then a dissonant chord strikes, followed by a couple more ... then it gets back into the happy groove again. But at 0:53, it totally breaks down, with blaring [[Psycho Strings]] and sudden hard percussion as the whole thing turns absolutely horrifying. It gets a little [[Narm]]-y when it starts using [[Stock Sound Effect]] muted-trumpet hits later on, but overall it's quite scary.
* ''[[Doom (
* ''[[
** It also starts with that same whistle; the ending is the first few seconds of the song, slowly fading out.
* ''[[
** The lyrics are actually an attempt at Latin, [[Canis Latinicus|not done all that well]]. They're something about "lighting a torch in this darkest of hours."
* ''[[
* [[IOSYS]]'s (the fellows who brought you "Marisa Stole The Precious Thing") [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ia38dvaZuQ "Blue Cirno"] is an extremely jovial song that sounds like a mix of upbeat Latin music and happy Christmas music. That is, until it ends off with a Last Note Nightmare that makes people think their souls are being sucked out.
** Speaking of ''[[Touhou]]'', two particular remixes of "U.N. Owen Was Her?" included (1) gradually overlapping lines followed by a somewhat sudden cutoff of the voices, with the music slowing down to normal after the overlapping voices have been building to a more and more frenetic pace, and (2) putting in an increasingly less subtle creepy laugh. Then you remember that this is [[Tyke Bomb|Flandre's
** "Marisa Stole The Precious Thing" also features a nasty bit near the end, where the song pauses for a moment so loud static can be played. It's all technopopping along and suddenly DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
** [[The Enigma of Amigara Fault|DRR you say?]]
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** Similarly, "Roll Call" begins with a triumphant remake of the Halo title theme, followed by a medley of "Farthest Outpost" and "Under Cover of Night", but the last movement is a sad piano and strings tune, similar to the [[Easter Egg]] music "Siege of Madrigal". Apparently to underscore Master Chief's absence from the "roll call", and his presumed death.
** Then last, but not least, there's "Legend", the Legendary bonus cutscene music, which starts off the a peaceful drifting music similar to the opening scene, transitioning into [[Psycho Strings]] before abruptly ending with this.
** In ''Halo 2'', the "Antediluvia" movement of the High Charity Suite starts off the same as "Wage" from Delta Halo Suite, but then is interrupted by a [[Scare Chord]] and dark ambient noises, as the Flood arrive on High Charity and infect the Prophet of Mercy. BTW, the title is Latin for "[[Exactly What It Says
* Tsukiko Amano's "ZERO no Chouritsu" from ''[[Fatal Frame]] 4'' does this. It opens with a gorgeous piano solo, then it goes into awesome Amano rock. Then it makes out like it's going to end on a repeat of the piano solo...before playing a sudden crashing jumble of notes.
* Victims of Science's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQUaEF2bJZ0 "The Device Has Been Modified"] is, like most things involving [[Portal (
** Not to forget halfway through, after a quiet bit, you hear GLADOS say "Please proceed to ''android HELL.'' '''''BLARGGGHH'''''
* [http://youfailit.net/music/dwremix/Mythril_Nazgul_-_The_Man_Alone.mp3 This remix] [[There Is No Such Thing
** Speaking of which, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBW_R61WGYU "Sweet Dead Little Bunny"] is the infamous ''definition'' of this trope, giving a real "[[Cerebus Ending]]" feel (or rather, an "[[Earn Your Happy Ending]] In The Sequel" feel).
* The [[
* Most versions of "One Winged Angel" from ''[[
* In ''[[Scratches]]'', when quitting the game before finishing it, you are taken to a rolling credits screen with a soft piano music, at the end of it there's a very unsettling [[Scare Chord]].
* The [[Donkey Kong Country]] series' Nightmare Fuel page cites the death-against-K-Rool music [[Dummied Out|to have been cut]] (from a game with so much Nightmare Fuel, no less) because it was ''too scary''. The Last Note Nightmare trope is the exact reason behind that.
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* The final boss music for [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] 2. The song looping comes with blaring klaxons.
** In the mirror section of Amy's Twinkle Park stage, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP6Yg1fCEik the music] initially starts out as cute, quiet, and innocent... Then the music seems to take a darker turn, becoming much more tense, you can also hear a child laughing for a brief moment.
* Happens in ''[[Paper Mario:
* While not ''entirely'' a Last Note Nightmare, because the transition happens only a third of the way in, the [[
* "The Rowhouses" from ''[[Medal of Honor]]: Frontline'' starts with a continuation of the "Nijmegen Bridge" theme, adding a jaunty oboe motif to it a third of the way through, but then the ominous Panzer [[Leitmotif]] starts to creep in, completely taking over in the last third.
* The Mars Maze theme in ''[[The Journeyman Project]]'' slows down as your [[Oxygen Meter]] depletes, decaying to a [[Heartbeat Soundtrack]] and heavy breathing.
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* In [[The Path]], "forest theme" sounds perfectly soothing and calm in-game. But when you listen to it in the soundtrack, the last two minutes end with a rasping screeching echoey voice screaming repeatedly "and I will eat you!" for the rest of the track without any music playing. Also the in-game version of "the girl in red" ends with a disconcerting staticy scream overtake the whole song.
=== [[Web Comics]] ===▼
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140219030505/http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/let-the-squiddles-sleep-end-theme "Let The Squiddles Sleep (End Theme)"], from the "Squiddles!" album, a collection of songs meant to be the soundtrack to [[Show Within a Show|a made-up kid's TV show]] that exists in the ''[[Homestuck]]'' universe. Listening to it after the rest of the [[Tastes Like Diabetes|sickeningly adorable songs]] multiplies the effect to [[Serial Escalation]] levels.
▲== [[Web Comics]] ==
▲* [http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/let-the-squiddles-sleep-end-theme "Let The Squiddles Sleep (End Theme)"], from the "Squiddles!" album, a collection of songs meant to be the soundtrack to [[Show Within a Show|a made-up kid's TV show]] that exists in the ''[[Homestuck]]'' universe. Listening to it after the rest of the [[Tastes Like Diabetes|sickeningly adorable songs]] multiplies the effect to [[Serial Escalation]] levels.
** And yet it somehow becomes [[It Got Worse|even worse]] when used for the [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004748 "Jade: Wake Up"] Flash update.
** From Volume 5 of the music for Homestuck itself, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130922015458/http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/savior-of-the-waking-world Savior of the Waking World] plays like a grand, orchestrated version of the theme for the Land of Wind and Shade. Even if not totally upbeat, it's at least somewhat hopeful sounding, especially with the title. And the song gets to its end, the melody becomes the same as the original song, except heavily distorted by static, and it fades into nothing as a deep gong sounds three times.
** While not whiplash-tastic, Midnight Calliope from the Alterniabound soundtrack (also used in one of the flashes) may also qualify for this, as what starts out as a vaguely-spooky carnival tune descends into a low, menacing drone. And just as the track fades out... HONK.
** Also on Alterniabound, the track "Killed by [[BR 8 K]] Spider!!!!!!!!" is an awesome-sounding tune that gives a healthy serving of Vriska's cocky badassery. However at around twenty seconds from the end the notes turn sharp, the guitar playing gets sloppy, the tempo slows, and it ends with one last, faltering note that echoes into silence. Given the title of the song, Vriska's current plan in-story, and Hussie's tendency to use music with sudden stops and tone-switches during {{spoiler|character death sequences,}} this does not bode well.
*** {{spoiler|Indeed it does not...}}
* The ''[[VG Cats]]'' comic [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=275 "A Magical Wonderland".] Taken [[Up to Eleven]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHHoFcZ-iaA here] (6:08)
=== [[Web Original]] ===▼
* From ''[[
▲== [[Web Original]] ==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqToFk7ZYEM Slender Man's rendition of "Still Alive"] from [[Portal (
▲* From ''[[Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog]]'', the ending of {{spoiler|"Everything you Ever"}} goes from {{spoiler|bold and triumphant to [[Tear Jerker]].}} [[Gainax Ending|And then it ends]].
{{quote|And believe me I am still alive.
▲* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqToFk7ZYEM Slender Man's rendition of "Still Alive"] from [[Portal (Video Game)|Portal]]. He sings the last bit normally, going:
I
▲Still alive<br />
STILL ALIVE!!! }}
** The very last "STILL ALIVE" gives the impression that he's right behind you.
** Nico Nico Douga's first medley. Everything is fast, upbeat, and happy, but then a little bit of silence, and following that is a '''very''' off-key, '''very''' off-beat, 8-bit rendition of Sakura Sakura.
* The ending of ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140218161213/http://tarbyrocks.bandcamp.com/album/something-broke-the-continuing-tale-of-pinkie-pie-ponycide Something Broke]'' (a fan-made rock opera based on ''[[
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_HReR_McQ Dont Hug Me I'm Scared]. The worst part is not the sudden switch in the animation (though that is just as terrifying), but the continuous, soul crushing minor chord that somehow carries with you for several days where ever you go...
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vPRu1bR5fc This protest video] against BP's greenwashing at the 2012 Olympics. The music starts out with peaceful piano, but when the BP cyclist shows his true colors and starts turning the environment into a [[Crapsack World]], the music changes to a dark [[Industrial]] tune accompanied by dissonant 8-bit-style jingles reminiscent of "game over" music.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===▼
▲== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Unsurprisingly, the song "Source Music of Doom" from the ''[[Invader Zim]]'' soundtrack has this. Not at the end, only about 30 seconds in, but definitely worth mentioning. Starts out with a strange tune about tacos before going into light flute-ish tune that seems very happy and cheerful before an out-of-place chord blares in your ears and kids sing "Bloaty's Pizza Hog!" over and over in your ears.
* "Rock-A-Bye Baby" in the Crashcup segments of ''[[Alvin and The Chipmunks|The Alvin Show]]'', namely the ones where he invents the bed and the baby. Played at the end of the episode - normally the first time around, then as things go awry for good it repeats - but speeds up and slows down like a warped record.
* My Morning Jacket's album ''Evil Urges'' closes with the melancholy, muted synth beat of "Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt. 2" followed by a 5 second track of screaming and someone saying "Okay, cool."
* The recorder song in [[South Park]]'s "''World Wide Recorder Concert (The Brown Noise)''". Everyone in the WORLD will remember the last note of that song...
* Oddly enough, ''[[Muppet Babies]]'' features one of these in its ending credits theme: the very last part where [http://youtube.com/watch?v=RBLZ4VEBIy8 Spider-Man jumps down onto the Marvel logo] segues from the cheery instrumental theme to a dissonant, screechy horn.
** Only in the second season onwards. Originally, it was just a straightforward instrumental version of the theme song, which faded out (during the "I got my computer..." part) when it reached the logo (which then was the standard "static blue background" version).
* The song "The Theatre" from ''[[Coraline (
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ybo3Z8k3aE Here's the song.] Just so you can hear first hand how creepy it is. (Probably best not to turn the volume up too loud.)
* On the DVD of Disney's ''[[Fantasia]]'', the background music that plays on the Title Menu is the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Seeing as the last peice of the film is Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria", having the DVD cut straight back to the Toccata is rather jarring.
* Disney's ''[[Dinosaur]]'': When the Pterodactyl drops the egg...
* The song "A Girl Worth Fighting For" from ''[[Mulan]]'' is a rather optimistic ditty sung by the soldiers during their march across the Chinese countryside about how they're trying ''not'' to go to war. The song ends with said soldiers arriving at the mountain village they're supposed to protect from the Huns, {{spoiler|only to find out that said village was already burned to the ground}}.
* Happens at the end of the closing sequence in [[The Flintstones]], just after the "WIIIIIIIILLLLLLMAAAAAAAAAA", while Fred continues to pound the door.
* A "three note nightmare" happens in [[Jem]]. It occurs right after the end of the PSA's,<ref>
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiytkIXTkAo The 'O' Song]", an old animation from ''[[Sesame Street]]'', ends with one of these.
* [[Rupert Bear|''Rupert and the Frog Song'']], which is a cartoon about a little bear cub and several cute singing frogs, actually ends with [[Owl Be Damned|a demonic-looking owl]] swooping down and scaring away all of the singing frogs.
* Some of the BGM from [[Ren and Stimpy]] can come across as this. Notable examples include "Maniac Pursuit" and "Terror".
* For your consideration, [[Inspector Gadget]]. Wonderful cartoon, [[Ear Worm]] of a theme song, but that last low note always sounded ominous to me. Even more frightening with the end credits variation with Dr. Claw's booming voice saying, "I'll get you next time, Gadget, next time.
* The short version Season 1 theme for ''[[Young Justice (
=== Other Media ===
* At the end of his "Guitar Fever" review, Ashens puts a monstrous sound of 8-bit terror. It's actually [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IbgHr_9-7E code for a ZX Spectrum computer], so he didn't put it there to be mean.
* Maybe this doesn't count as a last note, but look on [[YouTube]] for video people have taken of the US analog TV switchoff. It's just creepy, as most of them went from everything as normal, to static. As if all of civilization had just suddenly collapsed.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTUDSG8L5Jw Goodbye.]* tsssssssss[[Nothing Is Scarier|sssssssssssssh*
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OK3qDWxAjQ&feature=related#movie_player Can we make a] [[Incredibly Lame Pun|lame pun]] without mentioning [[Metallica
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CI-TWWrwLg&NR=1 "Let's flip the switch right now--] <big>[[Killed Mid-Sentence|WHAM]]</big>
* Used humorously in the theme song for [[Married...
** [[Clumsy Copyright Censorship|The]] [[The Jimmy Hart Version|DVD]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xad-StH-7BY version], however, ends normally, followed by a less startling clang.
* Music boxes, especially older ones that have been played many times, will often distort the sound as they wind down. No matter how cheerful the song, the final notes will often sound creepily off key.
* The [[Blue
* The "Blue Mountain" Paramount TV logo (which was first used in a later version of the "Closet Killer" logo)
{{quote|
* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txln02o16DQ Morgan Creek DVD] logo.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Music Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Last-Note Nightmare]]
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