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The other morning on my way to the gym, I happened to hear “Standby (Looks Like Rain)” (from the new OSI album) and “Everyday” (title track from the Dave Matthews Band’s 2001 release, Everyday) in a row. I realized that both songs were my favorites from their respective albums, and that both songs are the last on their respective albums. It seemed unusual — how often does it happen that the last song on an album is the most appealing?

Certainly this is subjective, but what the heck, so is my entire website. You must be used to it by now.

Sitting there in the car, I could think of only one more instance: “The Cinema Show,” from Genesis’ amazing 1973 album Selling England By The Pound. But this stretches the definition, because it’s the next-to-last track on the album, even if the two are generally played together as one long song.

So I had to dig through my CDs. I found a few more favorite-last-songs. The list is revealing for reasons that shall become obvious momentarily:

• “Ice,” from Camel’s I Can See Your House From Here. This is an instrumental classic, showcasing Andy Latimer’s famous guitar soloing. “Ice” has since become a staple of Camel’s live shows; the versions captured on both The Paris Collection and Never Let Go are wonderful in a dim-the-room-lights-while-the-music’s-playing way.
• “Lady Fantasy” from Camel’s astounding 1974 album Mirage. But picking a favorite from this is like picking one from Rush’s Moving Pictures; every song rocks. “Lady Fantasy” is a first among equals, and like “Ice” is a staple of the live set.
• “Follow You, Follow Me,” from incredible-shrinking-Genesis’ …and then there were three… Minus the fact that this was the theme song of every high school’s senior prom for the early 1980s, it’s a great track.

And that was just about it. I found two more but they’re less clearly the strongest songs on their albums:

• “Available Light,” from the Rush album Presto. I was never very fond of this album, and it’s only been recently I’ve listened to any of it with any frequency. The other song in contention for the title is the third track, “The Pass,” which I find more rhythmically interesting, but slightly less compelling overall.
• “La Villa Strangiato”, from the Rush album Hemispheres. Unquestionably a great track, but it’s up against “The Trees” and even “Cygnus X-1 Book II” — and that’s three of the four songs on the album. Still, “La Villa Strangiato” has the edge.

You might have noticed a certain homogeneity in the above list: two albums each by Camel, Rush, and Genesis. It’s true that these three bands comprise a disproportionate percentage (about 20%) of my CD collection. But maybe there’s an argument to be made that progressive-rock bands are less likely to front-load the hits onto each album. Or even, progressive-rock bands are less likely to pen “hits” in the traditional sense. Or, maybe my tastes are just weird.

Another similarity: “Ice” is 10 minutes long. “La Villa Strangiato” is 9:35. “The Cinema Show” is 11:30. “Lady Fantasy” is 12:45.

Another similarity: three of those long songs are instrumentals. How the heck a pop/gospel tune from Dave Matthews made this article is a mystery even to me.

(In the above text, song titles link to mid-fi MP3 samples that I’ve prepared to give you something to listen to while you’re killing time. At ~100 kbps they’re thin enough to stream over any non-dialup connection, and the quality is still excellent; they’re the best-sounding streaming audio clips I’ve heard. Album names link to Amazon, in case you want to research the albums further or buy them.)