Songs with Twist Endings?

"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head" —Simon & Garfunkel "Richard Cory"

'Escape' (the pina colada song) by Rupert Holmes.

Cats in the cradle - "My boy was just like me..."

Lot of people forget about the last verse of “Fast Car”. In the beginning, she wants to use his fast car to leave their dead end town. In the last, she wants him to use it to leave *her*.

Ween - Buenos Tardes, Amigo

Yesterday by Atmosphere

[Operator--Jim Croche](https://youtu.be/Bb85NvjbBm8?si=b1fMNFJqjsYkVmTM) Guy asks the operator to call his ex who ran away with his best friend...after saying out loud he realizes it still hurts and he hasn't actually forgiven them...and she can keep the dime

Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf Most of the song is about a pair of teenagers on the cusp of having sex for the first time and promising that they’ll always love each other. Then in the last verse it jumps ahead to where they’re a bitter married couple who feel like they’re trapped by a promise they made as kids.

Say more about the Killers song - I'm stumped on how this one twists

Two songs on the theme of , it’s your fault, well maybe it’s both our fault, well maybe it’s my fault: Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan

Me and My Uncle.

[Dance with the devil](https://youtu.be/Ef1fy2k_EYI?si=lEFnSPs9urfrwblN )

Hammerhead by The Offspring

Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon. Caught me very off-guard the first time I heard it.

The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia is probably the quintessential plot-twist song.

Common - I Used To Love H.E.R. Written like it's about a girl, really about the entire genre of hip hop

Love Vigilantes by New Order

Human League - Human "While we were apart, I was human too" Stevie Wonder - Part Time Lover, the last verse.

The Offspring - worst hangover ever End of each chorus is “I’m never gonna drink again” The penultimate line of the song is “at least until next weekend”

*Where The Wild Roses Grow* Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with Kylie Minogue

Fool In the Rain by Led Zeppelin

How about The Police Wrapped Around Your Finger

Harry Chapin’s “Taxi.” Ex-lovers meet by chance years after they split up to pursue their respective dreams. He reminisces about the the time they had together and it sounds like they’re reconnecting. Instead, they part after a short cab ride and the man is left realizing they both reached their goals in empty, unhappy ways. 

Marie is Chuck Berry’s 6 year old niece (at least in later versions of Memphis, Tennessee). The only girl Meatloaf ever loved wanted him, needed him but there ain’t no way she was ever gonna love him.

One Tin Soldier - Coven I promise I'm not as old as this might make me seem.

The ending of George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” is a twist for some people.

Living Next Door To Alice by Smokie The Pina Colada Song by Rupert Holmes Detroit Rock City by KISS (original recording)

Christmas Card from Minneapolis - Tom Waits

Red House by Hendrix?

Save All Your Kisses For Me - Brotherhood of Man

Duckworth by Kendrick Lamar. Years ago a man chooses not to kill another man. The two random men were Kendrick’s father and Kendrick’s future record label owner- the man who signed him to a deal. As he puts it in the song “Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence?”

NOFX - Please Play This Song on the Radio

Come Sail Away - Styx

The Gift by The Velvet Underground

Billy Dont Be a Hero by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods

The End - The Doors The whole "The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on" part. The song starts out sounding like a song about parting ways with a loved one, and turns into incest and patricide.

Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver by Primus. Turns out it was a porcupine the whole time!

Since you’ve been gone by Weird Al

All I Want to Do is Make Love to You by Heart

Dallabnikcufesin - Anthrax "You left me standing in the mud Crying to myself A heart so full of pain But we found our love again This time forever True love with bells She got hit by a truck"

My favorite example of this is actually a switch-up in the middle of the song. "She Loves Me" by THE DESCENDENTS, starts out like a sappy love song with the story of a wonderful girl who loves the singer, then turns all ominous and minor key, and we learn that the singer is consumed with darkness and hate. The song turns from a love song to how a miserable person, "this close to cashing in" might deal with that love. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1dqXs9BwtM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1dqXs9BwtM) She loves me, it's not just in my head She loves me even though it's not been said And if anything means anything Then this means something good I guess I'd love her back if I only could She loves me I can see it when she smiles ear to ear She loves me And I'm sure that she can't hear How I scream out for someone else When I'm asleep or by myself How I'm so sad, I hate myself I don't know where to go for help Her love could never grow sour Becomes more pure with every hour I never wanted anything like that from her But still she loves me, it's not just in my head She loves me even though it's not been said And if anything means anything Then this means something good I guess I'd love her back if I only could She loves me And I know she can accept me for myself She loves me But I'm shure that she can't help How I'm this close to cashing in How I chase dreams that don't exist How I hate girls and I hate my life The pain that rips me, tears me, ruins me Her love could never grow sour It grows more pure with every hour I never wanted anything like that from her But still she loves me (I don't have to be) She loves me (all by myself) She loves me (she don't love no one else) She loves me The way she loves me The way she loves me

Joining a Fan Club by Jellyfish

My Mind Playing Tricks On Me - Geto Boys

https://youtu.be/b2Q3gcnCIUo?si=Y9xoWprnNbZoNIyK Jason Isbel! Master songwriter. Live Oak

- A Boy Named Sue - Johnny Cash - Cornerstone - Arctic Monkeys - Where Do you Go To My Lovely - Peter Sarstedt

Gloria by Kendrick. The song seems like it’s about his relationship with his girl, but at the end he reveals that it’s actually been about his relationship with his pen game

Damian Rice - The Blower's Daughter

Somebody that I Used to Know by Gotye. Kimbra's verse at the end totally changes the context of the song.

Lola

[Testify- Common](https://youtu.be/CZRH68Ib1Ko?si=Ww3DmP6dFQ0rNpqQ) One the sickest samples and beats to this day and the story Common paints is excellent 👌🏾

Metallica - sad but true I'm your truth, telling lies I'm your reasoned alibis I'm inside, open your eyes I'm you Sad but true

Destination Moon by They Might Be Giants

The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane

Not sure it counts but *Sad But True* - Metallica is sort of like that.

Mr. Roboto - Styx

Ode to Billie Joe

Deftones - Mascara

Twist - Korn

Fool’s overture - Supertramp

Camouflage by Stan Ridgway Won't spoil the surprise but the awfully strange marine picks up a palm tree and swats some Charlies with it around the middle of the song

"The Queen and the Soldier" by Suzanne Vega

How Much A Dollar Cost by Kendrick Lamar. Actually the DAMN. album, too.

Hearing “I’m inside, open your eyes, I’m you” at the end of Sad But True by Metallica blew my mind when I was 12

Faint of Hearts by Coheed and Cambria. All their songs follow an overarching story. The whole thing sounds like a love song with some weird violent vibes, “…My wanting just hold you neck in my arms and feel me squeeze”. Every chorus ends with “Tonight, sleep tight, my love.” Except the last, which ends, “Tonight, sleep tight, my gun.” At that point you realize the whole thing was about his gun and he’s fantasizing about murdering people. Fittingly the next song is called Al the Killer and is pretty explicitly about this guy hunting people down on his ship. Some lore nerd will probably correct me on details, but that’s the gist.

Cheesy as hell, but [Come Sail Away by Styx](https://youtu.be/Gb3XWTWtRxc)

Coheed and Cambria's song Faint of Hearts You might think it's about a girl It's about a psycho whispering sexual sweet nothings to his gun

Boy Named Sue

Not a song, but the music video for Smack My B**** Up by The Prodigy.

Not the actual last verse but the 2nd last in "Ruin the Friendship" >!But I whispered at the grave!<

The only correct answer is "Three Little Pigs" by Green Jellÿ

Telegram by Nazareth

Dar Williams' "The Pointless, Yet Poignant Crisis of a Co-Ed" has an amazing ending.

An older one, but "Two for the Price of One" by ABBA.

From Autumn To Ashes - Short Stories With Tragic Endings

Yesterday by Atmosphere

Yesterday by Atmosphere

Come A Little Bit Closer by Jay and the Americans

Plan B - Charmaine

The song Love Vigilantes by New Order (although personally I recommend the cover done by Iron and Wine even more) is exactly what you are talking about. It'a a sweet sort of coming home song and when you get the reveal at the end it makes it quite sad. Gives me goosebumps.

Tripping Daisy's *I Got a Girl.*

Plan B - Charmaine

what did Billy Joe MacAllister throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge?

The Mercy Seat

When "Same Old Lang Syne" first came out on the radio, the final line, "...the snow turned into rain", always struck me. Not the biggest twist, but still in the front of the noggin 46 years after first hearing it.

Lola by the Kinks. Maybe not the last verse alone, but there’s definitely a twist in there.

Since you've been gone by weird al.

‘Who’s the Blonde Stranger’ by Jimmy Buffett. The song is about a guy cheating on his wife with a blonde stranger while she recovers from sunburn. But in the process he makes himself cripplingly hungover, and he wakes up the next day to find out his wife is doing the same thing with another blonde stranger named Dan

Fake Palindromes by Andrew Bird

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean The protagonist of the song is lamenting about his unfortunate situation where a crazy femme fatale stalker woman is claiming that he had fathered her child. He sings about how his mother had warned him to be careful around these types of girls and to not break their hearts, suggesting that she is just a jealous crazy fangirl. It seems the law (courts?) are on her side but he still insists it’s a lie even though many seem to believe it”the lie becomes the truth” But the twist is, she shows him a photo of a baby cryin’ who has his eyes. So HE was lying for the whole time about not having an affair with her. He admits that they did indeed dance on the floor in the round and then she called him to her room. He even gives advice to the listener about always thinking twice. The song ends with him still pleading and insisting the kid is not his son and that Billie Jean is not his lover, while it’s obvious he is lying, probably trying to make himself think he did nothing wrong. It’s quite a multilayered song when you start thinking about. Truly a masterpiece of a pop song.

City hall tenacious D

The Offspring - “Hammerhead”. Upon hearing the opening lyrics, you would think it’s being sung from the perspective of a soldier but, by the end of the song, you realize it’s being sung from the perspective of a school shooter (“And you can all hide behind your desks now. And you can cry 'teacher come help me!' “). The music video has a lot of war imagery, but Dexter Holland says it was always from the perspective of a school shooter, so I guess we’ll have to take his word for it.

The end of Frank Ocean’s “Pyramids”, simply put, sees a man realize that the woman he loves has now made their relationship transactional.

Funky Cold Medina

Stan - Eminem 

Me and my uncle

real talk

Jacob Rose by Andy Shauf

Arcade Fire - Wake Up

“Someone Will” by Dawes is my personal favorite example of this. https://genius.com/Dawes-someone-will-lyrics

Loving county by Charlie Robison

Rewind by Nas

[Framed by Chris Knight.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwSGm1kul8Y)

Basically everything by Amigo the Devil qualifies here

Basically all of [Ayreon's *The Human Equation*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ahdx5C9kSc&list=PLDp_PtuyOwCbt_MBte4PrbPbvygybjOP6). It's totally about a man in a coma.

Beep Beep by the Playmates

I Used to Love H.E.R. by Common ("who I'm talkin' about, y'all, is hip-hop") She's a Jar by Wilco ("You know she begs me not to hit her")

[Colter Wall - Kate McCannon](https://youtu.be/DKFlBd9jJ2I?si=tCvnK8X70ecAfmd5) of course!

Ambulance by Wilco. It's a song about a guy who's been in a car accident while high and is dying in the back of an ambulance. At the end, he's pronounced dead but says hello and makes a priest piss himself.

Holy, Holy by Geordie Greep

Not the ending, the twist comes in the hook, but "Neighbors" by J Cole gives me this sorta vibe. Lyrics about making it big, moving to a nice neighborhood, having nice things, but all the rich neighbors think he's a drug dealer because racism and stereotypes. "The neighbors think I'm sellin' dope" ... "Well m*********** I am"

Come Sail Away by Styx sorta fits

Chuck E's In Love - Rickie Lee Jones