“The Last Song” by The All-American Rejects

"The Last Song" was the second single from the All-American Rejects' self-titled debut, going out in April 2003 as the follow-up to "Swing, Swing". Tyson Ritter and Nick Wheeler wrote it, and it's the odd one out on a record that is otherwise, by Ritter's own account, all about one girl: after a breakup he wanted to write about something else, and landed on leaving your hometown behind to make something of yourself.

It doesn't open like a pop-punk single, either. It starts on the sound of a radio caught mid-tune, strings take over, and an electronic segue tips the whole thing into a chugging guitar line, a structure unlike anything else on the album. Ritter admits he can't say how the two of them came up with it; put two songwriters in a studio, he figures, and anything can come out.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.