Fade outs are often a sign you're lacking ideas. This will help you keep your songs short and sweet.
From Me To You, Help, I Saw Her Standing There, The End, Twist And Shout (and just about everything else!)
See Also
Ticket 2: Put Your Song On A Diet
See the full list of songwriting tips here - Tickets To Write
By "ringing chord" do you mean a song that ends without a fade-out? Or do you actually mean a guitar chord ringing towards the end of the song? And how do you feel about songs that use both, like having a ringing chord ending but then a fade-out comes afterwards to rid of unnecessary stuff that's not part of the song like guitar feedback, improvised instrumentation, studio chatter, guitars getting unplugged, or even tape noise, should that count as well?
ReplyDeleteI primarily mean ending with a single chord (usually on the 'one' and usually the root chord) as opposed to either a fade out or a coda (an extra musical section designed to end a song) - see Life On Mars (David Bowie) or The Rain Song (Led Zeppelin) for examples of codas.
Deletethis is another way of getting your song length down.
As for studio chatter etc that's more of a recording question than a songwriting one but again with every part I would just ask "is it really necessary?"