As the title says, what are some songs that have either an intro or outro which you find particularly appealing?
I’ll kick things off with Tetragrammaton from The Mars Volta… the whole tune rules, but the 70 second long intro (which returns for the outro) is my favorite part.
Another: the outro for Milk Leg from Intronaut. The whole song is great, but the outro is dreamy, wonderful stuff.
@Riffdiculous I stopped with Mars Volta after the first album, but that Intronaut album is great! I much prefer the last song on the album as far as cool intro / outro:
I love pretty much everything I’ve heard from Intronaut. I got to see them at a tiny ass club here in 2016 during The Direction of Last Things tour - there was maybe 90 people there. Really awesome experience.
I’m gonna go old school and say Layla lol! Tbh I don’t even like the majority of the tune (intro Riff is cool). The modulation scheme would have Heinrich Schenker rolling over in his grave. That outcome though…unexpected and a cool chord progression.
This is “top of my head” though I will think of something better later.
Here’s an old school one - Strawberry Letter 23 from Shuggie Otis. It’s mostly an R&B sort of tune, until the out-of-left-field outro, which has a bunch of cool stuff, including harmonized guitars…
I always thought this would go well over a movie intro
Love the synth intro on this, just feels like fresh air
I also love the intro to this ghost busters track.
And can’t forget TMNT! 
And this intro makes me cry if I’m high enough. Great guitars.
This is great too, awesome soundtrack
I’ll stop after this as I’ve so many. But I love intros. Song intros, game intros, cartoon intros, tv intros, there are so many amazing intros, it would be a long list.
Amazing song by Bob Marley’s son. Great intro.
Good lord, I forgot M.A.S.K even existed! Definitely watched it and had some toys as a little kid.
Zombie Woof is a favorite. Far more than just guitar but with only guitar it’s just as effective.
Bad Horsie is iconic at this point
It took Letterkenny to introduce me to it, but The Crow Left of the Murder is really great
Candiria had a bunch, but Contents Under Pressure and Mathematics are probably their most accessible.
A great intro:
A great outro:
Minimalistic, but Enter Sandman is a great intro.
You immediately know what the song is and portions of that phrase appear in some form all throughout the song. If Beethoven were still alive, I think he’d be impressed by that whole tune in general. It’s crash course on motif development.
Technically it also appears in the outro, so I’ll double dip and use it for the outro too.
My favorite Metallica song
Oh man you reminded me of this
Outro to Nuclear Assaults Trail of Tears - totally unexpected gem of a jam style thing - awesome stuff:
To be faaaaaaiiiiiiiirrrrrrr…
Metallica has a bunch of examples of great intros. I’m a sucker for their earlier days, when the kinda-unrelated-to-the-rest-of-the-song intro was more commonplace…
Very cool topic!
When I think of a great outro I think of King’s X - I’ll Never Be The Same.
For me, it’s battery hands down. It just kicks up visuals like there is going to be some sort of gun fight, like a Sergio Leone style Mexican standoff. Or it conjures up images of the Spanish armada heading to invade Britain unaware they are about to be in for a surprise.
The whole song is awesome. I never heard much from kings X, so I went back and listened to the whole thing. My only gripe is that I’m not sure how I feel about the “bare” overly chorused guitar solo part. It really could have used some backing guitar tracks on it then it would have been perfect. You need that “nasty” in the background backing you up.
So somebody Is going to post this, they have to its low hanging fruit, so I might as well be first. The ending to still of the night. the solo section too, but that melodic walking progression at the very last few bars ending on the bII just hits it:
