In direct support of society’s desire to mimic the media it produces, students may as well begin casting about for the best song to play in their own mental montages of the inevitable, the impending, the next week (!): the end. Images of friends loading their things into shuttles and guys making that excruciating last-second decision about whether or not to hug just aren’t complete — especially in retrospect — without that perfect song to tie the whole experience up in a way that only music can.

This is no new idea, and so-called “graduation songs” are a dime a dozen these days. Yes, I’m looking at you, Vitamin C and Green Day. Baz Lurman has been telling grads to wear sunscreen for exactly 10 years now (check out William S. Burroughs’ “Advice For Young People”).

Compiling a list of songs with the word “end” explicitly in the title seems to offer a more rigorous criterion for these montage enders. However, searching for songs with the word “end” in the title results in an interesting spectrum of musical assertions. Mixed in between songs attempting to be cute about massage parlors (“Happy Ending”) and others that are just being emo about a particularly tragic relationship (“True Love Will Find You in the End”), there are some tracks that actually channel the absolute finality of the end in its most apocalyptic sense. While these jazzy numbers are often not directly referential to gradation per se, the overriding theme of apocalypse fits well. Rhetorically, graduation and apocalypse are interchangeable anyway, at least from where I’m sitting.

A vast majority of the songs I downloaded with the word “end” in the title had to be deleted immediately, for fear that someone browsing my iTunes library would judge me based on my propensity for death metal. There is something undeniably attractive about an “end” song, yet also pretentious. By attempting to simultaneously announce and describe the termination of something, the artist assumes the position of God and at the same time a reporter on the God beat, waiting to dispatch the four horsemen of the apocalypse as well as write about it. I’ve come up with a list of my favorites, as well as some others that are laughable. Watch out, Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance,” because the end is, well, the end is in.

First of all, The Doors’ “The End” (1967) is, hands down, the greatest “end” song of all time. It’s an epic, apocalyptic, mildly Oedipal allegory of Jim Morrison’s experience with some potent hallucenogenics and his rambling societal philosophy. I know, I know: awesome. If you really want to trip yourself out, take an auditory gander at the cover by Warhol muse Nico.

“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (1988) by R.E.M. — a song perhaps ironically best known for that scene in Independence Day where the researchers first pick up an evil alien transmission — is another solid choice on your “end” playlist. There’s a nice element of relaxation and the added “I Feel Fine” is about as comforting as it gets. As an added trivia bonus, this is the inaugural “white guy singing facetious lyrics fast” song, laying the foundation for future stream of consciousness classics such as the Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week.”

The Strokes play the apocalypse off as some sort of “would you rather” question in “The End Has No End” (2003). It’s standard Strokes fare. Balance that out with something positive like The Avons’ “Our Love Will Never End” (1995) or “Dance Me To the End of Love” (2004) by Madeleine Peyroux. Or anything by Peyroux for that matter, she’s just incendiary. While you’re at it, play “This is the Song that Doesn’t End” by Lamb Chop, but only for nostalgia.

On “The Little Miss Sunshine” (2006) soundtrack, the band Devotchka adds two great tracks to the canon of end tunes with “Till The End of Time” and “How It Ends.” The songs are really southwestern and — as the placement on this soundtrack would suggest — ideal for both driving in general as well as driving into a sunset.

“The End,” a Beatles song off of “Abbey Road” (1969) takes a close second to the Doors. The Beatles really know how to end an album and although the track is mostly instrumental, the only lyrics are heart stoppers. “And in the end, the love you take/ is equal to the love you make.” What a message to leave someone with.