Indeterminate ending
An indeterminate ending is a close that refuses to resolve, leaving the song suspended between two outcomes the words will not decide between. The final lines read as hope or as defeat, a relationship saved or lost, with the text supplying evidence for both and settling neither. It differs from ambiguity at the level of a word or a line: here it is the whole arc's conclusion that is held open, so the listener leaves carrying the uncertainty rather than a verdict. In the catalogue it tends to land on narrative songs that build a case across several verses, then decline the expected final turn, as cowboy like me and cardigan both do.
By withholding resolution, the indeterminate ending hands the last judgement to the listener and keeps the song alive past its closing line, the question reopening on every return to it. It mirrors the way real situations rarely resolve cleanly, and it lets a song end on honesty rather than on the tidy verdict a neat ending would impose.
Appears in 4 songs
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the ending as 'an indeterminate ending', the speaker believes James will come back, but the poem has characterised him as a ghost four times and as Peter Pan who never grows up. Uncle Jerry asks 'does he come back?' and notes the tension between the speaker's hope and the poem's evidence. They connect this structural ambiguity to the indeterminate ending of cowboy like me, which they discussed in a previous episode.
The structural ambiguity of the ending is the poem's final thematic statement, truth, memory, and hope are all uncertain, and the poem refuses to resolve whether reconciliation actually occurs.
“I'm never gonna love again”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the ending as an indeterminate ending where the same line can mean two opposite things. Uncle Jerry explains: 'In literature, that's what we call an indeterminate ending. We don't know.' The line could mean she's given up on love forever (the con-artist life wins) or that this is her one true love and she'll never need another (love wins). Uncle Jerry states: 'The best dramatic monologues are the ones that end with, I'm not sure.' Angela notes she always read it as hopeful, while Uncle Jerry leans toward it not working out, demonstrating the ambiguity in action.
The structural ambiguity of the ending is the culmination of the dramatic monologue form, the reader/listener must decide based on their own experience whether the cowboys find love or revert to their conning ways.
“I think I am finally clean”
Angela & Uncle Jerry identify the title and this recurring line as structurally ambiguous. Uncle Jerry notes at the outset that 'clean is both an adjective and a verb', it could mean something is clean or that something is being cleaned, and adds the drug-related meaning of getting clean. He says 'we have three different ways to look at it at least. She loves ambiguity.' Later, he identifies the ending as an 'indeterminate ending', she says 'I think I'm finally clean' rather than 'I am clean,' which he calls 'hopeful, but realistic.' He compares it to 'a used car salesman trying to sell a car', 'I think this is a good car for you' is not as rhetorically strong as 'this is a good car for you.'
The structural ambiguity of 'clean', adjective, verb, and addiction recovery term, and the indeterminate 'I think' create a song whose resolution is deliberately uncertain, reflecting the ongoing nature of recovery.
“Please don't be in love with someone else, please don't have somebody waiting on you”
The song closes on an unanswered plea, asking that he not already be in love with someone else and not have anyone waiting on him. It never resolves whether he is free or whether the feeling is returned, leaving the listener holding the uncertainty rather than a verdict.