swan song

plural swan songs · alternative swansong · alternative swan-song

1. A final performance or accomplishment, especially one before retirement.

   Je ne parle pas français. That was her swan song for me.

   1918 February (date written), Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Je ne parle pas français”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 114

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   Yet, on the whole, our good Saint-Pierre is musical, poetical though most morbid: we will call his Book the swan-song of old dying France.

   1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter VIII, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book II (The Paper Age)

   In no other way can be explained our sacrifices and martyrdoms. For no other reason did Rudolph Mendenhall flame out his soul for the Cause and sing his wild swan-song that last night of life.

   1908 February 19, Jack London, The Iron Heel, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC

   "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"[…]—a pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. "It's my swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently," he wrote Howells, though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to have reached this conclusion.

   1916, Albert Bigelow Paine, The Boys' Life of Mark Twain

   […]McCartney III could mark the end of his recording career. For a musician as continually prolific as McCartney (this is his 18th solo record), that seems unlikely. But if it is indeed a swan song, McCartney III will stand as a proper coda for the singer-songwriter we’ve been listening to for fifty-odd years: sentimental yet strong, a bit wistful, but as always, looking ahead.

   2020 November 9, Gwen Ihnat, “With McCartney III, Paul McCartney offers lessons from a legendary life”, in The A.V. Club

   Merkel’s political and scientific sides slug it out in swan song presser [title]

   2021 July 22, Philip Oltermann, “Merkel’s political and scientific sides slug it out in swan song presser”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: farewell performance, last hurrah, final act