Plants and Animals - "The End of That". Rupert could remember when he wrote "The End of That", sitting in the basement at about 11 o'clock pm, on the night Joe and Thom called to say they were going to The Swallow, going there again, the fourth night straight, the night after Rupert bumped into Claire on the street and she was with a girlfriend and he hadn't seen her in forever, and it was her that recognized him first; she said, "Rod!" and he stopped zipping up his jacket and he blinked and then he saw who it was, with a shorter haircut now, Claire, standing with a friend of hers in pink he didn't know. "Claire sweetheart," he said, kissing her on the cheek, and just that kiss felt huge and awful, stinging, everything tightening in his chest. She said, "Lucy this is Rod-- uh, Rupert. RP." Lucy sort of folded at the shoulders. "I know who he is," she said. Claire's eyes were blue and beautiful and seemed like something Rupert had lost and then finally found. "How you gals today?" he said. He finished zipping up his jacket, tucked back a slip of hair. "On our way to the market," Claire said. "How are you?" Rupert laughed, like it was a joke. "I'm great. You know." Claire nodded. "Things seem to be going so great for you guys." Rupert shrugged and found himself flicking Lucy's pink elbow, saying, "So do you live here?" and immediately in a panicked terrible way he wanted to cry, to burst into tears, because he didn't know why he was flirting with Claire's random friend, not here, not now, when all he wanted to do was to show his heart to Claire somehow, to show her everything as it was, like Spock in that new Star Trek movie, a mind merge or whatever, and get over everything, get over the night at the canyon and the thing with Jess and the morning things were weird, at the cabin. Just to get over it all. But instead Claire looked at Lucy and then said, "Well we gotta go. Good seeing you." And again she leaned in to kiss his cheek and again Rupert, Rod, RP wanted to cry and he didn't even notice Lucy go away because he was staring at the back of Claire's head, the back of her neck, the nape.

Rupert could remember how Joe and Thom called him that night, to go to The Swallow, but Rupert was already in the basement with the organ and his guitar, and he told them "Nah..." and he stayed home, and he wrote "The End of That". He wrote it in one perfect long sitting, all the melody, all the lyrics, imagined the backing singers and the bassline, everything, feeling for one fucking pure second that he was getting it out, getting the real thing out, onto the page, saying everything true about Claire and him and the end of it.

Then they recorded it, him and Joe and Thom, and it was perfect.

Rupert remembered all this as he sat on his hands backstage at the TV studio, watching the playback of their performance of "The End of That", watching himself in his stupid suit and stupid hair and stupid makeup, lip-syncing like this was just another song, tilting and grinning like a pop star, cosying up to the backup singers - no, whispering fucking dirty come ons to the backup singers, - smirk and preen, high as a kite, while Joe and Thom did their jobs. He should have expected this by now. He should have expected this of himself. Even this song, even this song, even this this this this song, Rupert Poole, troubadour, ladies man, tearing down his memories and building nothing but ruins.

[Plants and Animals' The End of That is out now / buy / Warren, Woody and Nic are on tour]

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Elsewhere: This is the other important music video in Montreal right now.