‘End of a Friendship’: Julia Jacklin’s boldest effort
Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin has won critical praise and a dedicated fanbase for her candid indie-folk confessionals navigating the intrepid terrain of love, grief, religion, and sex. Her work has garnered the deepest affection from many young women who are traversing the same emotional domain as she is. 2022’s Pre Pleasure expands on Jacklin’s intimately revealing songwriting, replete with introspective production and songs crafted from keyboards over her guitar as heard on prior albums, pushing the record toward a more textured sonic direction.
Pre Pleasure‘s finale was the focus of much attention among her fans. ‘End Of A Friendship’, as the title suggests, details the painful demise of a close friend, imbued with Jacklin’s typical referencing of the mundane details surrounding the extraordinary, “I put it all down to the heat and wine, we don’t have to agree all of the time”.
It’s a song exploring a moment that inhabits a deep place within Jacklin’s heart. Wishing to break tradition from previous albums and their tendency to end on pared-down acoustic numbers, Jacklin wanted to raise the dramatic stakes with ‘End Of A Friendship’, initially titled ‘Las Vegas’, and end the album like rolling credits to a movie.
Enlisting the expertise of co-producer Marcus Paquin and Arcade Fire arranger Owen Pallett, Jacklin recalled to Uncut: “I feel like I want strings. This was the first time I’ve been in a situation where that’s been possible. I sent Owen Pallet the melody that I wanted to base it around, and then that day, he sent back a MIDI draft. The next day, the orchestra was recorded in Prague. It was like, ‘Is that it? OK, cool.'”
It’s an intriguing topic to explore. While heartache and love-loss are as old as time, there are scant heartfelt songs exploring the ruins of a friendship. There’s an acute pain in Jacklin’s lyrics reliving the final conversation with her former buddy: “She listed the things about me she didn’t like, I sat there in silence, accepting our fate, we always found it hard to relate.”
What tugs the heartstrings about the song is Jacklin’s search for reason in her friend’s cold shoulder: “Woke up to hear her say that she couldn’t stand it, that she couldn’t stay.” It’s a stinging rejection that cuts harder than any relationship end; a close companion wishing to sever ties after the painful confusion of their sudden drop in presence is captured with knowing clarity.
“Friendship breakdowns are so intense in a way that’s hard to write about because we don’t have much language around it, and we don’t have much ceremony,” Jacklin declared to Loud and Quiet, “I feel like the world would be slightly nicer if we broke up with our friends…I feel like people are slightly haunted by old friendships because there is no closure.”
Exploring a universal topic that lacks any language or processing with such succinct clarity is a bold effort, and she added another thematic bow to her songbook diary, closing the album with Jacklin’s most stirring offering yet.
