The gin palace scene in Ailbhe Reddy’s “That Girl” captures a familiar interrogation: one person asks hard questions while the other pretends the answer might be at the bottom of a glass. He’s telling his version of their first meeting—hands on her face, her shaking leg—and she’s watching him reconstruct a person who may never have existed outside that single night. Dublin songwriter Reddy calls this track “one of the record’s emotional anchors,” inspired partly by Fleishman Is in Trouble, examining how love shifts shape until we forget what we once adored.
What Does “That Girl” Mean?
The chorus insists “I’m still that girl that you knew” while the verses document transformation: “Bleached teeth, crow’s feet / I’m underneath.” It’s the impossible promise of constancy in a long relationship—claiming you haven’t changed while acknowledging all the ways you have. Reddy watches her ex across the street with his new girlfriend, hand on her back, sharing coffee, and recognizes the body language: “The way you were once with me.” The silent history he’s building with someone else looks identical to what they had, suggesting either he’s repeating patterns or love always follows the same choreography.
The bridge breaks the pattern: “I’ve never been further from you / Than I am now,” repeated until it becomes a mantra. The outro abandons language entirely, just “And now” five times, as if even that simple phrase has lost meaning through repetition. Reddy’s upcoming album KISS BIG lives in what she calls “the messy middle” after collapse, and “That Girl” excavates the specific terror of watching someone remember you incorrectly. You can insist you’re still underneath the bleached teeth and crow’s feet, but if they’ve already rewritten the story, does that girl even exist anymore?
Interested in other examinations of broken relationships? Check out Constellation Myths’ “Spare Room”.
B-Side Guys 
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