That's How the Story Ends

"That's How the Story Ends" is a song performed by ska band Five Iron Frenzy on their 2003 penultimate album, The End Is Near. It loosely imitates the poem "The Raven," using initial lines from Edgar Allan Poe's stanzas as springboards to chronicle the history of the band's many in-jokes, such as trumpeter Nathanel "Brad" Dunham's fictitious demise:

How distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December

And each dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor

I hear a voice that chilled my spine, I saw what I could not define

A sight I never could contrive: there stood Brad at last, alive!

Throughout, it maintains the tone of a sarcastic parody, juxtaposing the gothic grandeur of Poe's original poem with the trivial and silly events described.

Referenced Elements

• Lead guitarist Micah Ortega's "miraculous return" (following his chronic absence from rehearsals)
• The rediscovery (by Micah) of Reese Roper's long-lost blue comb
• The ownership and nature of a mysterious pair of pants
• Combat Chuck's death and final request (to never again play his eponymous song)
• Kitty Doggy's euthanization
• The doom of the "Kingdom of the Dinosaurs"