In the quarter-century he’s been fronting Ohio pop-rock combo Earwig, Lizard McGee has employed a wide range of backing musicians. One of his drummers along the way was George Hondroulis, who now keeps the beat for Lydia Loveless, and George’s brother Costa still plays bass for Earwig. Due to those connections and probably several others (because local music scenes are nothing if not incestuous collaborative breeding grounds), breakout roots-rock star Loveless guests on “Wasted On You,” a track from Earwig’s upcoming Pause For The Jets. Today that track gets a video.

Although Pause For The Jets is a “science-fiction rock-opera” that “testifies to the importance of pushing artistic boundaries and not falling victim to musical trends,” this song’s a little more straightforward. It’s a strummy power-pop tune about love falling apart, with McGee and Loveless singing in character as two halves of a broken relationship. McGee has been writing extremely catchy songs for decades, and his expertise really shines through here. It also helps that Loveless has one of those powerhouse voices that elevates everything she touches.

The video, set at popular Columbus haunt the St. James Tavern among other vicinities, follows an ill-fated barroom encounter all the way to a twist ending. McGee shared some background:

“Wasted On You” was the last song written for the album and we knew it was something special. Basically it’s a relationship post-mortem. At its heart, the song is a conversation between two star-crossed lovers. The concept for the video was to treat the duet as an actual conversation. Then we added a little dark twist at the end. We wanted it to feel like a short film.

We had a less-than-shoestring budget. For the main sequence, we outfitted an unused, empty upstairs bar at the St. James Tavern and brought in fans to serve as extras. The 1968 Ford Falcon in the video is a really cool car that I borrowed from our record producer. What I didn’t tell him was that I was going to spend the day peeling out, doing donuts and recklessly racing around an abandoned parking lot in his very nice vintage automobile. So he will probably be a bit surprised when he sees the video.

If you’re reading this… Tom, I’m sorry.

Watch below.

Pause For The Jets is out 10/14. Pre-order it here.