#he didn't even play tbsl

[bluewinnerangel]

do you have any theories or know any theories for TBSL? because the line “Do you think it's easy being of the jealous kind?” always reminds me of fetus larry :(

Hi! SoooOoooo this has been in my drafts for like a year? I just reread it and I'm just gonna post is as it is.. whatever 2021 me didn't like about it can cringe in a corner I want this out of my drafts asfsddsf I mean with As It Was coming soon it won't be leaving it after so here it is, everything To Be So Lonely:

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Diving into TBSL because needs a The Notebook rewatch and now I did and bawled my eyes out thanks anon.

My theory about TBSL is pretty much like FTDT and Brokeback Mountain, and that it's not autobiographical in its core, but he took massive inspiration from The Notebook. But to get back to the mentioned line anon, yeah I do think the being of the jealous kind fits his character, fits what we think is the true him, how we've seen him behave indeed especially in early years. Plus lyrics, especially Harry's, are layered af and can both be about fictional characters as well as his personal life and whatever else all at once easily. So that I think it's not autobiographical doesn't mean it can't be applied to him personally, if I'm making any sense here. Anyway this is what makes me think it's about The Notebook more than just that one line:

!THIS POST IS ONE BIG THE NOTEBOOK SPOILER!

So if you haven't watched the movie but want to, maybe save this analysis for after. K warned you. For one, he's obsessed with that movie. He's mentioned it in interviews a bunch of times over the years, not gonna find em all right now but maybe the most detailed conversation about this was during HS1 promo with Nick:

With the segment starting around 8 mins in. I like how Nick is just dropping that Harry just knows all the lines like that "And you do that things where you repeat... you say all the lines.. as if you're Ryan Gosling" and then Harry goes "nooo noo that's not true. I play Rachel McAdams" (and we've seen a lot of examples of him indeed knowing all the lines through the years, even recently yelling TRASH TRASH TRASH on tour, and the soundtrack was part of on his 2020 playlists) The talk with Nick is in reference to watching it a lot while writing HS1 but I obviously think that extends to his later work. It's funny, Woman starts off with "should we just search for romantic comedies on netflix and see what we find?" and that's pretty in line with the point I'm trying to make here, that you might just find the sentiment of a whole bunch of Harry's songs if you do exactly that. You might just stumble upon another piece of work (movie in this case) and be like oh shit that one Harry song actually fits perfectly in here, matches up with this character's POV that well you gotta wonder whether that's... actually where that song came from in the first place. That some mermaid's just been busy being a hopeless romantic sappy lil shit binging his comfort movies and getting lost in them to the point where they turn into songs. And Nick is kidding about this too: "It's actually what the album's about". To which Harry goes "Yeah", Nick: "Yeah.", which, yeah, joke, OOORRR IISSS ITTTT :") Harry: "And a lot of that... ehm.... always circles back to The Notebook.."

So that's exactly what I'm gonna do here, we're gonna be always circling back to The Notebook with this theory, maybe to an extreme, because we can:

Harry Styles - To Be So Lonely lyric analysis (in relation to The Notebook) under the cut:

Don't blame me for falling

I was just a little boy

Ok two non-notebook big points: 1) Keyword: Falling when we got the song Falling on the same album (in which there's no-one to blame)? Clever shit. 2) Just a little boy? Ok sure kick the Hamille narrative in the butt I guess. Clever shit.

Of course, "don't blame me for falling I was just a little boy", that falling refers to falling in love, but with the way he reuses words so cleverly here I wanna call it definitely deliberate. That weaving his own (and sometimes others') songs together with these little nods/links I absolutely adore.

But this is very easy to relate to The Notebook. They first meet and fall in love when they're young, I don't think Noah's age is mentioned but Allie is 17, and they have a summer romance. And it's emphasized a lot as well, that they were just kids:

Allie: It was real, wasn't it? You and me. Such a long time ago, we were just a couple of kids. But we really loved each other, didn't we?

Harry: Don't blame me for falling I was just a little boy. Spot the difference.

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Quick big spoiler recap on the plot of The Notebook: Noah and Allie fall in love at 17 over the summer, he's poor, she's rich, Allie's parents think he's not good enough for her. He promises to build her a home, she gives details of what she wants in it, all that. When the summer ends, she moved away (involuntarily) and he starts writing her. He writes a letter every day for 365 days but her mother never gave her the letters. Many years pass and eventually he buys that home and he builds it including the stuff she mentioned... he built them a home, basically, without every knowing if she'd come back. Then they find each other again, she sees the home all that, she gets the letters from her mom all that, but she's engaged to someone else and they scream and fight and yell in the name of love and all that and she's gotta choose and with some romantic movie trope difficulties she ends up choosing him. Throughout all that their story is being told from an elderly man to an elderly woman with dementia, SPOILER is them, they already had that life together, and he's sticking by her in their last moments, and she's there sometimes recalling what he's teling her, sometimes heartwrenchingly not at all, not sure if this does the movie justice but that's that.

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Don't blame the drunk calling

Wasn't ready for it all

I don't think I can turn this into a convincing Notebook reference. I mean, I can try, they call each other bad names when they fight, if that's the calling here, and seeing they let each other go for many years while they're crazy about each other... so I guess you could say they weren't ready for it all, they weren't ready to own up to it and just say fuck it I want you all of you forever I want this life it's gonna be hard but I want that and let's do it, I'm ready, because, maybe they weren't.

(sorry I'm just gonna rambley use too many words to explain this ok just let it happen) But I think, Fine Line is giving us a story, a beautiful narrative. I think the writers, Harry, really tried to grab all these individual songs and just create an amazing whole (and amazingly successfully i must add), and with these lines I just see a great nod to Falling and Cherry really. (as I do with most of these lines in TBSL) And maybe a bit of HS1 as well. And I'm not saying Falling, TBSL, and Cherry are all the same thing and should be viewed as all stunt or real or fake or whatever, I think they all originate from different places, one perhaps more raw true feels than the other, one perhaps more... eh... giving the fans what they want... than the other, etc. I just think they were eventually placed into the context of one another deliberately, slightly reshaped to all fit together.

For instance, we know Mitch played that never-ending phone ringing guitar coolness realness that became TBSL which just ties in all too well with the sadness of Cherry and Falling and that being alone and drunk after a break up and everything on like.. casual listeners take home message level, you know? I don't know what's the order of events here, but I can imagine those amazing little guitar rif sounds inspiring drunk calling lyrics.

"don't blame the drunk calling, wasn't ready for it all" I feel reflects on Falling, the song, paired with the first line, "don't blame me for Falling"... IT JUST ALL FITS AS A PERFECT LITTLE BLUE AND PINK PUZZLE OK. He's shaping this whole scene... I kinda tried to make this clear by highlighting matchy matchy lines across Cherry, Falling, and TBSL, in that order:

(this really just is rambling:) and in my view you can't really make them make sense because it's fiction as a coherent whole unless you just headcanon plomp a whole chronological storyline on top of it, which I can definitely do: It looks like him changing his mind/growing all that in between writing these songs. Basically, Cherry is the fresh breakup wound, the pure pettiness, kinda the anger stage, and gets followed up by depression with Falling. (again, I don't think this is what Falling is about, I think it's just placed conveniently so the conclusion you draw from Falling casually listening to his album is... this feeling being a result of a breakup) the fuck, you really don't need me ever again do you this really is over isn't it, and then 3rd in this triptych we got TBSL, which is some mirroring mash of both. At first he just didn't want her to call a new guy baby, then he did a bunch of sad depressed drunk calling and introspection, some time passed, realised more of his own flaws, says sorry for his own behavior there too, and doesn't really want those new dynamics of not being together anymore but still having her in his life, still calling him baby somewhat casually I guess, still trying to be friends, because it looks like he ruined what they had, and she seems to be at her best, seems to be fine, seems to move on and can be casual around him while he... writes TBSL. And the similar wording of it all helps this along as well.

You can't blame me, darling

Not even a little bit

I was away

Notebook thoughts here that even when TBSL is actually about The Notebook then still it's probably not meaning the following but we're going everywhere with this: there is a moment near the end where Allie, suffering from dementia, remembers their story, and then doesn't. In the time she does, Noah calls her darling a bunch of times, and as soon as she gets lost, goes away again, she says "why did you call me darling? I don't know you." ... Don't you call me darling. Anyway.

The Still Making Everything About The Notebook but more sensible link is that they missed out on being/staying together. They go away, they both go away, for years, and through miscommunication / misfortune they don't find their way back to each other until many years later, but neither of them is to blame. If you view the I was away as a I wasn't there because I didn't know I could have been there all this time kinda thing, Allie cannot blame Noah, not even a little bit, for not having done everything he could to be with and stay with her from the start, because he didn't know she loved him and wanted to be with him as much as he wanted her. I'm having a hard time choosing the best quotes, because it's a longass talk (and more), but we can keep it simple lol:

"you're going away! You're leaving. And I'm staying here."

and them talking about it when they're older in retrospect:

"Gone.

Well, she must have been devastated.

She was. He was only trying to do the right thing.

Yeah. But what he really should have done is just told those parents to go to hell."

Allie also throughout the whole movie just keeps going away, there's a pretty not sure if intentional parallel throughout the movie between young Noah and Allie and old Noah and Allie where Noah just... stays rooted in place and Allie just comes flying in and out, first when they're young she just goes "I have to go" a bunch of times and leaves, while when they're older she does as well, but, due to dementia.

This whole falling hard in love romance to losing each other for years to getting back together and building a strong foundation and being in it for life despite it being hard af... I mean you could use the tracklist of Fine Line in its entirety as the soundtrack for even.

Okay but now Notebook-free interpretations... I can just accept he was an arrogant son of a bitch who was away, perhaps simply avoidant and emotionally unavailable, that he just drops that little bit of info and then dips I mean sure fine why not, but also I don't think it fits the rest of the album? Maybe I'm missing something, but he's pretty consistently the most uninterrupted clingy little koala otherwise. I don't really feel like it fits the overal sentiment?

Next if we're going by Harry being a genius with keywords and concepts and saying the same/opposite thing across works we can look at where else people are away within his songwriting, and that might help:

We haven't spoke since you went away - FTDT

It's interesting to my FTDT+TBSL-aren't-biographical-ass that these are the only two songs blatantly saying that someone went away, while none of his other songs are really implying people left other people. FTDT and TBSL aren't so different. Actually, you can look at Cherry+TBSL+Falling as some ripped apart FTDT:

It's... a lot. Really just. Take your time to see the similarities. This almost looks like it's still the same story (again LOL @ His public narrative being him going through a relationship start to finish that leads him to feel and use the near exact same sentiment and details as he was already putting into a song years prior to that relationship blooming and dying I mean same goes for Sunflower vol 6, it's kinda funny): I'm alone now, someone went away, there's a piece of each others clothing, there's getting drunk, there's a lot of calling, that sad, lonely, depressed, somewhat spiteful, definitely pathetic person that is FTDT threw its where are you and why are you doing well right now into Cherry, its never felt less cool into Falling, and its lonely man I keep being this shit person and drunk calling you into TBSL there.

Again, is this because this is his life and it makes sense for him to write and keep writing in a similar way about his life and he just wasn't over whatever fueled FTDT to a point he had to turn it to 3 whole songs on his next album, or there's a lack of creativity (nope), or he's still searching for romantic comedies on netflix and seeing what he'll find and we just keep looking at songs based on hopeless romantics in movies, his weakness.

And I'm just an arrogant son of a bitch

This is just, literally, from The Notebook. Here's the whole transcript of that scene:

Noah: I see you got my letters. Finally. What are you gonna do Al?

Allie: I don't know

Noah: Are we back to that? Are we back there? What about the past couple of days? they happened, you know?

Allie: I know that they happened and they were wonderful, but they were also very irresponsible. I have a fiancé waiting for me at a hotel, who's going to be crushed when he finds out.

Noah: so you make love to me and then you go back to your husband? Was that your plan? was that a test that I didn't pass?

Allie: no! I made a promise to a man, he gave me a ring and I gave him my word

Noah: and your word is shut to hell now, don't you think?

Allie: I don't... I don't know, I'll find out when I talk to him

Noah: this is not about keeping your promise, and it's not about following your heart. It's about security

Allie: what is that supposed to mean?

Noah: MONEY!

Allie: what did you..

Noah: HE'S GOT A LOT OF MONEY!

Allie: now I hate you, you smug bastard!

Noah: and I hate you. If you leave here I hate you.

Allie: haven't you been paying attention to anything that's happening?

Noah: I guess not. I think I must have misread all of those signals

Allie: I guess you did.

Noah: you're bored! you're bored and you know it. You wouldn't be here if there wasn't something missing.

Allie: you arrogant son of a bitch!

Noah: would you just stay with me?

Allie: Stay with you? what for? look at us, we're already fighting.

Noah: well, that's what we do. We fight. You tell me when I'm being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you're being a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. They have like a two second rebound rate and you're back doing the next pain in the ass thing.

Allie: So what?

Noah: so it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. And we're gonna have to work at this every day but I wan to do that, because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.

Noah: would you do something for me, please. Just picture your life for me. 30 years from now, 40 years from now, what does it look like? If it's with that guy go, go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again, if I thought it's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out.

Allie: what easy way? There is no easy way. No matter what I do, somebody gets hurt!

Noah: would you stop thinking about what everyone wants! stop thinking about what i want, what he wants, what your parent want. What do you want? What do you want?

Allie: it's not that simple

Noah: what do you want? damn it, what do you want?

Allie: I have to go

May I also note here the "does he take you walking round his parents gallery" pettiness of Cherry fitting really well with Noah's behavior towards Allie's engagement to someone with money that her parents approve of rather than himself.

Who can't admit when he's sorry

Here again it could be anything if referring to something specific, in the Notebook they just fight a lot, and absolutely do not admit they're the one in the wrong, untill they do... as does Harry here at the end of the song, where he flops to "this is it, so I'm sorry".

If we're gonna do the keyword thing again and look elsewhere, we find FTDT again:

Maybe one day you'll call me and tell me that you're sorry, too. - FTDT

So in FTDT there's.. the one that's not being the first one to break, the one that's not admitting he's sorry as well, we're going in circles.

And Lights Up that just goes "I'm sorry by the way" whatever that's for.

Don't call me baby again

flip flop keyword drop from Cherry:

Don't you call him baby, don't you call him what you used to call me. - Cherry

Which one came first hmm.

I'm also still stuck on that breaking my heart into pieces old Noah and Allie scene at the end of the movie, where Noah continuing to call Allie pet names such as darling, sweetheart, and baby, is causing her to freak out more and more once she stops remembering who he is. Doesn't make much sense with the whole sentiment and the context tho, but it's just there, and I hate it.

You got your reasons

I know that you're tryna be friends

I know you mean it

Okay so this is again saying Notebook rights here, as Allie does try to be friends and Noah knows she doesn't have a bad bone in her body there, he knows she's got her reasons for choosing to go down the path she seems to be choosing.

Here, where they meet up again after all these years, she's engaged, they're being all adult about it:

Well, your parents must love him.

He's a really good man, Noah. You'd really like him.

You love him?

Yeah, I do. I love him very much.

Well, that's that. You marry Lon and we can be friends... right? Right.

Also a lot of assumptions can be made between Cherry and TBSL (and FTDT), in Cherry he wonders if she still knows that he talks to her friends, and he misses them. Then ~assumed time passes~ and they try to be friends, they try to hang out both love and hate it here.

It's hard for me to go home

Be so lonely

HOME HOME HOME BABABLALA HOME THIS HOME THAT.

Notebook interpretation: they're so fking lonely without each other. Especially Noah. And he built her a home??? He. Built. Her. A. HOME. Old Noah and Allie version: he doesn't wanna come home. His kids ask him to come home and not stay with Allie in the nursing home, but he wants to be with Allie instead.

This is bad guy what's coming up it's bad, but yeah this seems to be Harry's favorite movie, and this is really right in there:

Noah's kids: come home. Mama doesn't know us. She doesn't recognize you. She'll never understand. We miss you. This is crazy, you living here. Yeah, you know we'll all help with Mom. We can take shifts visiting.

Noah: Look, guys, that's my sweetheart in there. I'm not leaving her. This is my home now. Your mother is my home.

Can I scream???

I just hope you see me in a little better light

I think this is a reference to The Notebooks themesong I'll Be Seeing You by Billie Holiday, that goes:

Let the light be happily gay too for that matter

Easy. Easy Easy easy. As mentioned above, yeah Noah was being jealous af and yeah he did this whole speech about DO YOU THINK ITS GONNA BE EASY NO.

Do you think it's easy being of the jealous kind?

You'll win, it's just a trick

'Cause I miss the shape of your lips

And this is it, so I'm sorry

This could be a lot of things, there isn't some yo Allie I specifically love the shape of your lips moment in the movie if you were wondering, and to be really honest I'm not sure how to interpret these. I keep having old Noah and Allie in the back of my mind and how (having a loved one with) dementia plays tricks on you and how that's just it then and blugh.

But also from Harry to listeners this is interesting, like I always felt like this song was a trick? Like he's saying this is it, I did it I wrote a song that is not what you think it is, it's just a trick I'm sorry 🤷🏻‍♀️

I hope that was a fun read it was meant to be just an entertaining the thought kinda thing.

See more interpretations over at @larrylyrics

[tobesobri]

I so appreciate your last post re: spending money on an artist and entitlement. People need to understand—regarding LA and NYC in particular—one is a “home show” in a sense and the other he played at one of the most famous arenas in the world. Hence going a little above and beyond. Also, he’s sung TBSL in other places besides those. He’s also worn the non-uniform look I’m Nashville. It’s gonna vary show to show. At the end of the day, you go and get an INCREDIBLE hour and a half show…you get your moneys worth. It’s not about fair or not fair really 🤷🏻‍♀️

yeah tbh i think it's cool that he mixes things up, he obviously knows we see videos and pictures of every night on tour anyway even when we aren't physically there so like why not do special things at certain shows, especially after he did kiwi 3x and that was a big, memorable moment.

for me it's like? I haven't heard any of fine line live and to see people complaining who got to see him this year is just super annoying. like lots of people outside the US too didn't get to see him so idk why they are so mad and feel entitled to hate on him because they didn't get to see him shirtless or hear a specific song live like? there's youtube videos to watch! I would have loved to been there to see him do you're still the one live but i wasn't and i just watched the video like it's not that hard.

but yeah idk they got more than their money's worth imo harry could literally be like every other male musician and not be energetic on stage or interact or anything but he does his own thing and they got to go see that and still want to complain about it?

[bluewinnerangel]

From The Dining Table x Brokeback Mountain

!! Huge Brokeback Mountain Spoilers ahead !!

Since I said some stuff a bit about this yesterday and got some questions to explain a bit more I thought I'd dedicate a post to it.

SoooOOooo this is about From The Dining Table maybe being not so much autobiographical, not in the literal sense at least although mans gotta resonate with it otherwise why make a whole song about it right, but could be from the perspective of Jack in the movie / short story Brokeback Mountain and I think he might have done the same with TBSL and The Notebook as well.

FTDT (as well as Sweet Creature) sounds like it's coming straightno gay out of the Brokeback Mountain Soundtrack, explained here. Especially the tracks "The Wings" and "Brokeback Mountain 2" (that melody bit around "even my phone misses your call by the way" is just.. a copy). And yep that's the pretty big hint there, that's why I'm connecting these dots and not brushing off the coincidoinkies because you know these lyrics are not THAT specific, but combine it with the similarities in terms of sound too and welp hmmmmm

FTDT lyric breakdown x Brokeback Mountain under the cut:

In the movie, go watch it if you haven't, go read the short story if you haven't, Jack and Ennis fall in love on Brokeback Mountain and uh continue to not know how to quit each other. They both understand it's not safe to attempt to live a life together, Ennis doesn't even consider it but Jack still wants it, tries to talk about it, but it never happens. Most of their life they're silent about their feelings, they just love each other deeply yet continue to live their lives with a wife and kids, but still they can't stay away from each other and for 20 years they continue to have these "fishing trips" together and find ways to see each other. Ennis stays very conflicted about his feelings and doesn't so much own up to them as Jack does. He's a man of very few words (under the pretence of comfortable silence) and it drives Jack insane. They drink a lot, they feel alone and uncool, don't seem to call, but miss each other like crazy...

Some bits from the short story:

“How much is once in a while?” said Jack. “Once in a while ever four fuckin years?”

“No,” said Ennis, forbearing to ask whose fault that was. “I goddam hate it that you’re goin a drive away in the mornin and I’m goin back to work. But if you can’t fix it you got a stand it,” he said. “Shit. I been lookin at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?”

Or Jacks dialogue when he finally breaks about.. everything:

"I'll tell you what. We could have had a good life together. Fucking real good life. Had us a place of our own! But you didn't want it, Ennis. So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything's built on that! That's all we got, boy. Fucking all. So I hope you know that, if you don't never know the rest! You count the damn few times... that we have been together in nearly 20 years... and you measure the short fucking leash you keep me on... and then you ask me about Mexico and you tell me you'll kill me... for needin' somethin' I don't hardly never get! You have no idea how bad it gets! And I'm not you! I can't make it... on a couple of high-altitude fucks once or twice a year! You are too much for me, Ennis. You son of a whoreson bitch! I wish I knew how to quit you!"

And Ennis' reply:

Then why don't you? Why don't you just let me be, huh? It's because of you, Jack, that I'm like this. I'm nothin'. I'm nowhere.

So then yeah uh FTDT:

Woke up alone in this hotel room,

Played with myself, where were you? Fell back to sleep, I got drunk by noon,

I've never felt less cool

Loneliness, where are you, can't make it on a couple of high-altitude fucks a few times a year, played with myself, but need you, I'm struggling, I'm drinkin, I'm nothing, I'm nowhere. ~it's all of the above~

Some more bits from the short story:

“We herded sheep on Brokeback one summer,” said Ennis. He could hardly speak.

“Well, he said it was his place. I thought he meant to get drunk. Drink whiskey up there. He drank a lot.”

We haven't spoke since you went away,

Comfortable silence is so overrated,

Why won't you ever be the first one to break?

Even my phone misses your call, by the way

This fits Jacks feelings towards Ennis. Ennis doesn't talk. Jack seems to be ok with this silence most of the time, but really does love it a whole lot more when Ennis does talk. This after he tells Jack something personal, Jack lights up and Ennis is like bropal what:

Jack: Man, that's more words than you've spoke in the past two weeks. Ennis: Hell, that's the most I've spoke in a year.

And also as mentioned earlier, Jack is the first one to break. Ennis seems to suffer too, but he never breaks, not in front of Jack before Jack does at least.

I saw your friend that you know from work

He said you feel just fine

"He said you feel just fine" can be a way of saying to just drop it, and in the movie Jack visits their employer that had sent them off to Brokeback Mountain the next year, and asks him about Ennis. To which he doesn't get a satisfying answer whatsoever either (thank @swimmingleo ):

Boss: Well, look what the wind blew in. Jack: I was wonderin' if you was needin' any help this summer. Boss: You're wastin' your time here. Jack: What, you ain't got nothin'? Nothin' up on Brokeback? Boss: I ain't got no work for you. Jack: Ennis Del Mar ain't been around, has he? Boss: You boys sure found a way to make the time pass up there. Twist... you guys wasn't gettin' paid to leave the dogs baby-sit the sheep... while you stemmed the rose. Now get the hell out of my trailer.

I see you gave him my old t-shirt

More of what was once mine

In the end the only thing Ennis has of Jack is his old shirt. And discovers this whole time, Jack had his.

Copying a big chunk of the short story again really just go read the whole story instead:

At the north end of the closet a tiny jog in the wall made a slight hiding place and here, stiff with long suspension from a nail, hung a shirt. He lifted it off the nail. Jack’s old shirt from Brokeback days. The dried blood on the sleeve was his own blood, a gushing nosebleed on the last afternoon on the mountain when Jack, in their contortionistic grappling and wrestling, had slammed Ennis’s nose hard with his knee. He had stanched the blood, which was everywhere, all over both of them, with his shirtsleeve, but the stanching hadn’t held, because Ennis had suddenly swung from the deck and laid the ministering angel out in the wild columbine, wings folded. The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack’s sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he’d thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack’s own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack, but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.

I see it's written, it's all over his face

Everyone can tell. Nothing is said. But everyone just knows these two had ~a special bond~. Especially Jack's parents when Ennis visits their home in the end and finds that shirt.

Maybe one day you'll call me and tell me that you're sorry too

Maybe one day you'll call me and tell me that you're sorry too

Maybe one day you'll call me and tell me that you're sorry too But you, you never do

Maybe one day [...]... maybe one day... I have hope that maybe one day... but in the end. I realise it's not gonna happen -> Jack keeps hoping that maybe one day they'll live their lives together, but Ennis never lets them go there, doesn't see it as an option, he just stays silent. But in the end Jack knows where they stand, or he's always known I guess, he lets it be... The last thing we read from Jack's perspective in the short story:

Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see or feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they’d never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.

Woke up the girl who looked just like you I almost said your name

They're both with a family, with wives / girlfriends. I don't think there's a girl who looks just like the other, or any mention of almost saying each others names or anything, might have missed it tho I mean the rest checks out aksdjaslk. The closest maybe parallel-ish I could think of is a call between Ennis and Jacks wife:

“Jack used to mention you,” she said. “You’re the fishing buddy or the hunting buddy, I know that. Would have let you know,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure about your name and address. Jack kept most a his friends’ addresses in his head.

So.... yeah....

OK EDIT BECAUSE I MADE @larrysballetslippers VERY ANGERY because this didn't have a good ending so:

RAMBLE TIME

All that

does not mean the story of Brokeback Mountain and all its details mirror Harry's real life. IF any of this was on purpose even. He clearly loves and has referenced other movies too, like The Notebook and Papillon and those aren't copies of his life either. It just doesn't mean he's Jack in every way and Louis is exactly Ennis and the part where Ennis is showing resistance to their love must mean Louis is doing the same or whatever.

This post was just to show the parallels and you can draw whatever conclusion you want from that, but please just be aware Harry's not in control of every detail in this movie LOL and IF this song really just is a Brokeback Mountain fanpiece doesn't mean he's into exactly how this movie plays out because he's living the exact real life version in every single way. (I fear we're gonna run into these same thoughts once My Policeman is out, thaaat's gonna be fun)

If anything, this whole analysis came to be because the details in this song, in my view, do not fit Harry and Louis' descriptions of their love and dynamics and what they've been through in most of their other songs.

This analysis was larry-free and now look what you made me do @larrysballetslippers .... well. Although it did have a larry cowboy gif in the beginning asldkjaskldja AHHH WELLL

For more like this

This post has a drunk twin: a masterpost with all them Harry x Brokeback Mountain cOiNcIdEnCeS

my other song analyses

Brokeback Mountain short story

#brokeback mountain #ftdt #from the dining table #welikeparallels #smart things with lyrics #sorry bropals yeah ik its painful