I was just listening to the radio and Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" came on, and the lyrics suddenly sounded like nothing but Luis's feelings, and I thought "wait. what if Luis was hearing this in the back of a Town Car on the way home from the Arizona 206 Christmas party — drifting out of the driver's radio?? wouldn't that be SO emo??" — so I tried to build a before the confession → the confession → heartbreak flow using only hit songs Luis could plausibly have heard within the movie's timeline.
"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a 1967 song. By the mid-80s it's a complete oldie, drifting out of car radios and restaurant speakers like air. So "it just happens to drift out of the radio in the back of a Town Car on the way home from the Arizona 206 Christmas party" is totally plausible. I mostly collected songs in that vein — ones Luis could happen to overhear. I'm not big on music, so corrections very welcome.
On the timeline: the Reagan Iran-Contra speech at the end of the movie was early 1987. Working backwards, the Yale Club confession is probably just before that — late 1986. So I've placed the pre-confession scenes in autumn–winter 1986.
This is 100% my own delusion, so please, forgive me. truly.
1. Can't Take My Eyes Off You — Frankie Valli
An old song he'd normally just let pass — but the moment the part about not being able to take his eyes off you hits, he remembers Patrick, who he'd been watching from a far table earlier, and I bet he takes it like a sign from fate.
An instrumental muzak version playing in the Pierce & Pierce elevator (or maybe the lobby). The lyric drifts back to him in his head — the part where the song asks if the one you're searching for could be him — and he ends up thinking about Patrick, who never once met his eyes in the boardroom. ...Luis. go back to work.
3. Take My Breath Away — Berlin
Playing over the speakers at a casual business dinner. Right when the part about your breath being taken away plays, Patrick happens to tilt his glass, and I think Luis really does forget to breathe for a second.
4. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now — Starship
After That scene at the Yale Club. The new year has come, and the TV is left on, playing Casey Kasem's America's Top 10. A song that's been climbing fast for the past few weeks, this week finally close to hitting #1 — the one that says nothing can stop them now. Luis takes it like a declaration prepared just for the two of them. I can SO see him by the phone, all giddy, waiting for Patrick to call. (the call never came, though.)
5. Greatest Love of All — Whitney Houston
On the plane to Arizona, Luis listens to "Greatest Love of All," the one Patrick raved about. But this song, if you really listen, is about how loving yourself is the greatest love of all. Patrick himself praised it as one of the strongest pieces ever made about self-preservation and dignity — meaning what he called "the greatest love" was, of all things, love for himself.
And in that plane moving away from NY, Luis is hearing it as a love song.
727 or 757, first class, window seat, the provided headphones on the music channel, Luis moving away from NY, listening to his beloved's favorite song without noticing what it means (or — noticing it) and crying.
I went looking for a heartbreak song, but every 80s hit is a "we dated and then broke up" song, and none of them fit a love like Luis's — never once looked back at. So I decided to let him hear Patrick's favorite song instead. I think that's what would cut him the deepest. I want to see crying Luis (second time saying this).
