still together, still going strong (despite the closet)
‼️ this is just my opinion; everyone interprets music however they want. you don’t have to agree
today i reblogged a post about the waiting game being about being in the closet and i wanna talk more about it!
im not trying to affirm this, but for a while now, specifically since the walls-fine line era, i think harry wants to come out of the closet, but louis doesn’t (technically, i think he has much more mixed feelings about it than harry). that doesn’t mean at all that louis isn’t proud (he is, in fact, he shows it all the time) or that he doesn’t want us to know they’re still together (he shows that all the time too lol), but i think he “doesn’t” want to publicly come out and harry does.
there’s absolutely nothing wrong with either stance, i think both are totally understandable and none of us can say for sure what we would do or how we would feel in that situation. i think louis has more than valid reasons for believing it’s a bad idea, and his situation is more complex than harry’s. let’s be honest, he has a babygate, a history of long-term “girlfriends’ and not just pure stunts and the general public isn’t as convinced that he's LGBTQ as they are with harry (yes, it’s true that there are a lot of people in denial about harry ik, but come on, we all know a lot of them believe he’s at least bi).
it began with the contrast between golden and lights up with walls and defenceless for me (i think those four songs are about themselves, their fame and their relationship).
“he’s golden” “im hoping someday im open. i know that you’re scared because im still hoping” “i know you’re scared because im so open” “im hoping someday you’ll open” and everything lights up (and the context in which it was released) it really contrasts with:
“and im too tired to be tough, just wanna be loved by you” i don’t care about being open with everyone anymore, i don’t want to be strong and put up with what that involves, i just want to love you and be loved by you. nothing else.
time passes, and we get to the harry’s house-fitf era. we met keep driving, satellite, face the music and ooms. (this is when i think louis starts to have more mixed feelings, when he really starts to wonder “what if..”)
“we share the last line then we drink the wall till you wanna talk” “spinning out waiting for ya to pull me in”
“a small concern with how the engine sounds” “i would ask, should we just keep driving?” we’re moving forward, yes, but im concerned about how we’re going. i hear the problem. should we just keep going as if nothing is wrong, or do we stop and look at the problem? how long are we going to pretend we don’t hear it?
then, on the one hand, we have face the music, which, like defenceless, emphasises “i want to be with you, but i don’t want to face this situation”.
parallels between golden and face the music
but out of my system, alive’s older sister, recognises that weight in him. i decide not to do anything, but it weighs on me. i know i have to resolve it one way or another. the situation is complex. i don’t want to do anything, i don’t even want to think about it. but im not blind, i see it affects me and my relationship.
we continue moving forward in time and arrive at hdigh-kissco era.
we are now at a point where louis recognises that the situation is more about him feigning insanity than the problem itself. it’s something inside his mind, fear, uncertainty. i’s not a question of “how do i face it?”, but rather “do i really want to face it?” that is why i think it’s a mixed feeling: at times i would like to, should i? if i don’t want to face it, why go through it? and i really think that’s totally valid.
i don’t want to hear anyone say that it’s wrong for louis not to want to come out or that he’s “bad for not making that effort for harry”.
no LGBTQ person should have to come out to anyone, and it’s a reality that consumes a lot of you, brings a lot of changes. and changes require time and energy (*cough habit cough*). sometimes you’re so tired of everything that’s happening to you (im speaking for myself here) that you say, “do i have to go through this right now? i know it’s a problem, but can’t it wait?” fighting it is exhausting.
harry insists, let the light in. lights up. it’s better to find out if it’s going to be as bad as you think. it’s uncertain, but we’ll be able to see the positive side. we like to dance, don’t we? let’s dance like it’s a dance floor even if everything goes wrong.
(and don’t get me started on face the music vs dance no more).
this seems like a quote. its something louis says in his songs. harry always continues with “we belong together” after this. can we say that he’s quoting him?
all those things you said to me when you had “lost your taste” and now you apologise. you played tough (“lonely in paris” = separated from love) but you need love. my love. you know you call me “baby” and I already tell you i forgive you, but... this didn’t happen before, we used to fight more. you’re settling down, handling it more.
and while we’re at it, i think that the “phone” in both of their discographies is the allegory they use to refer to arguments about issues that make them feel distant (that’s why the telephone, because it’s talking from a distance, not that they are literally separated and calling each other).
like this. morning calls = morning fights (i ain’t even woken up yet not nearly vertical🎶)
now, finally, back to the waiting game.
i think he’s talking about closeting. over the last few years, harry has been doing stunts that are too obvious, he doesn’t mention them or interact with them like he did when he was in 1D (they’re literally more pap walks than anything else, he hardly even mentions them in interviews). and it’s always during the periods when he writes albums and releases them. and although holivia was a shit show etc etc we can’t deny that if you’re not actively in the fandom, the stunts don’t really have much impact other than in promotion and narrative for the general public. i think harry does it because he’s tired of it, he’s tired of being the “ladies’ man” and he has every right to be exhausted (american girls? hellooooo)
louis is in a different situation. he does stunts for promotional purposes, yes, but his stunts are still much more of a beards than harry’s ever were. he always had beards until he broke up with eleanor for the second time. that’s when his *proper* stunts began (yeah the party boy era, yeah, but if you ask me, that era and the babygate worked more as a beard than as a stunt if we look at it from a distance). basically, he puts more effort into pretending to be heterosexual, at least more than harry. and again, this is not about “who is right or wrong”, it’s an observation.
in this “meanwhile”, in this seemingly endless wait, you play the “waiting game”. you keep pretending, you keep doing everything we do to wait. but it all adds up to nothing. emotionally dry years go by. you try to redo your “design” but it all adds up to nothing.
we move forward in the album and we come across her, yes, coming up roses 🌹✨
harry recognizes that he is putting pressure on something that he knows doesn’t need it. i was judging the whole journey, im sorry. i love you, i don’t need you to do this for me. you don’t have to decide between being with me and coming out or not being with me. i don’t want to see you cry about it anymore.
i always say they aren’t in a queer relationship like we would be/are, they are in a queer relationship in the public eye, under scrutiny. and i honestly believe that many people don’t give fame the weight it has in their songs. in a context where they are not A+ celebrities, we could perhaps interpret this as them having a thousand relationship problems and coming and going all the time. but knowing it? i think it’s clear that they’re still together and always have been. every album since midnight memories has songs about being in a long-term relationship. “one proper relationship”
fame brings a thousand things that none of us will ever be able to fully understand. i don’t believe that all the supposedly acclaimed “break-up songs” are about break-ups.
“somebody’s got your trainers on the ones that you wore when you walked out the door” i have your fucking trainers. i wear your clothes all the time. “you walked out the door” you disconnected from the situation, you ignore me, “you’re giving me the silent treatment, don’t know what it's achieving”, but at the end of the day, i put myself in your shoes because we share them we’re both in the same boat.
“i saw your friend that you know from work he said you feel just fine i see you gave him my old t-shirt more of what was once mine i see it’s written, it’s all over his face” its me speaking in the third person about myself because i make a distinction between myself and the voices in my mind. “oh can you hear the voice? the one inside your head” im that friend you met at work. you gave me back my t-shirt, which reminds me of what we used to share: first album post-1D, the “we have learn how to go though this publicly separated” time. (space to clarify that i think they use clothes as a material symbol representing shared history and the passage of time). i know you can tell what im thinking even though im giving you the silent treatment because i feel like i don’t recognise you lately. i wake up and see your face and you’re becoming a stranger. “my phone misses your calls btw” at least fight with me so we can talk. we can’t keep ignoring the problem. comfortable silence is so overrated. eventually, we have to discuss this.
it’s a circle, or at least that’s how it seems for now. at Manchester ONO, harry played ftdt, which is the beginning of how they ended up on coming up roses, the only song with harry being the only writer in his entire discography.
anywayyy they never broke up <3
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