What was “A Picture Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak” Really About?
What was Zach Callison’s A Picture Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak really about?
Hey all you people out there! How are you surviving quarantine? I had a bunch of spare time, and so I decided to write an essay that focuses on Zach Callison’s album, A Picture Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak. The album has been out for a while, but most people either only know Interlude IV or are really confused about the story it tells. I think I’ve finally got an answer, and I wanted to share it with you all.
If you’re only here to better understand Interlude IV, you can skip down there if you want, but you’ll still be pretty confused. Besides, you should listen to the rest of the album. The whole thing bops.
Personal favorite song is Phantom Love, but I’m pretty sure no one cares about that.
Anyways, on to the show! One song at a time, in order.
WARNING: REALLY, REALLY LONG POST UNDER THE CUT!!
Phantom Love
Phantom Love sets up the whole story for us. Juanita is Zach’s old GF, who appears to only have dated him so she could get ideas for a music album she was writing. However, she had no ideas and/or is a masochist, and so wanted to get Zach to either break up with her, do something horrible to her, or just create drama in general she could write about. Whatever happens happens, and she is successful.
Juanita seems to be suffering from some form of depression, but whether that’s actually the case or she, again, just wanted something to write about is up for debate. But either way, it’s hinted at several times that she slit her wrists and other self-harm-inducing activities.
Many people follow her- she seems to be popular enough (which makes sense, due to the album being about two celebrities dating each other, just like Zach’s irl relationship). However, she has two different faces- her showbiz the-cameras-are-on face and her real face. Zach seems to have the same thing, as hinted at in She Don’t Know, but we’re not there yet. Point is, Juanita used Zach to try and get a tragedy out of the whole deal.
It was a phantom love- it never existed.
“Made me promise I would never break your heart
How was I to know that’s what you wanted from the start?”
Both people got into Hollywood from a young age and grew up with it, and so were surrounded by drama constantly. This takes a toll on Zach, but he tries to deal with it whereas Juanita actively wants to partake in it. She causes drama- little triggers to get him to snap- until one day, he does.
Interlude I - Frantically
This one is pretty straight-forward. After the two break up, it’s the perfect excuse for Juanita to start spreading rumors and stirring tension. She’s quick to make Zach out to be the bad guy, when in actuality, he was the one who was being loyal in their relationship.
We’re clued in that these rumors aren’t true from one line: “I heard he got fired from that cartoon he does. (Nooo wayyy…)” We, as the audience, know for a fact he didn’t, but things get shaky as we realize that some of them are also true.
“I heard he does coke now and, like, screams a lot.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
[laughter]
Zach overhears them talking about them and runs away, going off somewhere to be alone. Once he’s alone, we get the disturbing audio of him sniffing some drugs, implying that he actually does, indeed, do coke.
DISCLAIMER: Irl Zach Callison did NOT turn to drugs! It’s a metaphor for how many people he knows who have decided to do so, and so he;s aware of what it does to one’s mind. Don’t worry; Zach is okay in that department.
She Don't Know
After gaining the following knowledge, this song is easier to understand. Zach really did love Juanita, and he misses her, even though he knows at this point that she used and abused him.
“There ain’t no drug in all the world like loving you
Cocaine and cigarettes will have to do
Won’t somebody save me? My heart’s beating outta m’ chest
I just wanna hold you with those hands I once possessed.”
Juanita isn’t aware of the effect she had on him, and he laments this quite strongly (hence the title). Once she had her heartbreak, she ran off, leaving a broken lover behind.
Trigger warning: there are hints of suicidal thoughts in this song. They get more prominent as the album goes on, which becomes important later. This is where we really start seeing them, though.
“F***ed up on my bedroom floor
And my first thought’s ‘let’s do some more’
They say it all kills for thrills
And I hope it does!
Can you hear me, love?”
He speaks about “where did I go” later on, meaning that he is losing himself/doesn’t feel like himself. He still wants to be with her, and her absence has utterly destroyed him. He’s still in love with her, and wants her to know that. However, Juanita doesn’t give a bat of the eye in his direction, only caring that she now had the material she needed to write her album.
Interlude II - Christie Only Knows
Here, we are introduced to Zach’s make-believe sister, Christie. Only she is aware that he is going through this, and we find out quickly that she isn’t supportive.
“It’s getting late now, but to me, it’s just beginning
‘Cuz life’s tearing me to pieces and I know I’ve been defeated
Oh, no
And Christie only knows.
Never seen someone like this before
An eight-ball power on the floor
And I’m staring at the ceiling
Wondering if the reaper’s close
But Christie only knows
That there ain’t no drug in all the world like being you
\Glory on the silver screen just had to do
Won’t somebody save me? I am screaming out of breath
And my shadow, he’s holding a gun…
With those hands that I once possessed…”
This is the only time I’ll put all the lyrics in here, I swear. However, this one is important as it paves the way to Nightmare, bridging the gap between the two moods. She Don’t Know is angry, stressed, unsure, and frustrated, whereas Nightmare is just… depression. Interlude II is the middle ground, showing us that once Zach got all that off his chest, he feels… numb. He doesn’t know what to do.
Now, who exactly is Christie? I don’t think she really exists, in the context of the album, that is. I believe that Christie is someone he’s hallucinating, an embodiment of all his most negative thoughts, sugarcoated into something pretty and worth listening to. We’ll explore her character later on in Interlude IV - Showtime, but for now, what you need to know is that his suicidal thoughts are getting more and more intense now that she’s here.
A sister is someone who you’re bonded to, whether it be in blood, relationship, or cause. In this case, I think it’s more relationship. She is telling him to let go, to accept that things are this way and won’t get better. It’d be easier to end it. And Zach is listening to her. We know this because of the line “And my shadow, he’s holding a gun with those hands that I once possessed…” He is seriously thinking about it, and the fact that it’s his shadow shows that the thought is always in the back of his mind. The same thoughts that led him to love Juanita are now ready to kill him- those same, once-steady hands he used to hold her with. And he’s done. He’s holding on by a thread.
Nightmare
This song is told in the 3rd person as Zach really explains what he’s been going through each and every day that lead him to this fateful decision to end it. He is done. He’s decided it.
Every day, he cries. He hates himself, he hates looking at himself, he hates all of it.
“Prosecutor at his own trial,
The floor below him becomes so fertile
by his very own vile, Nile, and exile source
By the pitter-patter of his tears on the bathroom tile…
...you’re nothing more than your feelings
from your floors to your ceilings
and out the all-bloodshot ocular faucets…
Boy vs brain, white noise vs the sane,
always vs the same, cries for help exclaim
that he’s beyond repair. He’ll swear, he’ll despair, he’ll stare
straight ahead in the mirror at the source of his waking nightmare.”
There’s an instrumental break, during which he says “Are you writing this down, Christie? Yeah…” This shows that he’s lamenting to himself, as again, Christie doesn’t really exist. He’s venting to her, jotting down everything that’s wrong with him.
This tells me that he’s writing a note. He is telling someone where he’s going and why he did what he’s about to do. Remember, Christie is in Zach’s head, and so if she is writing this down, that means that Zach is writing this down. His worst, most negative thoughts are writing all this down, showing him that this was the right decision. This will end all his suffering, and whoever reads the note will understand and be happy for him. This was his solution.
“He’s standing on a bluff overlooking the city
The city’s biggest bluff is making itself look so pretty
He tells himself to be tough, isolated and gritty
But gritty’s kinda hard when his brain’s run by committee”
This is how he decides to die. Now with a gunshot like Interlude II hinted at. He is willing to jump for it.
Look at the album cover. Did he go for it? I don’t think so, but we’ll get to that.
The song concludes with him saying this:
“So who do I speak of and why is he grey?
He rejects all his love, see the prices he pays
To his vices he caves, in a crisis of fates
No tragic history, only a mystery
So I say to you, ‘who?’
Why don't’cha tell me?”
This is him confirming to us, the audience, that this is Zach’s character speaking about himself. He’s been hinting and clueing at us to this song all along, and now he is making sure that we know what’s going on in his head. He’s ready to end it.
His love for Juanita broke his heart so severely that it left him broken and bruised beyond repair. And if you can’t fix it, it’s time to throw it away.
So he heads back out to the bluff to jump.
Interlude III - Second Thoughts
He’s standing on a bluff overlooking the city. The bluff’s height is making itself not so pretty. Is this being tough? Or just being petty? But petty’s not likely, it’s a selfish, single entity…
Doe she really want to do this? Looking down, Zach thinks about what made him come here. The drugs? They’re messing him up. He’s aware of it, he’s been aware of it. Would jumping be giving in to their influence? Or Juanita’s?
“We put his record on until he’s bleeding on the needle
And he’s weeping in the street
Cut down on his curtain call
That’s where he’s gonna sleep.”
Standing on top of the bluff now, he looks down onto the road. He can see that there is where he could die, but he’s suddenly not so sure. The idea just slammed into him, reality slapping him in the face. “Do you really want to do this?”
“Take aim with these hands he once possessed
A dozen roses on the pavement laid the rest
Oh, my dear sister Christie, will I feel some remorse?
She says ‘no, pull the trigger, ‘cuz he’s left us no recourse.
His brain has a sickness, so kill it at the source.’”
He steps closer. He can see, in his mind, the image of his dead body lying on the road, forever resting. But, was that the right call? To just throw in the towel like that? So, in true metaphorical fashion, he turns and asks Christie. His inner demons. They’ve been straight with him before, right? And, of course, they say “yes, go for it.”
But Zach still isn’t sure.
I believe he backs off for now, leading the way to Curtain Call.
Curtain Call
This is where it really starts to get difficult when it comes to dissecting this album, and from here on out, I guarantee that I got things wrong. However, stay with me, because I’m open to and want to discuss what everyone else thinks it all could mean. I’m going to share my ideas, and if you have a better one, tell me and I can either agree or argue it with you. Point is, like English class (in high school), if you have the evidence to back it up, you’re not wrong. Let’s have a serious discussion about this.
On with the show! Now, it appears as though Zach is arguing with himself in this one, one wanting to show people that he’s hurt so he can get help- the side that wants to live- but on the other hand, his other half knows that there’s nothing they can do if he does. He’d just weigh them all down. Because all of him agrees that he’s useless and hopeless.
He sends up a prayer (I think Zach is Christian, so this makes sense), asking for, basically, karma of some kind. He’s done feeling this way, and wants it to stop. So he asks for “some price to pay,” hoping that there’s a solution, but knowing that the solution isn’t going to be handed to him on a silver platter. He’d need to work to get better, and this is him saying that he’s willing to do that. He WANTS to live, but he’s just not sure he can anymore. And that’s his main argument. Can he do this? Was it even worth it?
Obviously, with Zach being a famous actor (both irl and in the album), he has a double life. One is bringing joy to others, while the other is a constant internal struggle. The world is a stage, and at this point, Zach is basically admitting- through metaphors- that he has been acting. Pretending.
Consider this lyric, put there- side by side- very intentionally:
“I find that I’m anything but fine.
No, I’m okay. Oh please just look away!”
It’s all a mask. And it’s one he’s tired of wearing. Notice how tired he sounds when he sings those lines. He’s done. He’s been done.
“Bourbon to kill my pain
Curtains to hold my shame
No, they can’t look away
Cannot contain my rage…”
These lines are telling us that people around Zach have started to notice that he’s off, but he wants to believe that he’s okay, that he’ll be okay. So he continues his career (“curtains to hold my shame”), even though it’s hurting him to do so at that point. And people are starting to notice. And that’s making him frustrated. At himself. At them. He’s tired. Let him rest. He just wants to rest and forget. Bourbon, alcohol, kill the pain. Make it go away so they can’t see. But they already see. The mask is old and withering in decay.
Towards the end, Zach’s voice becomes more echoey and distant (discluding the Italian that I have no hope of understanding, which is why I’ve yet to mention it). This shows that he’s distancing himself, running away, if you will.
Running back to the bluff.
And this time, he jumps.
Interlude IV - Showtime
Okay, meme time. This is the one everyone knows. However, we are not going to be talking about a Connverse fight that honestly makes no sense given the limited context of the song (as cool as those animatics are). We will be talking about, however, Zach facing and challenging his inner demons. Christie does not exist. Why should she rule over his life?
Let’s break this one down, since this one is the hardest to fit into the story.
He jumps, but survives the fall. Maybe dazed, maybe broken. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe this song IS the dream. We can’t be sure. Everything is metaphorical in this one. Perhaps he didn’t jump at all. We can’t be sure.
Christie congratulates him. She tells him that he’s free. He did the right thing, and now it was just the two of them. They could do whatever they wanted without feeling so weighed down!
Zach disagrees, coming to a realization.
He jumped. Christie had said that it’d make everything okay again, that it’d be bliss. Well, he jumped, and it wasn’t. It was worse. He felt anger and fear, and this leads him to finally, for once, counter her.
“The world is ours!”
“No it isn’t.”
“Get in the car.”
“This isn’t finished.”
“...What?”
She’s shocked that Zach openly argues with her, and as their bickering goes on (which I’m sure a lot of you reading this can hear perfectly in your heads, so I won’t write the exact lyrics down), Zach gains more confidence. He accuses her of murdering him. “And they’ll all think that it was suicide, but Christie, I know that it was you inside.” Remember, she’s not real and therefore didn’t really “kill” him, but he blames her as he allowed her to control and manipulate him.
Christie is shocked, stating that everything she did, she did to comfort him. ”I saved him! I held him ‘til the moment he [Zach’s “innocence”] died!”) However, Zach realizes what she really is now, and decides that enough is enough. (“You choked him out of his goddamn mind! Promised the world to him, a goddamn lie!”) He knows what she is, and won’t let himself be manipulated by her again.
Now, the whole time, they’re talking about someone who is dead. Who is that someone? Zach. However, it’s all a metaphor. When Zach jumped, a part of him died. The last of his humanity? His sanity? I think his “innocence,” which I say in quotes because I’m sure there’s a better word for it out there somewhere. He’s done being blind to the truth, blindly following Christie around. The part of him that was naive enough to do that, to listen to her influence and complain about the world, is gone. He’s dead.
And that means Zach isn’t taking anymore s***.
C: “I won’t help you take [Juanita] down.”
Z: “Fine. I’LL DO IT BY MYSELF!”
C: “You don’t need it!”
Z: “Oh, I know that I need it.”
C: “She’s been gone for years, I know you can beat it!”
Z: “Oh, look in the mirror, you know we both fear her…
But you let me kill him, you’re WORSE than Juanita!”
Juanita herself never killed him. She never physically harmed him, not in any way that counts here. However, Christie did. She pushed and pushed him, taking a fragile boy and breaking him even more. Zach is now his own worst enemy, not Juanita, and this is him realizing it. But he doesn’t want to be his own enemy.
C: “I won’t help you take her down.”
Christie doesn’t want Zach to face her, because she knows that that would be him really facing his demons and starting down the path to healing. Juanita is Zach’s biggest obstacle, aside from himself. He has to face himself first, and that’s why this song is so powerful. Zach is taking a step back and realizing what he has to do, who he is, and why things are like this.
Z: “Oh, look in the mirror, you know we both fear her.
We’re one and the same, we’re afraid to be near her!”
There’s that mirror metaphor again, except that he’s not looking at himself with hatred; he’s looking at himself with understanding (and a side of hatred). He’s ready to face her. He’s ready to get everything to stop.
“1, 2, 3, 4
Is this what love is really for?
Is this all I get for being yours?
The kid in front of me in blood and gore?”
The kid is, again, Zach’s “innocence.” He understands, he’s ready to not only move on, but also confront her.
5, 6, 7, 8
Years left to waste for all I hate
They’ll all know Juanita’s fate!
Show’s about to start; don’t be late.”
He knows that it’s going to be a showdown, a big, epic throw down. And Christie isn’t coming with him. He’s leaving her behind. He’s leaving his demons behind, breaking free from them and moving on.
War!
The ultimate throw down begins!
“A wise man once said, ‘time is money’
So how much money did I lose to you, honey?
Find it kinda funny you wanna keep this feud runnin’
But I’m glad I’m on your mind, keep that canon fire coming, woah!”
This is 100% a diss track. Zach confronts Juanita in front of a lot of her friends (we hear multiple girls go “huh?” as they realize that Zach’s here and he’s ANGRY), and immediately starts in. No introductions, no “hey it’s nice to see you again”s, nothing. He’s here to make a statement, and he’s gonna do so.
He realizes Juanita for who she is now, and she has done so many horrible things to him. Spreading rumors and lies to ruin his life, after dating him just to get a story to write about. He’s sick of it and done. He calls her out, and it’s important that he does this in front of other people so they see what she’s really done. He’s hurt, he’s been hurt, and it’s because of Juanita, this amazing person a lot of people looked up to and liked (“I know, Juanita deserves so much more [Interlude I]”. “Step inside the life of the men weak enough to follow you [Phantom Love]).
Juanita also appears to be dating someone else by this time. This is really important, because now due to context clues we got from before, the only reason Juanita dates is to get a heartbreak out of it so she can have the motivation and drive to write her own album. That’s why she dated Zach. So, if she’s dating again, that means she either lost the motivation and drive again, or she never had it in the first place since it wasn’t a real love between them. She didn’t truly experience a heartbreak at all. This is further backed up by the claim that “we’ve been waiting on your album for ages, no traces, and baby, we’ve already run out of patience!” She’s only dating to get that experience again.
This means that, at least in Zach’s eyes, she hasn’t changed. “To your new boy, let he be warned: you’re her new toy for blood and gore! What, you didn’t know?” She is going to destroy him emotionally, and he’s going to go down the same path as Zach, ending in death- blood on the pavement. The gore part is to emphasize how horrific the whole ordeal was.
“Sit down with me and sign this armistice
Get your big proboscis outta my s***, miss”
A proboscis is the butterfly equivalent of a tongue. They use it for sucking nectar out of flowers. So, what he’s saying here is that they need to settle this between them (“sign this armistice”), and that she needs to mind her own business. By her talking about Zach like that, she ruined his life and he’s sick of it. She literally sucked the joy out of him like nectar.
“Welcome to the new me!
Paint your nails black and unscrew me
But that’s okay, Juanita
Know my business is booming”
His business is a reference to his own album, the very one you’re listening to. His music career took off now because of her and the fact that she broke his heart, not the other way around. Juanita can never understand that because she “only loves to be broken [Phantom Love].”
“That’s alright, that’s okay!
You barely wrote them anyway
Half your songs got thrown away
Like ballets on voting day
All my ballads had more to say
Like a bullet through a motorcade”
In a twist, Zach got the story Juanita had wanted. He experienced a heartbreak, while she never really did. So he writes an album instead of her. It’s a cool kind of karma that Zach- or, at least, his character- can’t resist.
The whole song ends with him forcing her/her friends to sing along with him, repeating her name, then yelling. She screams, and it cuts out.
I think he’s lost his sanity (or again, his “innocence”) here. He gets carried away, and either attacks her or makes like he’s about to. I think he makes like he’s about to, but stops. This is the final song; if Zach killed her, there would more than likely be another song depicting the consequences and an Interlude V to show the aftermath of the incident. But because he stopped himself, he’s satisfied. Juanita learned her lesson, Zach got everything off his chest, and the people around them know the truth.
That’s all he’s wanted for longer than we can possibly know.
Final Observations
Zach Callison has gone on record to say that “Juanita” has finally published an album of her own, but that happened months later. I don’t have any specific dates for anything, though. No one knows who the real-life “Juanita” is, which in my opinion, is noble of Zach. He had a lot of anger to get out, but unlike her, he wasn’t going to ruin her life to try and get something out there. He can make a statement without ruining someone else along the way.
With that knowledge, let us all stand and clap for this man.
Not only is the album just a really good listen, but each song tells a cohesive story. The tones each song sets, as well as the far under-appreciated interludes (or over-appreciated in terms of Showtime), really shows how his emotional state changes. Phantom Love is a lament, She Don’t Know is a classic “I’m sad bc my gf broke up with me :(“ which is how Zach perceives that incident at that point in time, whereas Nightmare is him falling into depression stronger than anything he’s ever felt before. Curtain Call is him arguing with himself about whether or not he should even live anymore, and it all comes back around with the upbeat, heavy-rock literal song of War!. The interludes take the tone of the next song and combine it with the lyrics of the previous to show that smooth transition between emotions as he grapples with his mental state, the only exception really being Interlude I, as it has an overall bouncy tone to it.
Zach not only made every single song enjoyable, but also unique and heartfelt. Just listen to how his voice shakes during Christie Only Knows. He is genuinely upset and lost, and because of this, he’s better able to convey the HUGE emotion dump that was his album.
Do I recommend it? Yes. I think there’s something in there for everyone, even if you only enjoy one of the songs. However, doing a review is going to be an entire post in and of itself.
Thanks for reading, guys. Now go listen to the album and tell me your thoughts. Does my explanation make sense? Do you have a better idea? Let me know. I want to have a real discussion about it with other people who have listened to the whole thing, not just Interlude IV.
If you haven’t listened to it yet, it’s on YouTube and ITunes. Do yourself a favor and check it out. The whole thing is ~45 minutes long.
Have a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n1rA_1uUBtxoATot0ixiTgvdEHhj3lAn4
