Hardstyle 2 - Fred again..
Yesterday on Max Fewtrells stream, Lando recommended the song Hardstyle 2 by Fred again.. I am here to look through the lyrics and how they relate to Lando. This is totally unnecessary but as soon as I saw the lyrics I just knew I had to write this post.
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"Tough love, you're not workin' hard enough". Thats one of the main lyrics through the entire song. Lando has constantly through his career been told he's not doing enough. Comments saying he shouldn't go on vacation, he should use that time to train and work out. Lando has talked about this on podcasts, how people assume he's not working hard just because he doesn't post about that on social media. This has become a narrative again this season because people assume he's not smart enough to participate in a productive manner in team meetings, or to read race data. The people saying this don't actually having any reports to back this up, and seem to not take into account Lando having done this in formula one for seven years. So him not working hard enough has been an ongoing narrative, and people that say it could easily pass that off as "tough love".
"Watch my credits roll - This shit reminds me it's for my eyes only, my life only". Lando has talked about wishing people knew what it was like to drive an F1 car before. He talked about this in his quadrant podcast episode, mentioning that it feels a lot faster and a lot more dangerous from inside the car than outside it. In the same podcast he also talked about how the feeling he gets when he sees and hears his fans at a race, supporting him, wanting him to win, is a feeling only a few people in the world will ever get to experience. This lyrics could be interpreted as Lando looking back at highlights of his career, remembering how special this is. How he is one of he only ones that will ever experience the things he has, and actually letting that sink in.
"I swear I heard applause when I hit the floor". This line could be interpreted in different ways. The first one is people cheering for his failure and misfortune. People have wished a lot of horrible things on Lando, especially this season and last season. They have wished him to crash, to get hurt, even to die. This could be about formula one watchers disliking him so much they will applaud when he's at his lowest. It could also be interpreted as Lando working so hard he hits the floor, all in the chase of the applause. He works so hard to reach it, that when he's exhausted, on the floor panting, it feels so real that he can almost hear it.
"Tryna take another breath - Tryna take another breath - Tryna take another breath". At first, i didn't have anything to say about this lyric. But then I realised that the repetition of it, about trying to take a breath but not actually breathing, could represent anxiety. This is something Lando has been open about experiencing himself.
"Back up, back up, back up on the wall". You could look at this line literally, as in hitting the wall while racing. Think of Jeddah 25 for example, how he called himself a "fucking idiot" after hitting the wall in qualifying, ending up with him in P10. The repeating of "back up" could mean how he's overthinking the situations, or how he keeps getting back up despite the mistakes.
"Found enough not to forget". When I first saw this lyrics I immediately thought about the waves of hate. That he's seen enough of the hate that he'll never forget it. On the other hand, it could also be about success. Lando has found enough success in his career that he can't forget it, and neither can the sport. No matter what the media or formula one watchers say, he has found success.
"You can smell it on my breath - You can see it on my chest" This lyric just has to make you think of champagne, right? After a podium, drenched in champagne. You can visually tell he did a good job, you can smell it on him, because of the champagne sprayed on him and drunk on the podium.
"Got to be hard style, my style, hostile". To me, this lyrics suits Lando very well. People have talked a lot about Lando's mentality, about how he's too nice to be a world champion, about how he should act. That can be considered the hard style. Then we got his style. The way he chooses to do it. To fight for what he dreams of while still remaining himself. Hostile can refer to the hostility people have shown him for doing just that, for choosing to do this his way.
"I've run my life in miles - That's a lot, that's a lot, maybe not". Of course we need a straight comparison to racing. It's Lando's life, it's what he's been doing as long as he can remember. He's always been racing. You could think that's a lot, but maybe it isn't. Maybe there's so much more to come.