#everywhere > new angel > aoas > cross your mind

[actualhumansunshine]

Have Niall's lyrics ever snuck on you? And you notice something in them that you didn't before? I wasn't the biggest New Angel fan but then I noticed he's singing "I'll give you what's left of me" and it hit hard. It's like the companion song to Arms of a Stranger except in the sexy initial moment. Yet with the same doomed sadness and AOAS is a story he's telling after the sensual escape is over. Empty escapes never work for him but he keeps going back before his SF/Still realizations. Clever!

RIGHT? i love that little parallel, especially because with the placement they feel ~different, even tho they’re clearly very similar? AOAS is focused on the main muse, still reeling from the heartbreak, hurt, broken, self-deprecating, trying to move on but failing miserably at every turn. NA is focused on the new person, recklessly determined to get the fuck over it but there’s also a sense of just, like, emotional exhaustion to it? he knows how bruised and broken and haunted he is at that point, he knows that all the things he’s BEEN doing to distract himself haven’t been working, and this ‘new angel’ is his last ditch effort to FINALLY get a little peace. but like you said, at the end of the day, it’s still an endless cycle of distraction before he actually has his realizations and confronts the thoughts and feelings he’s running from!

[love-ya-tommo-row]

Thoughts on Heartbreak Weather as one continuous narrative

Heartbreak Weather, Black and White, and Dear Patience are a perfect little three act play, open the album and set the tone wonderfully, and they are extremely relatable. Heartbreak Weather SOUNDS like the sky opening up and the clouds parting, and is a great I’M IN LOVE song. It and Black and White capture the intense madness of “love at first sight” perfectly- I am definitely the sort of person who meets someone new, clicks with them, and IMMEDIATELY feels like They’re The One and desperately wanting more and mentally imagining what it would be like to marry them and naming our imaginary babies. And then I have the Dear Patience moment where I have to tell myself to SLOW my roll, don’t be a lunatic, don’t come on too strong, and having to wait for them.

What’s interesting about HBW as a story album is that, immediately after the “love at first sight” songs and the “give them space don’t come on too strong” songs, we go DIRECTLY into jealousy and cheating. Niall has said that there’s not one narrator for the album, and some songs are different POVs of the same relationship, which opens up some interesting interpretations of these songs.

(Smol disclaimer: when I talk about “the narrator” I mean the artistic POV of the song not Niall the Real Person so in talking about the events and story of HBW I am not intending to treat the album as a Blind Item and am not implying anything specific about Niall the Real Person’s Real Relationships. So when I say there are cheating songs on the album or the narrator is a cheater, I just mean that’s the perspective the song is portraying and am not judging any Real People.)

ANYHOW! Bend the Rules has some of the strongest country influences on the album, and it’s a classic country cheating song. But while it’s deliberately ambiguous as to whether or not there’s actual infidelity happening, Small Talk is unambiguously about impulsively cheating via a hookup (“She’s not my baby”). So are they from the same perspective? The narrator feels jealous and hurt by their partner “bending the rules” and feels justified going out and getting caught up in the thrill of a new relationship? Or from two perspectives, one of the person who suspects their partner is cheating and the actual cheater?

Complicating this further is Nice To Meet Ya, which also contrasts perfectly with Small Talk. They’re both about hooking up and one night stand but while Small Talk is just straight up about skipping the pleasantries and getting straight to business, Nice To Meet Ya is all about the chat up, and trying to get a deeper connection with someone who’s only passing through (“Cause when the morning comes I know you won’t be there/every time I turn around you disappear”)

Another interesting choice is, that although this is a break up album, we don’t really get a straight forward break up song. Put A Little Love On Me and Arms of a Stranger again pair really nicely, and contrast with ST and NTMY well. It ST and NTMY are about going out, hitting the town, and hooking up, PALLOM and AOAS are morning after “when the heartbreak hits” songs. PALLOM imagines how sad and lonely the narrator’s partner must be after leaving and longing for their partner, having “so much love” to give them, while AOAS has been “left with nothing”, they “chase an old love just to feel love but it gave me nothing that was real”. This is again interesting to consider- is the same person singing both songs, or are their two perspectives? AOAS is also interesting because while most of the songs have been about meeting someone new, the partner AOAS sings to is “an old love”.

I feel like Everywhere and Cross Your Mind are DEFINITELY two perspectives of the same theme. Everywhere is about someone trying to get over an old serous relationship but being unable to, Cross Your Mind is about being in a long term relationship with someone who constantly cheats but always comes back and being unable to get over them.

New Angel is kind of interesting because it appears to basically be the same theme as Everywhere and AOAS, but Niall has explicitly said there’s a “deeper secret meaning” to this song and I haven’t a clue what it could be, haha. It is interesting that this song is literally about starting a new rebound relationship while No Judgment is about a well established relationship. Niall has said he imagined No Judgment to be about a couple who’s been together for so long they don’t care about impressing each other anymore, or about little children, but the lyrics sound very much like the perspective of CYM, if someone who has a partner who comes and goes and blows hot and cold but the narrator always takes them back and accepts the time they have together.

(There’s also interesting recurring imagery in this album about darkness and light, being hidden vs being exposed, “I never thought that I would find out we were just lovers in the dark” vs “Too many feelings in the light” vs “I was holding you close in the dark” vs “I’ll make you breakfast in the morning (have a real relationship) or you can slip out in the night (keep it a secret)” vs “Sun shining your the one I wanna wake up to (have a real relationship), lights fading, I’m changing, overthinking I don’t know what to do (backing off and keeping it a secret)”)

And that brings us finally to San Francisco and Still. They’re both about longing to have a relationship back- San Francisco about longing for the good ol’ days and wanting to make amends but mostly just drunkenly crying and pleading into an ex’s voicemail, while Still is about wanting your ex to want you back, wanting to have a relationship, but not knowing how to show you still love them. They are a great pair of songs, but while some songs I think are clearly opposing view points, I think this could be the same person at different emotional points- SF is the histrionic devastation, wailing that the relationship is over and never could’ve lasted, Still is slightly dissociated and lowkey, reassuring that “we’ll be alright.” I also feel like Still’s “a thousand miles away from the day that we started” pairs nicely with San Francisco’s amalgamating time and location.

Also Dress and Nothing have RIGHTS, I LOVE Dress. The fiddle!! I die for the Dress fiddle! Dress is about resigning yourself to getting over a relationship, while Nothing is almost about steeling yourself to fight for it, and Nothing PERFECTLY mirrors the imagery of HBW, which makes the album flow perfectly on repeats. Repeating imagery: “What moves me like a lightning bolt” vs “I swear it was lightning coming from your eyes”, “What sends my tears up in flames?” vs “Starting a fire in the hotel room”, “What do I really want in this stormy life?” vs “All of my life it’s been heartbreak weather”, I could go on. The point is Dress goes great with San Francisco and Still, as a conclusion to that longing- I want the happy days back but I have to give the love I took from you back, I have to close the book and put those reminders away and move on and stop pining, “even if I don’t want to”, and then Nothing perfectly tees up HBW and the cycle repeats- because I do think HBW as an album is fundamentally about being stuck repeating unhealthy relationship patterns, about the tension between old and new, fixing things vs a fresh start. It’s a great, GREAT album, and I love it!!!

[actualhumansunshine]

Verse 1 of Arms of a Stranger alone ended everything in New Angel, but then he goes "now I'm lookin' in the eyes of a stranger / just tryna get over you" and "I chase an old love just to feel loved / but it gave me nothin' that was real" so it was not even a fair competition hajshauah Dress could be on the album instead of New Angel, I'll stand by it, Alyssa. You're wrong! Hhshahs

you’re so absolutely wrong about this, and if listening to him sing “cause you move me when you’re moving” ALONE doesn’t shake you right to the core and make you love the song, there’s nothing i can do to help you, i’m sorry ghalskdjf

[actualhumansunshine]

I fell the same as rand with cross your mind and everywhere meaning wise. One thing I will say is I am so curious for tomorrow’s lyrics. Arms of a stranger and now we learned that he dreamt some of the lyrics so 🧐

RIGHT? and something i’ve now been thinking is…what if Everywhere and Cross Your Mind are meant to be complimentary, in that they tell two different sides of the story around the same time frame, while Everywhere and New Angel are meant to be contrasting, in that they’re two completely different situations from the same perspective, and using relatively similar imagery and themes to emphasis the differences. 

so maybe in Everywhere, he’s constantly thinking about an ex, haunted and hounded by the memories everywhere he goes, it’s awful and terrible and he wishes it would stop but it won’t. then in New Angel, he’s constantly thinking about a new romantic interest, completely wrapped up in them and wants to be around them all the time, it’s great and fun and he can’t get enough of it.