#bty teaser

Thesew are the ones I remember off the top of my head. If anyone can think of others, feel free to add on.

Back To You Teaser

Don't Let It Break Your Heart

Silver Tongues

Plus, Louis’ fandom was so much bigger during BTY that it really galvanized everyone. This window of opportunity was allowed to expire. He did more interviews for BTY than for the whole lead-up to Walls. He even got on BBC Radio and Capital FM!

Let’s revisit the genius of the BTY teaser.

Billie Jean and Michael Jackson, enemy of Sony Music, ✔️

Ibiza, Amsterdam, and the stops on LT Tour 2018, ✔️

SPECTRUM and LEGALGRIND, ✔️

Coincidence? Maybe there are some Easter eggs on billboards as well?

LBG airport. (when LAX is the bigger international airport in the city)

We’re back in Doncaster— Robin Hood Airport, robbing kings to give to commoners

But baby doesn’t drive himself. No.

Coming 'Back To You' Teaser (shot in LA 25.06.17) / fan pic at W 3rd St., LA (posted 14.07.18)

I made a reply but mobile Tumblr ate it… I’m sorry.

I think Louis knew that he couldn’t publicly acknowledge that BTY was from personal experience– and maybe even suspected that he would have to say so during promo.

He compensated by using the BTY teaser to outline his reality, and also to mention that his album was honest.

I realized, while listening today, how BTY was an inverse of Just Hold On. Where the promised reunion in JHO was reassuring and consoling (“You can be who you were, or who you’ll become”), in BTY, reunion is not healthy. It’s poisonous, disorienting, and almost done against one’s will. It’s Stockholm Syndrome– without the warm overtones. “You got me cornered and my hands are tied.”

The singer has lost a sense of who he is– “I don’t even know myself, I don’t own the way I feel.” He’s in pain. He’s forced to play wicked games. The laughter is not joyful but numbing. The "someone else" isn't a romantic partner but a business partner.

I know you say you know me, know me well

But these days I don’t even know myself, no

I always thought I’d be with someone else

I thought I would own the way I felt, yeah

I call you but you never even answer

I tell myself I’m done with wicked games

But then I get so numb with all the laughter

That I forget about the pain

He keeps getting pulled back into situations that are stressful and emotionally damaging. His reputation gets dragged (“you drag me down,” perhaps a reference to MITAM), he can’t stop it (“I don’t know how to make it stop,” “I can’t take it”) but he keeps going back– signing with Syco, working with JGG/ SJPR/ being interviewed by Wootton.

Whoa, you stress me out, you kill me

You drag me down, you fuck me up

We’re on the ground, we’re screaming

I don’t know how to make it stop

I love it, I hate it

And I can’t take it

But I keep on coming back to you

And I guess you’ll never know

All the bullshit that you put me through

And I guess you never know, no

Yeah, so you can cut me up and kiss me harder

You can be the pill to ease the pain

Compare these lyrics from Zayn’s lUcOzAdE:

Seeing the pain side in this house of fear

Time heals pain and promotes self-soothing

I’m getting caught up in the feelings that they bring

A lack of sanity, losing touch with reality

I’m tryna fucking scream but the words won’t come out.

I see lUcOzAdE as a metaphor for things they do to mask the pain– literal things, like pills and sugary drinks– as well as metaphoric things, like songs and albums.