Conan Gray keeps writing songs about closure he doesn't have permission to perform.
What is Conan Gray's music about?
These seventeen songs are all variations on the same trap: wanting someone who's already gone, but refusing to admit you're still waiting. Gray writes about exes who've moved to London, summer hookups who pretended not to know him, relationships that ended before they started. The precision is almost clinical. He catalogs stolen T-shirts and specific date ranges and the exact shade of someone's eyes turning green from crying. But all that detail is a distraction from the fact that he's never actually talking to any of these people. He's talking to himself about them, perfecting the monologue for an audience that already left.
What themes does Conan Gray write about?
He needs proof they're suffering too — 'The Best' makes this explicit: 'I wanna watch you while the words come out your mouth / That you don't miss me like I know you miss me now.' Peace requires an audience. Gray can't move on until the other person shows up and confirms they're also miserable. 'Care' does the same thing from a different angle, claiming victory over not crying anymore until the bridge admits the real test is seeing them happy with someone else. The closure was fake the whole time.
Being erased from someone's story — Several of these songs are about the specific horror of having someone pretend you never existed. Gray catalogs hidden hotel lobbies and borrowed sweatshirts in 'Actor,' then lands on the gut-punch: a mutual friend asks the ex about Conan and he says he barely even knows him. Gray isn't just heartbroken. He's been asked to lie about his own life. 'Romeo' does something similar, obsessing over cigarette breath and actor friends while the outro reveals he's back in the ex's hometown, still circling the scene of the crime.
Safety feels like a trap — This is Fiona Apple logic, the kind of writing where being treated well becomes more terrifying than being hurt. The partner is scary specifically because they're good. Gray has built his entire identity around expecting betrayal, so kindness reads like a delayed punishment. 'Nauseous' is about someone who's trained themselves to only feel comfortable when pain is guaranteed: 'maybe that's why I feel safe with bad guys / Because when they hurt me, I won't be surprised.'
Magical thinking as permission to obsess — Horoscopes, shooting stars, the number eleven twice. Gray dresses up his refusal to move on as belief in fate, which gives him permission to keep waiting without admitting that's a choice. 'Eleven Eleven' does this while simultaneously undercutting itself: 'Heard you're seeing some girl in New York / So, what am I reading horoscopes for?' He knows the universe isn't delivering anyone back. The magical thinking is just a way to avoid owning his own stuckness.
He repackages obsession as generosity — What's missing from 'Moths' is any acknowledgment that leaving the light on isn't kindness. Gray says he won't beg three separate times while doing exactly that. Leaving the light on for moths, watching secrets follow someone home, offering friendship that's actually surveillance. He's convinced himself that monitoring someone from a distance is noble, that not asking for what he wants is the same as not wanting it. The parenthetical aside about missing someone forever while making them every song gives away the whole game.
What makes Conan Gray's writing unique?
The most honest moment across all seventeen songs might be in 'Caramel,' where Gray admits 'It was love at the worst / It was what we deserved.' Not what he deserved. What they both deserved. He's finally admitting he's not just a victim of other people's choices. He stayed in situations that hurt him because some part of him believed that's what love looked like. The songs are beautifully constructed, but the construction is the problem. He's so good at narrating his own pain that he never has to actually feel it, just perform it for himself in a mirror until the performance becomes the only thing that's real.