I like it when stuff like this happens, because I don't plan or even really try for it. But I knew what this meant to me the first time I heard it. So without further adieu, Low by Coldplay is another song for WL's soundtrack.

I'll explain in detail why this song is perfect. (I totally imagine a music video of all these scene cuts in my head. XD)


You see the world in black and white
No color or light

This goes for about the first third of the story, when he's still in pre-Spiraling Summit mode. He's drifted further and further away from caring about or admiring his environment. Everything is stagnant and sometimes scary. It also reminds me of Chapter 1 as he's riding his bike in a mainly black and white neighborhood. Although there's faint blue and green in the grass...sort of artificial looking.

You think you'll never get it right
But you know... you might

Dorian tends to think that he'll fuck up anything he puts his hands on. He feels like a stupid failure thanks to years and years of conditioning, and almost purposefully underachieves. But when you get to know him, the way I know him and Kurt gets to, you see how much potential he has, and he may think he never gets a thing right despite his talent because perfection is the only way to convince him otherwise. Well that's just not possible.

The sky could fall, could fall on me
They parting of the seas

This mainly just reminds me of his paranoia, and the idea of the sky falling is sort of a childish proposition. It also makes me think of him finally pulling down his umbrella to see that it's not raining, in Chapter 9.

But you mean more, mean more to me
Than any color I could see

This is ambiguously directed at either Kurt or Emma. I know most people might think Emma hasn't done anything to deserve any of Dorian's attention, but I'll be getting to their relationship later and people will see why he forms an attachment.

Edit: Perhaps the way he said it made me hear Dorian, but I was thinking about much of these lyrics ending up being in Kurt's POV, and I rethought the line. It could mean just as much that while Dorian's world is black & white, and Kurt's isn't, all of the things that he has like his friends, the ability to "do things right" and so forth... hardly means anything in comparison to caring about someone that needs his help. :3

All you ever wanted was love
But you never looked hard enough
it's never gonna give itself up

At one point or another, Dorian makes no effort what so ever to form relationships with anyone. He kind of just accepts that he "fails at life" , without realizing that the tiny unsatisfactory bit of faith he puts in people that sincerely want to help is offensive. "You don't notice when someone cares, you just assume they don't." -Kurt

All you ever wanted to be
Living in perfect symmetry
Nothing is as down or as up... as us

I think of "living in perfect symmetry" as Dorian's ideal that everything will go right and he'll never screw up anymore. (Even though it's really not him screwing up, it's everyone else being an asshole.) It would be him exceeding as a magician and finding real friends, in a way, being exactly like Kurt and "never having any problems". But again, this prospect is only dreamland in his opinion.

You see the world in black and white
Not painted right

"Not painted right" meaning his perceptions are totally off, not even having to do with schizophrenia. His ideas about who he is, what other people are like, and how anything works just seem absurd to people like Kurt. His actual delusions work, too, but I try not to blame everything about him on an illness. He still has his own personality for God's sake.

You see no meaning to your life
You should try
You should try

I think this is pretty self explanatory, but I guess I'll elaborate. I most hear Kurt in this, mainly because the song in general seems like something a friend would say to someone lost.


*Chorus*

Don't you want to see it come soon
Floating in a big white balloon
On given on your own silver spoon

Don't you want to see it come down
There for throwing your arms around
and say "you're not a moment too soon"

This is sort of like asking Dorian 'don't you want to be happy?' and how if he keeps up his attitude, then rewards will keep hiding themselves from him. It's sort of fluffy and optimistic, and again, it's portraying an ideal that Dorian already gave up, but sometimes even friends don't know how to word it to provide motivation.

I also think of him reconciling with his parents, even if it's incredibly ambitious. Also, working out of the slump, having a real job and life, not letting anything pull him into the ground.

Cause I feel low~

I found it very significant that the song just ends with "I feel low" over and over again, almost like all of the previous statements were for nothing, and he dwindles down in his own depression and pulls along anyone who was even providing the pep-talk. The song and the story's structure ends up being very similar.

And there, I conclude.